Today was the maddest I have ever been at a poker table. I don't give a fuck about bad beats or about bubbling the stupid tournament. I'm partly very mad at myself for being an idiot and allowing this bullshit to happen, but moreso that some jackass actually pulled this on me. The story is coming shortly let me begin at the beginning. So I run/play bad for a bit and get down to 200K, then double with TT vs 22 blind vs blind and I think win some other pot I can't remember. Then this hand happens:

6k/12k a1k I open to 32K UTG with JJ and the BB who is bad defends. The flop comes J87 with two hearts, he checks and I bet 56K which he calls. The turn is an 8 he checks and I bet 86K and he calls. The turn is a Q, he leads out for 125K, I say all-in for his roughly 200K more. I hear him almost immediately say call and turn over my hand. At this point he says "What are you doing I didn't say anything yet." I ask the dealer "didn't he say call?" The dealer obviously doing his job well says "I didn't hear anything." At this point I fuck up really bad since I don't know what is going on. Instead of calling over the floor I just kind of end up going with it and letting him fold his hand and keep the last of his chips. I don't know why I did did that, it was one of those situations that kind of happened so fast and I was obviously pretty excited about having the effective nuts that I can't even remember exactly how things happened. Also, who the fuck has the audacity to say "Call" in front of a table of people and then be like "No wait I actually didn't say that"? It certainly made sense I could be the one who fucked up. So the hand ended and we go on break (which also could have added to the confusion).

The guy sitting directly between me and my opponent at the table now comes up to me and says "Why didn't you call the floor? He definitely said call." The the dealer who was waiting to rotate into our table also says "Yeah I heard him say call. I think you even asked him "Did you say call?" and he said yes before you turned your hand over." Obviously at this point I am pretty fucking livid but it's too late to do anything. The rule apparently is that if the dealer doesn't hear anything two people have to have heard him say it, so if I'm not an idiot he wouldn't have gotten away with it which makes me feel even worse.

Anyways I have my break and am able to accept what has happened. As a poker player I am trained to ignore things outside my control and just focus on making good decisions in the future, it's all I can do really. I'm still pretty pissed though because the whole thing was so fucked up and I can't believe this scumbag actually did that that I was sitting there steaming for most of the next level just planning how bad I was going to slowroll him when I finally bust him and take MY chips back. I'm very card dead for a while though and end up folding all the way back down to around 440K when this hand happens:

15k/30k a3k I'm UTG with KK and make it 77K. Folds to angle shooting scumbag in the BB who has folded his way all the way down to 225K playing like a fucking genius after having chipped back up earlier. He thinks for a minute or 2 then makes the brilliant play of flat calling. The flop comes A73r, he checks and I check behind since nothing worse calls and I can let stuff that's drawing basically dead catch up a bit. If he has me beat he's going to get my money regardless. The turn is a J, he checks and I check behind again. I can probably just move in here and hope he calls with a J but if he's behind he can't have more than a few outs and giving him a chance to do something stupid on the river is fun and I'm still getting called by a J on the river usually anyways. The river is a T, he checks and I finally bet 100K of his 150K. He moves in, I cry but obviously have to call and he has JT....

I don't think I had ever thrown cards or chips in anger at a poker table before but that streak is now over. I would never get really mad over just a bad beat but given the circumstances I think it's pretty understandable why I was furious. Our table breaks after this hand and I have a meager 210K at my new table. I move in with A7 on the first two hands and get back to around 350K. Then I pick up 99 UTG and move in again, Kathy Liebert calls with AK and I lose. I tell her nice hand, wish Adam good luck, and make my exit.

So in the end I don't know what else to say. I could have done a lot of things differently after the fact but it's just not me. In the future I'll just have more confidence in myself and less faith in the poker community, not that I didn't know it has more than it's fair share of liars and cheats to begin with. That being said the great majority of the people I've met in the poker world are incredibly honest and good people (especially the newer younger generation), but you do have to watch your own back. Still, I'm not going to stop believing that most people are good honest people and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. You can't be so naive as to let yourself get taken advantage of, but I sure as hell am not going to go about living my life being paranoid and not trusting anyone, I'd rather risk getting angled once in a while than live my life that miserably. So there you have a rare Watts emo rant. Peace y'all,

Mike

Well I'm busto. I grinded my short stack for quite a while but every time I got something good going I immediately lost a pot to give it back. In the end I obviously got owned Doug Lee because why wouldn't I?

Hand 1: 500/1000 a100 Somehow I'm down to 13K at this point and Jen Harman opens on my right. I move in with KK and Kristy Gazes instaships in the BB and Jennifer folds. She has QQ and I double back to around 30K.

