Hero Calls, Semibluffs and Caveman Brain at Bay 101

 

The Worst Photo Ever Taken of the Outside of Bay 101

I walked in to Bay 101 (which you might think is a community college based on the photo above) yesterday with $2,500 in my pocket ready for the first session in my quest to play 250 hours of no limit to fund my 2023 WSOP plans. 

An Average Photo of the Inside of Bay 101

After an hour of waiting to get into a game I bought $500 in $5 chips and ten $100 chips. I sat down with $800 on the table and another $700 in chips in my pocket ready to top off my stack so as to always have the max. I got dealt pocket queens on the first hand! After my raise to $25, we took the flop 4 ways with $100 in the pot. On an A high flop there was a bet and a raise before it got to me, I mucked and my hopes of a massive win on hand #1 were squished.

After an hour I was in for a little less than $900 sitting on $875 when my first noteworthy hand came up. I opened black 66 under the gun to $20 and only the big blind called. The flop came down A23 with two hearts and one diamond. My opponent check, called my bet of $25. The turn brought the 5 of diamonds putting another flush draw and a one liner to a straight out there. Now my opponent bet 60.

My opponent has what they call a range advantage here in that he as the big blind has many 4's in his preflop calling range and I as the under the gun preflop raiser should almost never have a 4 here. With this being a great card for my opponent to bluff I decided to make the call. 

The river was the J of clubs and after a slight delay where he looked about to check, my opponent fired out $130. This looked just a little bit big bet size wise for someone trying to get called by an A. With both flush draws bricking out I decided I was getting the right price to bluff catch and made the hero call. My opponent rolled over K2 and I was good! I got an audible "whoa" from another player at the table and feeling great about making the right read here. 

Shortly after I raised J8 of spades to $20 in the cutoff and got called by the button and the big blind. The flop came down KJ9 with two spades and I had the first of a few moments in the session where afterwards I realized my top level conscious brain kind of shut down and caveman brain took over. 

PAIR WITH FLUSH DRAW? GET ALL MONEY IN POT! DON'T CARE WHAT DUMB JERKS HAVE! MONEY IN POT NOW! OOGA BOOGA!

I bet $45 and only the button called. The turn was the 4 of spades bringing in my flush. Zing! I grabbed a $100 chip off my stack and flipped it into the pot. My opponent instantly snapped three $100 chips in to the pot! 

Normal brain for one second thought, "that looks like a flush, you might be beat here" and was immediately shouted down by caveman brain "NEVER FOLD FLUSH! GRAB CHIPS! PUT IN POT!" My opponent had about $225 left in his stack and what I should have done is slowed down and considered the hands I beat (QT, 99, Ax with the A of spades, KJ) that could be played this way and the hands I lose to (Ax of spades and QT of spades) that could be played this way. Looking back now just getting it in is certainly the right move, but I didn't think it through in the moment. 

I pushed my chips in the pot and my opponent turned over red QT! I thought he was folding and almost showed my hand, but then realized he was still thinking. After about 20 seconds he called drawing dead, the river was the irrelevant 2 of spades,  I took down the pot and he took a trip out the front door. 

Sitting on ~$1400 up $500 for the session

Fast forward a little bit and I had been playing for about 4 hours. With the $10 straddle on I called $10 with A9 of spades after 2 calls in front of me. The big blind raised to $50 and we took the flop 4 ways. The flop came down T 8 7 with two diamonds giving me an open ended straight draw. The action checked to me and I thought about betting, but decided that I both don't have enough fold equity and am just a cowardly wuss. The turn brought the A of clubs and the preflop raiser bet out $75. I briefly considered making a big raise, but again went with cowardly wuss move and just called. The river was the J of hearts and I made my straight. Zing! To my surprise the villain fired out $200! 

Caveman brain here knows what to do. NO RAISE! EITHER BLUFF OR CHOP OR LOSE! DUMB JERK NEVER CALL MORE WITH BAD HAND! Without thinking about it at all I called $200, my opponent turned over Q9, I showed A9, quickly realized that I'd lost and with great annoyance flipped my cards back over. Boo!

Two hands later again with the $10 straddle on I called with 86 of diamonds after one other call. This hand and the one before were I think the only two times I called preflop and didn't either raise or fold which I'm sure is a better way to play in these spots. Weak! Anyway, the guy who had the Q9 on the last hand made it $50 to go and we took the flop 4 ways again. The flop came down 843 with one diamond, the player to my right checked, I checked, guy to my left checked and the original raiser checked it through. The turn brought the 7 of diamonds which gave me a gut shot straight draw and a flush draw to go with my top pair.

