WSOP trip report part 2 - the ballad of humberto brenes
by Bond18 on 06/06/07
When I headed down to the Rio poker room I knew things would be busy, but what I was not expecting was the absolute pandamonium that broke loose. I did this for 6 weeks last year, and never at any time EVER did things get so totally out of hand. The line stretched half way down the Rio hallway which is ENORMOUS. It was totally absurd. None of the staff had any idea what was going on, and everyone was confused. Finally someone told me if you were going to play today’s 5k you got to cut way in front, which still took 20 min (some people literally waited in line 4-6 hours today) and I got to the table 1 hand late.
My table line up, of known players, was as follows: Chris Moneymaker, Pearljammer, Jon Rober Belande, a tight asian guy who was wearing WPO bracelet but name escapes me, and on my direct right, Humberto Brenes. The table played extremely tight aggressive with basically nobody limping/spewing, except Belande. Humberto of course spent hours singing Spanish in my right ear, and about 8 gajillion people came over pointing and shouting “Its Humberto!!!” then begging for pics. He’d stick out his tongue, wave, pull one of TWO shark toys out and chant HUUUUMBERTO!! a bit but he didn’t really let it get out of hand. Still, I constantly felt like recanting my 2006 WSOP ME story, but decided not to be confrontational just for the sake of [censored] with people. I played zero hands with Brenes during several hours of play.
In one hand early it went limp/raise/I call/belande calls/limper calls.
Flop 4 5 6 two diamonds and belande bets 1000, limper calls, raiser/I fold. Turn A Belande bets 4000. Guy calls. River diamond. Belande bets 3000 leaving himself 1000, the guy puts him in, he swears a [censored] load and angrily folds. Lol, invest90%ofstackandfoldaments. Also, I witnessed moneymaker mega spew his stack into pearljammer when he could not get away from his AA whatsoever. So many times today I saw guys talk about a hand for 20 minutes during/after it, but had they THOUGHT about the hand for 20 seconds during it they would have realized the obvious. The important thing to understand when reading some of the hands I’ll share is that my villains can NEVER tell what’s obvious, have minimal sense of what my/their stack size is, and that I am 100% unknown.
To start things off I was fairly card dead, then with about 9k I found KK in MP. UTG raised to 200, I made it 600, and Belande who had worked his stack back to 5k flat called on the button, and the OR folded.
Flop: 2 T 2 and I fire 900 into 1500, belande tanks, tanks, then shoves his 88 and good day sir.
At that point I was around 14,000 and slowly lost chips in small but not damaging pots.
A while later I was moved tables to a pretty soft table, including a rich guy I’d seen play quite badly on TV (Ted Lawsen I think?). One thing I had trouble adjusting with today was the need for patience, going from 8-10 tabling online to 1 tabling live where people waste time constantly. The pace is agonizing sometimes, and Ted Lawson was the slowest of them all.
A half hour into my time at this table, at blinds 75/150 lawson makes it 500 in MP2 and I look down at 8s6s on the button(he had 25k, myself about 9). I’d seen him spew pretty bad on TV and I was sick bored so I decided to call in position and play him post flop. The blinds folded.
Flop 3s 5d 9c
Ted checks, I check.
Turn: 7s
Ted checks, I bet 600, he makes it 1600, I reraise half my stack (so [censored] obv) and he puts me in. He shows 99 for top set and I fade his boat on the river and for the rest of the evening ( a very long one) every time I play a hand with him he’ll ask me if I have 86 totally befuddled by my pre flop call.
For quite a while things were pretty quiet and I was card dead. I played some small pots, did some small bluffing/bullying, and was not overly involved.
I came into the session after the dinner break with about 16k and told stevepa how bad I needed to get chips at this 4/800 NL level. The next hour would be total insanity. The table lineup at this point included: Ted Lawson, Barry Greenstein, Jason Gray, Chad Brown, Toto Leonidas. Toto is WAY to LAG and really doesn’t know how to play the style at all, Jason Gray is solid, Barry seems good when he wants to be (he played one hand quite bad PF that I’ll get into later, otherwise strong) Chat Brown actually played pretty well, Ted Lawson was a disaster.
So heres how things started off:
I have 16k, toto 20k. Toto raises to CO to 2400, folds to me in BB with JTo, I jam, he folds.
One round later, a somewhat aggressive lady raises the hijack with 23k stack to 2400, folds to me in BB with about 19k, I have TT and jam, she folds.