Hand 2: Somewhere in here Doug Lee gets moved to the table. It folds to me in HJ and I raise to 2700 with QsQh. It folds to Doug in the BB and he calls because when it's his BB that's what he does. The flop comes A64dd, he checks and I check behind intending to fold approximately never no matter what happens ever. Then the turn is the Kd, and he bets 5K and I cry and fold. There's a good chance calling down here is still correct.

Hand 3: 600/1200 a200 So I get back to like 22K and raise to 3200 in the HJ again with KQo this time. Doug Lee calls in the BB because as we've established why wouldn't he? The flop comes 743r, I'm not thrilled but I think I have to bet. I bet 5K and he calls. The turn is a 2 chk/chk river J chk/chk. "I have one pair." I nod my head like obviously that's good but for some reason it takes him a while to roll over the winner, his 83s.

Hand 4: 800/1600 a200 Down to 13K now it folds to Jon (FatalError) in the CO and he opens to 4K, I ship A9o in the SB and hold against his KJo.

Hand 5: I'm back to around 30K and we get moved away from the balcony in the Fontana room because it was insanely cold. As we're unracking our chips a the new table the dealer asks me if I remember this card, and shows me the Ad. As it turns out it's the dealer who peeled off that beautiful Ad on the river against David back in July when I was all-in with AK vs QQ. So the first hand at the new table I'm UTG+1 and look down to see AKo! I raise and everyone folds and I show the ace and say I knew I had nothing to worry about. The next hand I get AKo again UTG! This guy is good! I open to 4400 again and Doug Lee makes it 16K in MP. Folds back to me and I insta-double fistpump-triple backflip-Hi 5s all around-turbo ship the rest of my chips in and he calls with AQ. The board runs out KJxx.......T. Oops. I guess I'm still slightly ahead lifetime on his river cards though so no major complaints.

I'm gonna stick around for another week still and play the 10K at Caesar's at the end of the month and probably some cash games. It's undoubtedly too much to ask, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing that thing where I hit a big score in my last tournament of the trip again! In the mean time I will try to get in an appropriate amount of trouble.

Mike

Not a very successful day 1 today unfortunately. I finished the day with 25K of my 45K starting stack. My starting table was very soft, the only other players I recognized were shaniac and gobbo. Unfortunately I then got moved to some crazy table with Shawn Sheikhan, Brad Booth, Minh Ly and some other people I recognized. Here are two interesting hands I played today, the latter being the key hand of my day.

Hand 1: 200/400 a50. The player on my right opens to 1400 in MP and I flat KK next to act hoping for a squeeze from Sheikhan or Brad Booth or to just trap the raiser. One player calls behind me in position and Booth calls from the BB. The flop comes AT6hh and checks around. Turn T checks around. River 5 checks to me and I figure I almost always have the best hand and I may be able to get value from a hand like JJ or QQ so I bet 2800 and Brad calls with JJ.

Hand 2: Brad has been very active making a lot of really big preflop raises and reraises. In this hand Minh Ly open to 900 in early-middle position and Booth makes it 3800 next to act. I find KK on the button and make it 14K which is probably a bit too big. Booth calls pretty quickly which is really strange. The flop comes Q65hh and he checks. I think for a bit and was going to just jam it in and hope to get hero called but eventually I decided his preflop call seemed so strong that I was actually pretty worried about him having AA or QQ and I could induce bluffs or something by checking anyways. The turn is an 8 and he bets 8K which I call. The river is an A and he bets 22K. I think for a bit and mutter about how I must be the only nit in the world who plays this hand so weak and I'm either an idiot or a genius before accepting that I just can't imagine how he could be bluffing and fold. He said he flopped three queens and kept muttering about how if he played the hand differently he could have busted me so it seemed pretty legitimate that he actually had the hand.

I was down to 30K after that hand and finished the day with 25K after a boring level where I didn't do too much other than steal the blinds a few times. Hopefully I can turn things around and get something going tomorrow.

Mike

Today started like almost any other day. I woke up and lazed around for a bit. Eventually I forced myself to go get a workout and then I came back to the room and ordered some food. I watched the new episode of Entourage which was the best in a long time, and also Dexter which was really good as always. After that I decided I'd go check out the poker room and see if any good games were running and buy into Day 1B of the WPT event for tomorrow. I ran into Vivek in the poker room and we both ended up sitting in a 10/20 game for a bit. Then we heard a new 25/50 NL game was opening and that a certain swimmer you may have heard of was playing it, so we instantly locked up seats and moved to that game. Sure enough, seated three to my left was none other than Michael Phelps.