The guy to my right checked again so I was all but sure I had him and the preflop raiser beat with my 8. I bet out $125 into the $200 pot, the guy to my direct left raised to $290, and both other players folded. I started the hand with about $725 and my opponent had me covered by about $50. Normal brain did recall that this guy had folded two pair face up to a big raise earlier so he was capable of folding good hands, but did not take the time to think through the hands that would play this way that I want to raise against. If he also has a flush draw or somehow has 99 or a better 8 a raise is great. Looking back I think all of those hands just call and his raising range is 33, 44, 77, 88, 87 or 65 all of which have me crushed and are never folding. I guess sometimes he is just going apeshit here with a bluff, but probably not for a big bet in a big pot. 

Up to this point caveman brain had been totally correct and doing its job of stopping me from overthinking things. In this case normal brain would have been better, but caveman brain took over. PAIR AND FLUSH DRAW AND STRAIGHT DRAW! MONEY IN POT! 

I raised all in for about another $400 and my opponent took maybe 10 seconds to make what looked like a somewhat pained call. I showed my hand before the last card was dealt. The river rolled off another 8 which I didn't think really changed things. But then my opponent said "oh damn it! Man that sucks" and some other similar comments. At that point I figured he must have 43 or 74 or 73 and had two pair counter fitted! This was a tremendous development. After about 10 seconds of going on and on (which is a really long time actually) he showed 44 and someone said "you won, you have a full house" and then he said something like "Oh, I thought he had a full house too!"

Jesus Christ! I'm losing to this fucking guy who doesn't even know what he has! Serenity now! Serenity now! 

You can't rule out that someone is totally trolling you with an awful slow roll in a spot like this, but I'm 98% sure this guy did not know he'd won. I told you these games were good right?

I think if I'd lost that pot without all of the theatrics I might have stayed, but the emotional roller coaster of making a big all in hoping for a fold, getting called, missing all of the draws then thinking I'd won and then not winning was enough to not have me in an ideal mental state. 

The remains of my $1,500

After 4 hours of 250 in the books my $10,000 bankroll is at $9,119. I'm traveling next weekend so my next session won't be for a couple of weeks. 

Funding My 2023 WSOP Plans with No Limit Cash Game Profits

Anything but hundreds = loser!

 One of my big weaknesses in poker is sweating exactly how much I'm up or down in a given session. Especially if I'm getting close to the end of a session. If I'm ahead $1,050 for example and it's 30 minutes or an hour or even two hours before my preplanned departure time I might rack up my chips to lock up the $1,000+ win. This is stupid bullshit! I know for a fact that the mission is to get in as many hands as possible while in a good state of mind but I'm often mentally weak!

Also problematic when playing sporadically is the losses feeling semi permanent. In my pro poker days if I lost, I knew I'd be back at it the next day and the day after that. In my normal human working days losing $1,500 feels like spending $1,500 on something that sucked. 

A tactic that has always helped me with both of these mindset problems is to set up medium term plan and goals. This helps me to look at each session as a piece of a larger project and not sweat individual session results.

With that in mind, here is my plan:

• $10,000 starting bankroll
• Play 250 hours of $2/$3/$5 no limit between now and 2023 WSOP
• Set a max loss per session of $2,000
• No max win per session, just play the hours
• Goal of $50 per hour win rate
• Play 2-3 Friday nights and maybe one Sunday per month

If you look closely at my photo you'll see it's not $10,000. In fact it's only $2,500 and the 50's and even more so the 20's (gross!) are a sure sign that I'm rolling like a newb. While I do prefer to actually have my bankroll sitting in cash, at 42 years old I'm telling myself to use banks and not be an idiot. 

If I pull this off I'll have $12,500 which should be good for rolling into Vegas for a 9 day Friday to the following Sunday trip with $10,000 in bankroll and $2,500 for expenses (At 42 I'm also too old and too well off to stay at the Flamingo and eat the $6.99 breakfast special). 

I'm expecting to do most of my playing at Bay 101 which may have the best $5 big blind games that have ever consistently existed anywhere. Let me tell you why they're so good.

1) No small games in the house. Bay 101 has done away with the $3 big blind no limit game meaning the $2/$3/$5 is the smallest game in the house and it has a minimum buy-in of $500 (maximum of $800). Tons of players who would love to play smaller are forced to play larger.

2) Ton's of money in the area. The San Jose area is loaded with a mix of twenty something software engineers who work at Google or Facebook and retired (but not that old) people who have made money is various startup boom cycles over the last 25 years.

