Poker content here

The lack of entries in the blog this week is largely because, for the first time all year, I'm playing a ton, including a very belated attempt at learning to 8 table MTT's. It's been a mixed bag - I think I'm still running bad when it comes to important pots - but although I don't have much to show for it, I've gone deep a few times and have a bunch of lost late flips for chipleads to point to, in addition to improved hand reading over more tables. I also have hands worth posting on 2+2 for the first time in a very long time; usually, I put in little enough volume that I very rarely have a hand with more than 1 tough choice in it, but lately, there've been some fun ones.

Actual important stuff here

But hey, none of you guys care. The major thing: 60 Minutes looks like it's happening, pending one or two snags that will likely work themselves out in a day or two (can't really talk about it, but there's nothing unsolvable). With Gary Wise (who originally wrote an unreleased article that started the whole thing) on board as a consultant and an executive producer that understands poker, this is gonna be our best chance to put a positive face on this profession that doesn't involve the usual bedraggled suspects. I have to admit I'm not sure how I got to be one of the impromptu industry spokespeople given the fact that, well, nobody's paying me and I'm not exactly the olivert of poker pros, but given most of the other options have already had gigantic picture-filled threads over on Neverwin's (To my upcoming 60 Minutes audience: Trust me, you don't want to know), I guess I'll take it.

Sooner or later, assuming this piece isn't terrible for poker (if it is, please don't kill me) I'm gonna have to sit down and look at where to go with this from there. We still have a legalization effort to sustain in Congress in '09 (hint: vote "not McCain")(To roughly half of my 60 Minutes audience: Sorry, I'm typically better than that, it's simply that he's anti-gambling)(To the other half: I did vote for Obama in the primary, though!), and at some point, I'm going to have to figure out whether the PPA, which has managed to ignore this entire affair in truly impressive fashion, is worth bothering with. Full disclosure: A few months back, I asked them to hire me and/or somebody else as a PR guy because I hated everything about how they were handling things. Further full disclosure: I wasn't really serious, and/but/because I still hate it. Way to drum up all that extra Ron Paul support, folks! Argh...the poker community badly, *badly* needs a voice that doesn't suck, and to get back to the actual point I was trying to make, if you're wondering why I feel the need to be on 60 Minutes admitting that a site was actually rigged, blame the fact that we've got nobody speaking for us.

Hint to certain quarters: This would be a *really good* time to start.

Sunday:

109r: I didn't have time to rebuy on the first hand, so when I picked up aces, I naturally shoved (I love shoving monsters on the first hand of a rebuy), got called and lost. Later, 2 big suckouts (I admit it!) gave me a top 10 stack with 100 to go...then JJ ran into A9 for half of it. That guy later went on to slowroll someone else with kings and become chip leader. I had JJ run into KK on the exact money bubble with a 1.5x stack in the BB (who folds obv) so I got to be the bubble boy.

240 bounty: QQ ran into AA, sucked out once to get a decent stack again, lost something else, busto. I won a bounty, though!

Bodog 100K: Built up a (very) big stack, took TT vs. 88/AT for the CL with 100 left, and lost half of it. Shoved an 8x stack with 55, got called by A5 for a bunch of it, lost that. Eventually busto 70th (63 paid).

Stars Mil: Built up 35K stack on the best table ever, then lost most of it in 3 consec hands. Not done yet, I built back up to 30K when I shoved over a guy who liked making 4x raises and then folding with AJ for 15x on the bubble. This time, he turbocalled with 53 sooted. Board A2xx4. The good news is, by this point, it was getting so routine that I pretty much shrugged it off.

FTP: Built up a decent stack until running JJ into a bigger pair on a 7 high board that I did actually fold on. That helped get me shortstacked, at which point I shoved 10x with tens. QQ overcalls, and, in turn, is picked off by kings.

This leaves...

200K: Sucked out once (I admit it) to get an 11K stack @ 150/300, pretty big in that tournament. Shoved KT in the SB into SirWatts' 10xBB big blind, he tanked and called with K8; it was good (the call's fine, but it's the principle). With 8K left, I raised QJs in MP and Q4o called in the SB for 1/4 of his chips; the flop was 643 with my FD, he bet/called and won. AK chopped with AQ in here somewhere, too. Eventually, I lost a flip, was at 5 BB during 300/600, (re)stole 80 billion blinds to make the money in decent shape, promptly ran A4 on the button into the 5xBB's A7 to lose a bunch of that, then pushbot the resulting 7-8 bet stack into tens to finish 81'st (extra bonus because 80'th got paid more, obv.)

