Well, that sucked.

I am so bad at poker, I can't even begin to describe it -- I went from 20k to 14k, when I had AK back to back and lost both times, back to 21k after I flopped a set of 6s against an obvious AK, on a K high flop, but I misplayed it so bad I didn't stack the guy and allowed him to get away from his hand. Shortly thereafter, I raised on the button to 900 with blinds of 100/200 after 3 people limped, included a player two to my right, also in late position. The flop was AAJ, now he checks, I now bet 1200, he makes it 2500 and I make it 7000 total, knowing that if he had any ace or JJ he would have raised coming in. Now he tanks for 2 minutes and announces all in, I fold leaving myself with 12k (still more than enough), I guess this is what happens when you assume that players will behave how you expect with certain hands, I can't believe he limped with AT in that spot, anyway. I could never really rebuild from there, I wasn't patient enough and kept going after people with hands like 7c8c and always missing, last hand was when I had about 2.1k total with blinds at 200/400 and two people limp into my bb, I look down at 88 and push, the first limper folds (horrible fold for a tiny raise) and my nemesis, the guy with AT calls with JsQs, the board is K34T9, this guy could not miss, he also took some more chips of me on a K high flop, I had K7, he had K9 and made kings up on the turn. I played pretty horribly too, so the combination of running bad didn't help. I plan to take a nice long break from poker. :( Thanks for reading..

Night before Day 1

So I'm playing in Day 1b tomorrow and feeling a little bit apprehensive, with the WSOP this year being pretty disappointing I'm not feeling confident at all. Fellow Australian poker player Johnny Vincent took a crushing bad beat with AA vs 88 all in pre, which crippled him, he then picked up KK the very next hand and ran into AA. sick. I feel like I want to get to at lest 60k in chips by the end of the day (triple up), but will just have to see what I can do at the table I draw. Off to bed now, sleeping might be tough..

2nd Trip

Played another massive field saturday NLHE event, things started off amazing -- I had turned
my $3000 in start chips into about $12k before the first break with some good play and also
from some massive mistakes by other players. Three hands of note, first break with AK utg, I decided to just limp and see what happens, I'm happy to dump the hand unless things go well, now the button raises everyone folds to me, I call. Flop comes JTx, I checked dark before the flop, now the button checks. Turn is gin, Q. I lead out, button calls. River blank, I bet 1500 into a 2600 pot, now the button tanks and starts whining about a setup or something, so instead of folding or calling, he raises all in! I call with the nuts, he shows JJ and storms off, oblivious to the infinite odds he gave me on the flop. Soon after, I make a small raise in early position with 5s6s, the button, a new guy who just moved to the table in place of the JJ guy, raises. I make a loose call preflop to see what happens, hoping he just has AK or something. Flop is gin, 34T with two spades -- I check, he bets around 1200, with 3700 or so behind, I raise him all in and he tanks for a few minutes before calling with AQo, which i was a little shocked at, but credit to him for going with his read that I was drawing, albeit still a favourite. The turn blanked and I hit a spade on the river, ding! Things started to go south after the break as I became increasingly tired, I made a very poor decision to stay up late the night before and only got about 1 hour sleep before
having to fly to vegas then slept for another hour on the plane, I was getting delirious at the table from lack of sleep. I just continued to lose a series of small pots, (AT vs 22 short stack) one significant one where I had AhKh in the BB after utg raised and utg+1 reraised, I just called and flop brought two hearts. I felt strongly that utg+2 had aces so I was hoping to bust him, flop was checked and turn brought straight outs for me (I thought) with another low card, aces then bets a tiny amount on the turn which me and utg both call. river blanks and I leak 3k or so on the hand, utg had 66 and straight card would have busted me. I eventually push with QJo vs the blinds and K9 calls me and scoops, I will never play an important tournament that tired again. Fingers crossed for the main event, hopefully the deeper stacks will suit me better.

Rest of Trip 1.