Normally, to play in the legendary Bobby's Room, home of the biggest cash games in the world, you have to be playing at least something like 100/200 NL with a minimum 20K buy-in, but seeing as Michael Phelps is kind of a big deal and all they made an exception and moved our table in there. We were playing 25/50 NL and the BB also posted a $100 ante so it played a fair bit bigger than a normal 25/50 game, but you probably don't care about that. So there Vivek and I are, both coming off of huge WPT victories, sitting in Bobby's room play high stakes poker with the greatest olympian ever and one of the most famous people in the world this year. At the other table next to us Doyle, Helmuth, Eli, Ralph Perry, Freddy Deeb and various others are playing some huge stakes mixed game. It was kind of a ridiculous surreal moment where all Vivek and I could do is look at each other and say "Wow, are we living the life right now or what?".

So anyways back to things you probably care more about. Michael was actually really down to earth despite all his success and a cool guy. He immediately recognized Vivek (everyone seems to) which Vivek obviously thought was pretty sick. He didn't really seem to recognize me though, but I guess that's not surprising because I'm just some quiet kid who won a WPT event when the entire poker world was focused on them reaching the final table of the WSOP main event. Anyways, he was having a beer and enjoying himself and it was a really fun game. He actually seems to play fairly well though he never got in many tricky spots postflop at all and we never really saw any of his hands. The whole experience was pretty amazing though, and afterwards Vivek, Adam, and I went for some food at Fix and grabbed a late dinner to celebrate our sweet day. Oh yeah on top of that I also won $4K in the game by flopping the nuts a bunch but never winning any really huge pots.

So, tomorrow I begin my quest to defend my WPT at Bellagio bracelet. I'm pretty excited to get going, though I somehow doubt tomorrow will be able to compete with the events of today.

Mike

Hey I've been lazy and haven't written anything in a little while so here's what I've been up to this week. After I busted Niagara I drove home immediately and started looking for a flight to Vegas. There was a very cheap Westjet flight at 9pm that night and I had a credit for Westjet that I had to use soon anyways so I booked that right away, threw a bunch of extra clothes in my bag, and was off to the airport. I got in around 11pm PST and checked into the Bellagio. They were nice enough to comp my room for this trip as the returning champion so that was pretty badass. I had actually never stayed at the Bellagio before though I had seen the rooms and knew what to expect. Still, my room is way nicer than I remembered them being. There's so much space, the bathroom is huge, and all the decor is really classy without being excessive or snobbish. I of course still have to pay for all my own incidentals (internet, gym/spa, room service, mini bar, etc...) and they're very good at making those add up quickly, so even without paying the actual room rate they're still making an alright sum off me.

I've played a fair bit since I got here and had no success. On Thursday I played the $5K buy-in tournament and busted early without much going right. The next day I played a $1500 satellite to the main event but played very poorly and wasn't really focused and busted early again. I then played some 25/50 NL live and lost a bit over $5K getting in some tough spots and making a few likely questionable/poor plays. Today I played the $5K tournament and hung in until just before the dinner break very card dead for the most part. I busted on a tricky hand which I think I'm fine with:

600/1200 a100. A player who has been playing a lot of hands and limping a fair bit limps in MP. He seemed to be a cash player so competent but making a lot of preflop mistakes on the shorter effective stacks. I find KJcc in the CO make it 4200 with ~27K behind, and it folds back to him and he calls. The flop comes Ah Jh 7s and I check behind. The turn is the 2s and he leads very big for 10K. I feel like his bet sizing is either a made hand protecting against the 2 flush draws or a semi-bluff. I thought he would raise a lot of aces preflop so it's a bit less likely he has an A, and there are tons of ways he can have a flush draw that I'm ahead of. With only 17K behind after the 10K bet I think it's a spot where I have to move in for value if I think he has a draw since the pot will be so big if I call that trying to play the river would really not be fun. In the end that's what I decided to do but he had ATo and I lost. I think there are more aces in his range than I originally gave him credit for since he can probably limp/call a bunch of suited aces as well as some offsuit ones with middling kickers but I still think he should have a draw often enough that stacking off was ok.

The $15K WPT main event starts Monday and Tuesday, and after that there is a $10K buy-in tournament at Caesar's that I didn't know about with a million dollar guaranteed first prize so I'll probably stay until the end of the month to play that as well. I'll probably also try to play more big cash games during the main event since they should be fairly good, but I'm still not a big fan of live cash at this point. Maybe I just need more experience but it can be pretty boring. Oh yeah I've also picked up one Adam Junglen as a roommate again on this trip as he just turned 21 today! So happy birthday to him! I thought I got rid of him after London but it seems I was mistaken. Oh yeah also Friday night was David 'Bakes' Baker's birthday so a bunch of us went out for beer pong at O'Shea's which was a fun time as always. There's not as many people here that I know as usual but more and more are arriving as we get closer to the main event so it should be a fun couple weeks!

Mike