So yeah, that's what a very bad session looks like. I think I've had about 3 days this bad in the last 3 years. Kinda goes to show poker isn't for people who like breaking things, though.

The good news: some very cool stuff that I can't talk about yet is happening very soon. Keep an eye on this blog closer to the end of the month.

To be honest, there really wasn't even much to say about today. Very early on, I made my once a month customary bluff with total air. Usually, that stuff works. Today, it didn't work, left me with 2K at 200/400 and a shot image. Thanks to the latter, that 2K quickly became 18K, but that turned out to be the high point and I eventually busted an hour or two later. When you don't steal a single blind at a good, aggressive table and improve on the flop once the entire day, that tends to happen. Then I went back to the room, played a $700 EPT Step 5 and promptly ran AK into AA again, followed by a KK < AA in one of the other few tournies I played. I've run really hot this week.

To put that in perspective, though, that's got *nothing* on Shaun today. Shaun busted out of the LAPC with aces when 100 BB worth of chips went in on a Kc9c4x board; he was up against the other aces and got rivered. All right, it's a horrible beat and definitely sucks to take in a 10K event, but, y'know, gotta move on. Shaun therefore goes back to the room, enters the 200r and eventually final tables it. He takes sixth when - you guessed it - KK < KK AI PF for about another 10-15K in equity. That sequence of events managed to untilt me simply by existing, because according to the laws of the space time continuum, it shouldn't really be possible.

And on that note, I'm signing off here and running to the airport to beat the morning rush hour, not really even having seen anything of LA. Perhaps next time, when I final table it because my aces > their aces.

Getting this entry in fast because day 2 starts in 25 mins :)

Played a big sat on Friday, lasted long enough that it was too late for SNG's but didn't get an actual seat, bought in anyway on Saturday.

Saturday was mixed. My table was fantastic, playing something like 40/8 for four levels with no name pros except the first to bust Cam Hua/later arrival fslexicduck (Vanessa Selbst), but I was card dead for most of the day - at a table like that one, isolating limpers was pointless and overlimping just let me miss every single flop. I did chip up over the final level, though, and wound up with ~29K.

Today's first table seems, uhh...

WROBLEWSKI ANNA 116550 21 1
TRANIELLO MARCO 25225 21 2
EDLER WILLIAM 28800 21 3
JAMES KENNA 16750 21 4
RAVITCH SERGE 28850 21 5
WALNUM ANDREAS 26600 21 6
BAUERLEIN EUGENE 41750 21 7
RAMIREZ SENOVIO 25975 21 8
ESFANDIARI ANTONIO 119475 21 9

I hope it breaks early! Wish me luck.

*in busting out before the first break, heh.

The Commerce is a very good cardroom; my impression is that the games are as soft as anything outside of Vegas during the WSOP season. This extends to their tournaments, which feature some incredibly soft play (example today: someone checkraised a 600 chip bet to 1200 with Qx on a Q65r board, bet 500 of his leftover 1050 on a 3 turn, then check/folded a 9 on the river - showing the queen.) Overall, these people are simply atrocious and if I lived here in LA, I'd probably never leave the place. However, the structure features low starting stacks (60-70 BB) with long levels. This is a great structure if you get chips early, because the late game features a lot of play, but it's not good if you're card dead or unlucky in the first few hours; you absolutely need to double or triple up early and cannot pass up any reasonable opportunity to do it. As a result, in both of the last two tourneys, I drifted down a bit due to missing flops, picked up 99, got it all in (on a 765 and T87 board) in big pots, but couldn't win either time and busted. C'est la vie.

On the other hand, I'm nowhere near as big a degen as Nath, who made it to the final 2 tables of the 1500 buyin event (starting in 2 hours), decided to play the 1K today starting 2 hours ago *anyway* and potentially multitable the two, got to my table and busted in < 5 minutes. gg.

Next up: Satellite Friday, the ME on Saturday, and some preview clips from the SNG ;)