Not much to report, ran bad, played bad -- no results in any tournaments, am glad to be back at work to be honest. I feel my biggest mistakes were not adjusting to the short starting stack and the tendencies of the other players in these huge fields, a loss of one decent pot essentially cripples you and you have to play all in or fold poker, which I proceeded to do in a few tournaments. I ran
TT into JJ (hit a T to survive for a while but ultimately went bust), then JJ into KK, actually I rivered a J but it made him a straight. Heading back this weekend for another crack at the Saturday NLHE event. I'm really only looking forward to the main event, then taking a long break from poker thereafter.

Day 1 - PLO Event

Whoops! I was out in 40 minutes, the key hand was when I was UTG with 7c8c8h9h, a very nice omaha hand and decided to just limp and keep the pot small. The flop was an amazing
Ts2d8s, I flopped a set and an open-ended straight draw. Since there were 6 players or so,
I decided to check feeling that it was likely someone would take a stab, with the intention of
check-raising, probably committing myself. I didn't want to lead out get smooth called and have a tough decision on the turn, by keeping the pot small even if nobody bets and a spade comes on the turn say I can probably call another bet to try to fill up on the river. Anyway, the turn is a very nice 3h, a blank, I now fire out for a little less than the size of the pot. One guy calls and all else fold, the river is an A, what I figure is a blank, I bet around half the pot now and then the guy essentially min-raises me. I really should have dumped the hand here, but I paid off the T545 and felt sick, the guy was drawing to a lone ace and got there, the 6 would have given me a high straight. ARGH. This crippled me and left me with $800 of the original $3k start bank, I then later tried to make a move on a guy who was clearly not sophisticated enough to realise what was happening, on a board of Ah3h5cKh with three hearts, I check raised all in with AKQx, with the queen of hearts, hoping he'd put me on the nuts, of course he insta-called with his 8hTh and I missed my outs to fill up. I feel I played pretty poorly and didn't adjust to the players who seemed to have no clue about omaha.

The good news is I played a single table sit-n-go afterwards and wound up winning, chopping
it up with another guy, I won my buyin for the omaha event back and little on top, which was nice. Let's hope things go better tomorrow..

WSOP 2007 Itinerary

The nice thing about living in SF is that Vegas is only an hour's flight away, I'm hoping this will mean I'll be in better shape to play this year compared to the long flight from Australia. Ideally I won't get a headcold for this year's main event. At present the schedule is looking like;

First trip

• Arrive June 13th Wednesday Night
  
• June 14th - Event #23, Pot Limit Omaha $1500 (2 day event)
  
• June 15th - Event #24, No Limit Hold'em $2000 (might play if I bust in previous event)
• Depart June 18th Monday Night
  

Second trip

• Arrive June 23rd Morning
• June 23rd - Event #38, No Limit Hold'em $1500 (3 day event)
• Depart June 25th, Monday Night

Looking forward to this trip, will be going with my buddy from work who is also playing this event.

Third trip - The Main Event

• Arrive July 6th, Friday Night
• Play either day 1b (saturday) or 1c (sunday) - Event #55, World Championship No Limit Texas Hold'em, $10000
• It's not clear when I will be leaving, it depends largely on when I am eliminated which hopefully won't be until July 17th (Final table) if at all!
  

WSOP 2007 Main Event Seat!

Well, it's near that time of year again and I was lucky enough to win a $10k entry into the main event online for the second year in a row on Pokerstars. It will be running earlier this year, in July which is only a couple of months away -- am looking forward to playing it again, this year the start bank is 20k, however the blinds have been doubled as well so I'm not sure what difference that makes. Hopefully I can improve on last year's performance, although it will be tough..

Home Sweet Home..

Finally back in Sydney, after sleeping 20 hours on Monday I'm slowly returning to reality, I really missed my friends here and the food as well, Vegas food is the absolute worst, except for N9NE @ the Palms which was awesome. If you just want something quick and easy though, you're in trouble it's just grease city.