Anonymous says

Good luck for the rest of the tournament.

12/15/07

lakong says

Good luck, Serge. Feel free to call in and we'll put the vBlog up.

12/15/07

EdmondDantes says

Sounds like you're wading through quite a line-up. Keep it up!

12/15/07

Anonymous says

Well played so far, good luck!

12/16/07

lakeoffire says

What would the wrong amount into a 27k pot (the 22 hand)? Too little or too much?

12/16/07

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Short version because I'm a little tired: I have 119,700, right around the average with 152 people left (paying 100). The blinds will be [edit: 1500/3000 with a 400 ante next level and 2000/4000/500 after 90 minutes, so a lot of people will be busting early on in the day, but I have enough chips to hopefully make it through for a while.]

I started off today at a tough table with Phil Ivey, the tournament CL (who's still the CL today). Apparently, the way he gets a lot of his chips is by getting someone to overcall his bet on a QT9K board, then check/call all in on the river without a jack. That said, he played very well and I felt lucky that the table broke after 30 minutes, until I got to my new table, which, at various times, featured Hoyt Corkins (with a big stack on my right), another FTP pro whose name I can't remember, JC Alvarado, Ted Lawson, Antonio Esfandiari and a bunch of other people who didn't suck. Playing my cards at that table basically led me to bleed off several thousand chips an hour with no discernable slowdown until I lost/won a decent pot each in a ten minute span, but I got lucky to get moved to another table when we were the last to have 10 players (the tournament shifted to 9 handed 2/3 through the day) and nobody busted/I was UTG when another table needed a fill-in. This table, where I spent the last level and a half, featured mig.com on my left but nobody else of note, and I was able to chip up 40K in the last 90 minutes.

Hands:

1)At my second table, Alvarado opens 3600 UTG at 600/1200 (he usually made it 2600 in this spot so this was weird) with around 50K, and I coldcall AQ with 70K-ish. Right after I do that, it turns out I misheard him and he did actually say 2600 - which is pretty bad because I was going to 3 bet him otherwise. At any rate, the SB, a pretty bad calling station Asian guy with 25K, overcalls, as does the decent BB.

4 handed, we see an A 9 8 flop. Two checks, JC leads 7200 into 11K-ish, I call (with very likely the best hand because his range was soooo wide). Now, though, the SB tanks and eventually overcalls??? BB folds, turn 9, SB takes 5 seconds and sticks in his last 18K, Alvarado instamucks. Problem: I'm getting 2.x:1 and I can't rule out spades or AJ from the SB, so I make a crying call and he does show me spades - AK. Well, I certainly wasn't expecting that...congrats for getting the most I guess?

2)5 minutes later, I have 45K and open AJo in MP1. Alvarado calls from his BB. Flop 433r ("I have the best hand"), he check/snap calls a 2/3 pot bet or so. Turn T (2 spades), he 1/2 pots it ("I still have the best hand"), I ship it in, he turbofolds, I show (this is lame because it looks like I'm bragging but I need to set up an image a *little* bit better than 'meganit' at this point) and have 65K again.

3)I fold for a while, pick up AQ and raise UTG+1, Hoyt calls in the BB. Flop A32, check/check. Turn 4 (2 diamonds), he half pots it, I call. River x, he checks, I 1/3 pot it because he's not calling more than that, he calls while getting ready to muck his cards and does. I've got 80K, get moved off the table a bit later and am really thankful for it because that one sucked.

New table:

I steal a few hands here, but play tighter than I would without mig to my left, including open folding an SB to him at 1K/2K/300 (with antes like this open folding is really annoying but had to be done.) Next hand, I pick up QQ on the button and make it 5500; mig folds, BB calls. Flop K 9 2x, check/check; turn 3, he bets 7500, I call after thinking 15 seconds; river 4, he checks, I make a really small 10K bet on the end because he's not calling anything more either, he calls and mucks (I think I rivered his king here, not sure).

That puts me at 100K and sets up the fun hand of the night:

2 orbits later, folded to me in the CO with 22, and I make it 5500 because I have a pair. It's folded to the BB, an older Asian guy who's probably one of the Nguyen/Tran/Vinh crowd (there are a couple of dozen of these guys, all related to and/or backed by each other, that travel the circuit), who calls.

Flop QT3 and he checks really quickly, making me ~90% sure I'm getting CR'd if I bet, so I check.

Turn 3, an interesting card. He takes 10 seconds and leads around 6K into a 15K-ish pot. I quickly realize three things: I have a very good chance of having the best hand here, he's not betting the river all the time if he does have air because this is the same line I took with QQ and looks like a hand with showdown value, and I might be able to bluff shove on some rivers if he bets the right (wrong) amount, regardless. So I take the same amount of time I took with the QQ hand earlier and call.

River K. With around 30-35K left behind and a 27K pot, he goes into a weird act, looking at me, the pot, the board, playing with his chips...for a full two minutes while I'm doing my usual thing and staring at the felt. I'm so confused by this I have no idea what he could possibly have, and every second that goes by makes me want to call a river bet, but I really just have no clue what to do until he finally clearly chickens out and checks. I instacheck behind (honestly, I might be better off shoving, but the way he acted sorta polarized his range towards air or, like, a full house or something) and get ready to muck my hand quickly until a few seconds goes by and he's forced to turn over A 7. Of course, when he sees I have fifth pair, he goes kinda nuts, slams his hand on the table, yells "how could he call???" and starts punching in his Blackberry to tell his friends about this. I don't really blame him.

Vivek is also still in (with a whopping 217K), as are two other team Wafflecrush members (Bakes 300K!, fatalerror 117K). Hopefully, we'll make some good things happen this weekend.