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Event #37 - $2000 Pot Limit Hold'em

I get to my seat, which is #6 and find Jeff Lisandro seated there. He apologized and moved to seat 5. Jeff won the bracelet the night before in the 7 card stud event and lots of guys came by to congratulate him. He's a great guy and a fun person to talk too. In fact, he was probably a bit too much fun to talk with because we really hit it off and I probably wasn't focused as much on my poker as I should have been. Jeff told me stories about his years managing poker rooms in Russia, grinding it out in rooms all over the world playing different games and some crazy stories about some poker screenplays he had written and how his stories have been stolen from him and made into films (some very well know films!). At first I was a bit skeptical but after a few minutes of hearing the details I had no doubt what he said was absolutely true. If you run into Jeff and have a few minutes of his time, ask him about this. Interesting stuff.

The bracelet could not have gone to a nicer and more deserving guy. Unfortunatley for Jeff, his luck did not go well at this table. Twice his TPTK was beaten by a better hand. The first time he had AJ on a J high board, but had to fold when it was clear on the turn that his opponent had the flush. That hand hurt him and he was pretty much pot-committed when his AQ hit on a Q high board, but his opponent had KK. I wish we could have played together more, but I'm sure we'll cross paths in the future.

What about me? Well, not a lot to report. Early on I raised with AK, hit a A4x high flop. Raised an early position raiser (I had raised PF and was called by the bb). He reraised me all-in and I called. He showed A4, but the board paired on the river and I doubled up. Nothing much happened for me after that. No good cards, most of my moves backfired, etc. Out in about 3 hours. Oh, well… that’s poker!

That night I played two $525 Satellites and had a lot more luck. In the first one everything worked to perfection. I hit some good hands at the right times, but mostly I accumulated chips by picking on the weaker players at the tables. Even at the $525 level there are usually 4-6 players who cannot possibly win. They are either much too weak-tight or too loose-aggressive. They do not know how to adjust to the structure and even if some of these weaker players get lucky early on, their tight style and inability to value their hands when the blinds go up allow the more aggressive players to run over them towards the end.

In the first satellite when we got down to 3 players I had $9k and the other two players had $7k and $4k respectively. We agreed to a $2k/$2k/$1k chop. It might seem a bit weak to chip when I had a nice chip lead, but I find that once the blinds get to the 400/800 level it turns into coinflip after coinflip situations. If the other players are understand this and are not tight players (no need to chop with someone who will fold anything but a premium hand), it's just better to level out the variance and chop. Nothing wrong with a $1500 profit

On the second satellite, I got off to a great start and doubled up pretty quickly, but a guy called my $175 raise (I had AA) at the $25/25 level with 65o from MP and hit a 65x flop. I doubled him up and was back to even – I was a bit worried on the turn that I was beaten, but at that point I had the nut flush draw and felt there was a reasonable chance I was ahead. Nothing much happened after that and I managed to survive a few coinflips and suckout situations (I was on both ends of the suckouts) and was at about 4k in chips with 3 left. The big stack offered me $1k and I happily took it.

Not a great day, but not a bad day either. I broke even, played some good poker, had fun meeting Jeff. Nothing wrong at all.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm playing in the $1500 NL event. EdmondDantes is coming into town and will be staying with me. We'll be having breakfast with Shane Schleger (Shaniac) and will try to hook up with Andathar and Nath for dinner.

Good night!