3) The game often plays with a $10 straddle. Unlike other places I've played where players will agree to an orbit of straddles where everyone puts out the extra $10 for one round, it's common for 2-3 players to put out the $10 straddle and not expect the remaining players to do so. Putting in $10 of total blinds per orbit while some others are putting in $20 is a tremendous advantage to us nits. 

4) The game plays very fast. This is a combination of strong dealers and a player pool with a lot of regulars who don't think too hard about anything but the biggest decisions. We might be getting 25% more hands per hour than you'd get in Vegas.

5) I see very few pros. A pro level rate of return in a $5 big blind game is generally around $50 an hour. That's a ton of money in most parts of the country, but in the bay area it's not as much and the alternative career opportunities are much stronger than almost anywhere.

6) There are bigger games in town. Bay 101 runs a $2,000 max buy-in "deep stack" $2/$3/$5 game that always plays with a $10 straddle from every player as well as $5/$5/$10 that is really $5/$5/$10/$20. This draws off the top level players.

7) Great game selection. It's typical to find 6 or 7 $2/$3/$5 games going at any one time meaning you can table change of any particular game is too tough.

Anyway, these are great games! My hope is to blog about my Friday night sessions on Sunday mornings. Wish me luck!

2022 WSOP and What's Next for My Poker Life

Look at me winning with AA at the WSOP! Fun!

From late 2018 to mid 2022 I only played poker a half dozen times at most. But recently I got fired up to play again. Over the past 18 months I've been playing a ton of chess. It's hard and I am not good, but it makes me appreciate how much I know about poker. I still have a lot to learn in poker and I'm not good enough to compete with the top echelon pro players these days, but I can still stomp the faces of recreational players.

I also got the urge to blog again so here we are!

In June I played 3 sessions of $2/$3/$5 with an $800 max buy in at Bay 101 in San Jose. I had a $270 loss, a $340 win and a $2,050 win in 3 roughly 5 hour sessions on Friday nights (my chip stack from the last pictured below). 

With a couple thousand in profit I sold my wife on somewhat short notice trip to Vegas for a long weekend. I fired 3 bullets in the $400 buy-in Colossus and played some cash at the Bellagio as well.

The one highlight hand was getting AA vs AK against the worst, loosest player at my table as shown above. Nothing crazy happened and doubling up early felt great.

The lowlight is shown here. The guy on the right with the words on his shirt who was rationalizing his sus play when this picture was taken, joined our table a few hours in. Before he came the table was a filled exclusively with passive, highly recreational players. 

Side note: those of us with some class try not to disparage the weaker players these days. While I could say I was playing with fish, donkeys, suckers, pigeons, whales, marks, clowns, and shit for brains low roller ass hats, and be completely accurate, I like the word recreational. As in you "bro, you would not believe how recreational this shit for brains low roller ass hat was."

Anyway, the rationalizing villain seemed decent and was certainly active and aggressive. Factually he was friendly and charming, but I instantly disliked him for no good reason. Maybe it was because he was running crazy good, had his 40K starting stack up to 200K in a couple of hours and I was seething with envy. Who knows?!

In the pictured hand, the blinds were 1K/2K with a 2K big blind ante, he raised to 4,500, and I called in the big blind after one other call with T6 of spades. The flop came down A 7 5 all spades! Zing! I checked, the villain bet 6K, the other player folded and I shipped it for 55K. This is a somewhat big over bet, but I thought it made my hand look like a flush draw as opposed to a made flush. My opponent thought for about a minute and called with K of spades, 8 of clubs.

The turn was the 4 of hearts, but sadly the river was the Q of spades and that was it. My opponent said he thought I had and ace in which case this is still probably a fold, but I guess not that bad.

In my other two bullets I got ground down to under 10 big blinds without ever getting my starting stack more than a few thousand above where it started, both times shoved with Ax and both times ran into pocket aces! Gross! 

In the lead up to this trip and since I returned I've been following along with some poker vloggers on YouTube and maybe 2 dozen players on twitter. Their excitement is contagious. While my 2022 WSOP is over, I'm already thinking ahead to the 2023 WSOP.

I'll share my plans for the time between now and then in my next post. 

2018 WSOP $565 PLO Recap

Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) is not my best game. Against a good PLO player or in a tough PLO game I'd normally be at a big disadvantage. But I liked my chances just fine in the $565 PLO event at this years WSOP for a few reasons.