Very next hand Greenstein raises in EP to 2400, folds to button who thinks things over and flat calls, I look down at KK and decide with the last two rounds to just jam it. Barry folds and the button tanks ,then calls with TT and I hold.
At this point I have like 44k, definitely a high point for me. Then we switch to limit. Max pescatori gets moved to the table super short. At limit 800/1500 max jams, Greenstein raises the most allowed over his all in, and 4 or 5 people call to me in the SB. I look down at 3s6s and its 1700 more for me to call, which I do, and BB calls. 7 people to the flop for 2500 each.
Flop: 4s 5h 9s
sweeeeet, I check, checks to barry who bets 1500, 2 callers to me, I raise to 3000, barry 3 bets, callers fold, I decide at this point to 3 bet me on this board barry must be VERY strong (set strong) and just call.
Turn: Th
I check call 3000 (the pot is redic huge at this point.)
River: 3h
FUUUUUUUCK!! I check fold for 3000, and barry shows 99 for top set. I dropped about 1/4th my stack there. Same round it folds to chad brown whos aggro on 2 on my right who raises to 3000, I have AJdd and 3 bet him, blinds fold, he calls. Flop Q 2 4 he check calls 1500. Turn A he checks I fire 3000 he CR’s and I give up seeing as I’m crushed by his range and I’ve got tight image. Back down to like mid-high 20 some k.
A round or two later back to NL at 500/1000.
Folds to Chad Brown on button who raises to 2500, SB calls (the guy who had the TT o my KK) and with about 26k in BB I make it 8000 with 97o. Chad insta folds, and the SB says something like “I’ve seen this one before” and quickly folds. Sweet. I am really beating up on this SB’s good time.
A few hands later folds to that same SB who’s now in MP and he makes it 3k, I look down at AA. I know its obvious, but I think he’s sick of me popping him and I make it 8k. Folds back to him and he calls leaving himself 13k.
Flop: A J T with a flush draw
He checks I shove he snap calls with KQ and I miss twice. NH sir, expert pre flop call on the reraise for 25% of ur remaining stack. I am now down to 10800.
A few hands later I look down at QQ EPish and jam for 10.8 BB’s. Folds to Ted Lawson who calls with AQ and I dodge. Back in the low 20’s. A few hands later I am BB again and look down at KK with about 23k in my stack. Folds to chad brown on button who makes it 2500, SB folds, I make it 7500, he jams I call he shows AQhh and I hold. Back to like 46,000.
Things more or less settled down after that, my high point was the low 50’s but I lost a medium sized limit pot to ted Lawson after that plus going card dead and paying the blinds and ended the day with 34,500, with ave in the 40-50k range.
This update wasn’t to colorful as I’m very tired and hungry, but I wanted to put the hands on paper while I remembered. Stevepa is also still in, so GL to him tomorrow. Until then, g’night all.
Comments
tateissy says
Really good read. I look forward to following your progress. Not sure about the AJ fold against Chad Brown. You both checked the flop so when the A hits the turn he could easilly be going for a check-raise assuming you will bet it. Especially given that this is a limit game and just don't see a fold being right. You seemed very confident in your fold. Did you have a read on him that told you he was strong?06/06/07
Anonymous says
You were doing a lot of jamming when you still had plenty of chips relative to the size of the pot. Can you give more information on your thinking? On the hand against Toto you were basically counting on the fact that he would only be looking you up with hands like AK/TT-AA. Right? And given his range it was so likely he didn't have one of these hands. However, you seemed to be riskinig quite a bit given the circumstances. It would be great if you can share with us exactly when you do this and what you look for.So how did you do in the event?
06/06/07
lakeoffire says
Enjoyed the post!06/07/07
Anonymous says
"So heres how things started off: I have 16k, toto 20k. Toto raises to CO to 2400, folds to me in BB with JTo, I jam, he folds."Someone already asked about this and I'm curious too. What's the logic here? Looks like the pot is about 25% of your stack, which is great, but from what I've seen of Toto he might look you up with about 30-40% of his possible holdings. Or am I way off here. What % of his hands do you think he folds. Assuming he calls you with most pairs and hands like AK, AQ and when he calls you you're about a 1.5 dog on average -- didn't look this up, just my gut. If he folds about 50-60% of the time, you're probably in good shape. Just wondering what the math and your thinking is here.
06/07/07
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