First off, the dynamics of managing a tournament and sensing strength or weakness cross over from game to game. Secondly, I had the mindset that this was a minor part of my schedule so I was feeling zero fear of going for it when needed. Thirdly the players I faced generally fell into three categories that were a function of the fact that this was an official WSOP event that allowed for unlimited reentries - 1) Not good PLO players who were just playing because it was the only event starting that day 2) Good PLO players taking big risks early planning to reenter as many times as needed to build a healthy stack 3) Decent PLO players for whom this event was a big deal who were only willing to enter once. Almost everyone fell into one of these buckets.

My challenge was to sort out who was who and then exploit the weakness in each of these types of players. The first two types will end up calling to raising too much with middling strength hands and the last group will fold too much and play too passively.

As we were first sitting down there were only 3 people at the table and one guy asked what would happen if he waited a while for more people to arrive before playing (answer - your stack gets blinded off). I put him in category #3. Other guys when they came to our table mentioned how many times they'd bought in already (i.e. "This is bullet number 3 for me") I usually put them in category 2.

Another big clue was - "Is this guy from Europe?" PLO is much more common in Europe, they can play online which means they probably have more experience and if you're traveling to Vegas from Europe it's much more likely that you're a serious player than if you drove out for the weekend from L.A.

Eventually there were 2,419 entries with a first place prize of $181,790 and the top 363 finishing in the money. We started with 5,000 chips, blinds of 25/50 and the levels increasing every 30 minutes planning to play 18 levels on Day 1.

I ended up re-entering one time after going nowhere this my first bullet. After getting a run of garbage hands for the first couple of hours I was down to about 3,000 chips when I got dealt AK99 with K9 of spades which was the best hands I'd seen all day. The cutoff raised to 500, the button called and I was in the perfect spot for a squeeze in the big blind. I raised pot, the cutoff went all in with KJT3 with two hears and the other guy folded. I was a 55/45 favorite preflop, after a flop of Q76 with one spade I was 72% to win and after a turn of the 3 of spades I was 80% to win, but the river was a red jack and that was it.

I re-entered and I was sent to a new table with a fresh stack of 5,000 chips. At my new table the person who stood out was 2010 Main Event winner and 3 time bracelet winner Jonathan Duhamel. He was the 9th different world champion that I've played against which I think is pretty cool and he ended up finishing 6th in this event. A little later Barry Greenstein who has at least one PLO bracelet joined our table as well.

My first big hand came up with blinds of 200/400. I got dealt AQT2 with the AT of spades, raised to 1,400, someone went all in for 2,250, another player cold called and I called the extra 850. I only had 1,500 left and my plan was to shove almost all flops as I was basically pot committed. To my delight the flop came down Q92 all spades meaning I had the nuts. I didn't see much point it checking so I just shipped it, the other player folded and I help up against the all in. Now I had 8,300 chips.

A couple hands later I raised QQJ7 double suited with spades and hearts to 1,400 from the cutoff and got called by the button and the big blind. The flop came down JT2 with one spade and two diamonds. This is where a good PLO player would know if this was and obvious time to bet, a good time to check or in between. I wasn't sure, but my thinking in the moment was I'd be ahead of a flush draw or straight draw unless it was a big wrap like KQ87, I'd have some backdoor flush and straight equity against TT or JT and since I had a J in my hand JJ was much less likely. I ended up going for it and bet the pot which was 4,200. I got called by the button and the turn came out the 4 of diamonds. This was a dreadful card and I was now drawing dead to a flush and that was a highly likely hand for him to have. But with 12,600 in the pot and only 1,900 left in my stack I fired it all in. My opponent called and flipped over AQ95 which was a bare straight draw. The river was a 7 and I was up to about 17K.

In the next big hand I made a read, trusted it and was right. I was in the big blind with AKJ7 with KJ of diamonds, two early position players just called and the small blind came along as well. This hand might warrant a raise here, but I'm not sure. Anyway the flop came down A74, rainbow with one diamond. I bet out 2,000 with top two pair and the first limper raised me to 6,000 with about 1,900 left. I stopped to think about what my opponent could have. If he had AA in his hand he'd likely have raised preflop. There aren't too many hands with 44 or 77 in them that are playable from early position. There was not a possible flush draw. What I was left with was he must have some kind of straight draw. I thought it was probably something like 4567 or AK65. After about 45 seconds I put him all in and he turned over 5678. With his wrap straight draw vs my two pair we were almost exactly 50/50. The turn was a 3! No! The river was an A! Hooray! Now I was up to 26,000 and feeling like no matter what re-entering was a good idea.

In the next hand there was only one way to go. I had AAKT with the KT of hearts (which is a premium hand) and 23K in my stack. I raised in the cutoff to 2,100 and the button raised to 7,200. In PLO a hand with AA will be favored against any hand that does not have AA in it, and not only that but I had a good hand with AA in it. When it got back to me I paused for 10 seconds, said "Pot" meaning I wanted to raise the max and we both put all of our chips in. My opponent who had me covered by a couple thousand chips turned over AA75 with the A5 of hearts. I assumed that I would be ahead here as we both have AA and I had KT compared to his 75, but it turns out that we're 55.3% to chop, I'm 17.9% to win and he's 26.8% to win. I guess the ability of 75 to make straights and him having me dominated in hearts is a big deal. Anyway the flop came out 644 with two hearts which made me want to puke. I was now less than 1% to win and 48% to chop. The turn was the 8 of hearts meaning I needed a 4 on the river to chop, but instead it was a brick and I was out.

It's never fun to get busted with a strong hand, but I'm glad I was 100% sure what to do on this one and not left with any regrets or doubts.

HORSE Day 2 Recap

It was a short torturous Day 2 for me ending 45 minutes in after a couple of diabolical Razz hands. As expected I was pissed and not in the best mindset to late register for a $1500 short handed event. On to $565 PLO which is a reentry event. I may fire 2 bullets at this one if needed.

2018 WSOP $1,500 HORSE - Ups, Downs and Playing With Phil Ivey

When I play back these tournaments in my head it's all about the hands, but I don't think I have any Stud or Razz enthusiasts reading so I'll keep the hand recaps to a minimum and focus on the broader picture. 

We started with 7,500 chips, 60 minute levels with a 20 minute break after ever other level and a 75 minute dinner break after level 6 with Day 1 ending after level 10. Also worth noting is we switched from one game to the next in the HORSE mix every 8 hands.

I got off to a shitty start and was down under 5,000 chips in the final minutes of the second level. I won the last hand of the level which got me even, but at the start of level 3 took a dip down to about 4,000 chips. At this point I started thinking about what I might do with the rest of my day after an early bust out. 

The table I was on was in the middle of a group of 15 tables and every now and then I'd stretch my legs and look around. Looking at the other players it was like I was playing a game of "Is this person someone from the bay area, a poker celebrity or just a random dude." There was Phil Helmuth who was unmistakeable, a guy who looked like someone I know from the Oaks, but upon closer inspection was not anyway I knew and a guy I knew from somewhere who I finally realized was multiple bracelet winner Barry Greenstein. I saw Chuck from Bay 101 and I saw 2005 Main Event Champ Greg Raymer. I saw online legend Jon Turner and some dude who was no one. I realized in that 15 table group there were (at least) 3 guys who had written poker books that I had read.

But the field was pretty soft. HORSE is not a game for the new school crushers and there were loads of passive old dudes in the mix as well. 

My luck turned around in level 3 and 4 and my 4,000 chips stack quickly ballooned to 16,900 by the second break. I made some hands, but also I did a great job of running over the weaker players. Some guys bail in the stud games if they catch one bad card or when I catch one good one. If you lean on them at all they fold way more than they should. 

After coming back from that break they stopped all of the tournament action in the room to award a WSOP Bracelet to a recent winner. He was from France so they played the French national anthem and his wife and friends joined him up on stage and he gave a little speech! I thought that was cool. Here is a terrible picture of that:

I continued to play well and run well and by the dinner break I was up to about 24,000 coming back to stakes of 400/800. This was a comfortable stack and in my mind I thought about it like playing a $20/$40 cash game with $1,200 which is something I can relate to and I know is plenty to work with. I had a Smash Burger for dinner which hit the spot and then went and sat by the pool for 10 minutes. That felt amazing and is going to be a dinner break habit.

Levels 7 and 8 felt like they did not go well, but when I counted down my chips I still had 22,800.

After another break we came back at about 9:30 pm, to start level 9. Registration was open for 8 levels or technically to the start of level 9 and a few people took advantage of that. One of those people was Phil Ivey and he got seated at my table! Phil has been almost without argument considered one of the top 4 or 5 poker players in the world for the 15-20 years. He's crushed at the biggest tournaments, the biggest online games and the biggest cash games year after year winning tens of millions of dollars.

Anyway, he still got the same 7,500 chip stack that we all started with which was pretty short at this point. He had his headphones on and didn't say a word other than to ask how much longer we'd be playing that day and one hoarse whisper of "raise." Some guy came over to talk to him that seemed like a friend and he responded with a look. Another sentence from the guy got a different look. A third sentence and a third look, but no words and the guy was off. 

I won a nice pot right after he arrived and was up to 30,000 chips and feeling great. But then things turned south for us both. Phil only won one small pot in Hold'em and half an Omaha pot in the 67 minutes he was at our table before busting. Poker News reporters were camped around out table to cover all of the totally unexciting action.

Briefly worth noting is that 2012 Main Event runner up (who won $5.2M for the effort) Jesse Silvia was at our table for a couple of hours, also short stacked, and who also went busto fairly quickly. 

Anyway, I went down the toilet big time in the last level. The stretch that sticks with me is when I had a couple of hands in the stud hi-lo where I had a low draw and a flush draw and bricked out on both and on one of those I also had a straight draw and even pairing two of my cards would have been good for the high half of the pot. It was frustrating to have my worst run outs in the biggest level of the day.

But I did survive to Day 2. I only have 9,100 chips left, but I'm still in it with a chance. 256 players of the 731 entrants made it through Day 1. The chip leader has 98,600 and I'm in 173rd which is better than I might have expected. If i make it to 110th that will pay $2,253 and if I turn things around first place is $202,787. Level 11 is 1000/2000 so I've got enough for about one big hand and will need help early. We redrew tables for the next day so I'll have new slate of opponents.

Also of note, it's very unlikely that I will the play the No Limit 6 Max event today. I could register late if I bust in the HORSE, but after busting in any tournament you're not in a great mindset and I played a long ass day yesterday so I think my next event will be Friday's PLO.

Also of note, if you've never see what they do with our chips overnight, it's kind of interesting. You put your name, table number and seat number on this taper evident bag.

The give you this little carbon copy form that has your day 2 table and seat and creates 3 copies - one to go in the bag, one to go to the dealer and one that you keep.

Then the dealer collects all the bags.

And each one of these orange bags is for Day 2 table. 

Lastly the proper way to celebrate making day 2 without actually making they money is not with Champagne, but with a tall boy of The Champagne of Beers. On to Day 2!

2018 WSOP Photos and Getting Juiced Up to Play Poker

I landed in Vegas at 7:30 Tuesday and by about 8:45 I was checked in to the Rio, registered for the HORSE and eating some fajitas at "Guy Fieri's El Burro Borracho." This restaurant used to be Buzzios which was a fine dining seafood restaurant with great lobster and my favorite place to eat at the Rio. The entire Rio seems to have taken similar step down. When I first stayed here 16 years ago it was 10 years old and if not in the top echelon it was in the next tier. Now it feels like the Guy Fieri of Vegas hotels.

The poker and the WSOP in general have gone in the other direction. The logistics of this operation are mind boggling. Today there two bracelet events starting, but also two Day 2's, a Day 3 and a Day 4 of previous events along with four one day tournaments (that have no prestige and $200-$300 buy ins) and two mega satellites. That's 12 tournaments with hundreds or thousands of entrants where people need to show ID and their players club card to register and get paid out and get served drinks and if anything doesn't run smoothly there will be loud bitching.

I managed to keep the discipline in place and was sober and in my room by 9:30 without having bet on anything. I got 9 hours of sleep and woke up feeling about as good as I ever have after a night in Vegas. I'm sure the discipline will crack at some point, but for now I'm in tip top shape.

Now, pictures!

 The first thing you see as you walk toward the WSOP area. Get juiced up!

 Looking through that door the tables look like they go off to infinity. If you can look at this in person and not get even more juiced up about playing poker, you do not have a pulse.

They are clearly promoting certain tournaments and those will be the ones with the biggest and softest fields.

This is 'The Kings Room" where they are playing the bigger cash games. They had some $50/$100 and $75/$150 HORSE and Omaha games going in there, but no super big no limit games or real nose bleed games. Not too busy on a Tuesday night, but pretty plush looking.

This is part of the Brasilia room where I will be playing in a hour or two.

This is half of the Amazon Room. The entire WSOP - the bracelet events, satellites, daily tournaments, cash games, and the cashier were all in this one room the first year I was here in 2005.

Here is the other half of the Amazon Room with the featured table set in the middle.

Here is a closer look at the featured table set. If you watch any live streams on twitch or eventually on ESPN this is where that all takes place. If you look closely you can see the stands for fans in the back which are only big enough to hold maybe 100 people. How cool would it be to play on that table! JUICED UP!

Another picture of me looking like a chump taking photos with the WSOP backgrounds.

This is the biggest room of tables. There are hundreds of tables in here. This picture does not do it justice.

Here is another stage with a poker table on it. Not sure what they use this for exactly. Maybe when two final tables are going off concurrently?

And now, it's go time!

My 2018 WSOP Schedule

I'm off to Vegas today for the 8th lifetime visit to the World Series of Poker! I played 1 event in 2015, but this is my first real shot at it since 2010. The 2018 WSOP consists of 78 events with buy ins ranging from $365 to $1,000,000 going off at the Rio over the course of 7 weeks. I'll be rolling in to town with a five figure bankroll in my pocket planning to play 4 or 5 official WSOP events over the course of about a week and possibly one or two of the hundreds of other side tournaments taking place all over town.

I'll be posting pictures, recaps, results and stories on this blog daily.

Here are the events I'm playing and how they shaped up last year.

Wednesday June 5th - $1,500 HORSE
2017 Entrants: 736
2017 Prize Pool: $993,600
2017 First Place: $203,709
2017 Place needed to cash for $10,000: 12th place paid $11,193
2017 Money Bubble: 111th place paid $2,247, 112th or worse paid $0
Additional info: HORSE is a mix of 5 different games: (H)old'em, (O)maha Hi-Lo split, (R)azz, 7 Card (S)tud and 7 Card Stud (E)ight or Better. I made the money in the $3,000 HORSE event at the WSOP in 2009 finishing 27th of 489 which is my best WSOP finish and my second biggest cash ever was in a $1,000 HORSE tournament when I finished 4th of 445.

Thursday June 6th - $1,500 No Limit Hold'em 6 handed
2017 Entrants: 1,748
2017 Prize Pool: $2,359,800
2017 First Place: $393,273
2017 Place needed to cash for $10,000: 36th place paid $10,074
2017 Money Bubble: 263rd place paid $2,247, 264th or worse paid $0
Additional info: Playing 6 handed games was my specialty when I was an online poker pro so I'm hoping to have a nice edge. Getting a good table draw will be huge in this event as it's easier to crush weaker players short handed and harder to stay out of the way of the strong players.

Friday June 7th - $565 Pot Limit Omaha
2017 Entrants: 3,186
2017 Prize Pool: $1,593,000
2017 First Place: $224,344
2017 Place needed to cash for $10,000: 15th place paid $11,754
2017 Money Bubble: 479rd place paid $831, 480th or worse paid $0
Additional info: I've never played a PLO tournament at the WSOP and never played PLO in person, but I played maybe 100 PLO tournaments online between 2006-2010 and the low buy in is likely to attract a soft field. This one will be a crapshoot!

Saturday June 8th - $1,500 "Millionaire Maker" No Limit Hold'em
2017 Entrants: 7,761
2017 Prize Pool: $10,477,350
2017 First Place: $1,221,407
2017 Place needed to cash for $10,000: 90th place paid $11,079
2017 Money Bubble: 1,165th place paid $2,249, 1,166th or worse paid $0
Additional info: This is my main event! 1st place is guaranteed to be over $1,000,000 and that attracts a ton of amateurs and total novices from all over the country.

Sunday June 9th - $1,500 "Millionaire Maker" No Limit Hold'em Take 2!
Additional info: This event has two day #1's with the remaining players combining on Monday June 10th, but if you don't clear Day 1 on Saturday you can try again on Sunday.

The first 3 are 3 days tournaments where on the first day we'll play about to the money bubble (i.e. about 15% of players will clear the first day), on the second day we'll plan down to the final table (i.e. the top 8 or 9), and on the third day we'll play down to a winner. The last one is a 4 day tournament (5 days if you count each day 1 as it's own day).

I have 3 goals for this year: Strike First! Strike Hard! No Mercy!

Project Phaser: Phase 3.5 ($550 No Limit Turbo) The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

On Friday we started with 20,000 in chips, but a turbo structure of 15 minute limits that projected to have the tournament completed in 5 or 6 hours. 121 people put up the $550 buy in, the top 16 spots paid with 16th being $1,180 and 1st place being $17,000.

My table was filled with talkers. The guy to my left referred to the tournament buy in as "The Ante" and seemed highly confused, while the guy to my right mentioned that he was going to be in Vegas for the first 3 weeks of the World Series of Poker. Two other guys were talking about the World Series of Poker and their past experience there, but from the specific stories they told it made it clear that they were recreational players.

In normal life I'd LOVE to share WSOP stories. I have a lot of them and enjoy hearing other people stories. I'm also proud of my poker accomplishments. But I didn't want to give these guys any clues about me and I had the discipline to keep my mouth shut about myself and my history.

I got into a pot with Mr. Confused in the first level that could have been a big deal. With blinds of 100/100 we were both in the blinds and checked our options. I had J6 in the small blind, flopped two pair on a J 6 8 flop. I bet out 200 and got called. The turn was a 3 and I bet 500 into the 600 chip pot. Again my opponent called. The river was a 4 and I checked hoping to induce a bluff. Like clockwork my opponent bet out 1,200, I called and took it down against J3 which was also two pair. The villain probably should have raised the turn and I probably should have raised the river, but it was a fine pot for that level.

And that was the only hand that was worth noting in the first 5 levels. Coming back from break I had 15K with the blinds at 300/500 with a 500 big blind ante.

About 25 minutes later without much of story to it, I got ground down to 10,300 and with blinds of 300/600 I looked down at 55 in the cutoff. If I had 10 big blinds or less this is a clear shove, but with 17 big blinds going all in here is a little excessive. Although I told myself I'd rather go out guns blazing and take a chance when a double up would put me back to decent shape than to wait too long, get blinded off and need multiple breaks to get back in it. With that said, I ripped it!

Sadly the small blind quickly moved all in as well and had QQ. Luckily I had her covered by 2,600 so I was still alive when I didn't find a 5.

A few hands later I went all in for 2,600 with T9 and took down the blinds uncontested. I folded everything until I was in the small blind where I got dealt K5 of diamonds. One player had called in middle position, I called and the big blind checked his option. The flop came down 993 with one diamond and it checked around. The tun was an interesting card, the 3 of diamonds. There was 2400 in the pot and I had 2,300 left. With some chance I actually had the best hand and drawing pretty live if I got called by a hand like A high or 77, I moved all in. The middle position player quickly called me and to my delight he turned over JT of diamonds. The river was the Q of diamonds and now I was up to 7K.

On the next hand the same guy just called preflop and I looked down at A8 on the button. Since I'd just seen him limp with JT of diamonds I assumed he probably had something similar. With 11 or 12 big blinds this was a good time to go for it, so I shipped it, and the big blind moved all in with QQ over the top. ACK! Why do these damn blinds keep waking up with QQ?

I didn't hit an ace and that was it.

Going out with Ax vs a big pair has been a common theme in Project Phaser. Based on my results you'd think that A8 had like a 5% chance to beat QQ, but it's 29%! And 55 is in deep shit against QQ, but it's still 19% to win.

My next big thing is the mother fuckin' World Series of Poker! Whoop whoop! My first day of play will be on June 6th, but I do have 7 days of cash games planned between now and then and am hoping to find a day to crank out about 15 small online poker tournaments so I expect to post a couple of times between now and then.

My $10,000 starting bankroll is now at $9,630.

Project Phaser: Phase 3.4 ($350 Limit Omaha Hi-Lo) The Torture Chamber

Before I get into today's post and word on Omaha Hi-Lo. Skip it if you know how to play Omaha.

In Omaha each player is dealt 4 cards instead of 2 and you must use EXACTLY 2 cards from your hand and EXACTLY 3 cards from the board to make your hand (in hold'em you can use 0, 1 or 2 cards from your hand and 5, 4 or 3 from the board). In Omaha Hi-Lo the highest hand and the lowest hand split the pot, but in order to make a low you have to be able to make a 5 card hand with 5 cards of different rank 8 and below. If there is no low hand the high hand gets the entire pot. Aces are both the highest card and the lowest card making them very powerful and you can use the same cards or different cards for the high hand and low hand. The best starting hand is AA23 with A2 of the same suit and A3 of the same suit, but generally any hand with A2 or A3 in it is good as you can make a really strong low hand and hope to back into some kind of high hand. Aces are great, low cards are good, high cards are OK and middling cards like 6,7,8,9 are total garbage. Also this game is usually played fixed limit meaning you can't just bet all of your chips, there are set amounts that you can bet or raise (equal to the one big blind before the flop and on the flop, and 2 big blinds on the turn or river). Boom! That's Omaha Hi-Lo.

Now on to the actual tournament!

We started with 85 players each getting 10,000 in chips and blinds of 25/50 and I found myself at a great table.

But before I get to the tournament a word on word choice. There are a ton of common phrases for bad player such as: fish, donkeys (or just donks if you prefer!), suckers, chumps, clowns, rubes and so on. The classy thing to do is to call them recreational players, because after all no one is born knowing how to play poker and losing players are there to have fun. I think this is the right thing to do and I try to use this most respectful term whenever I can.

With that said, these chumps were HIGHLY recreational. Donks don't get more recreational than these clowns!

The guy two to my right did not fold a single hand preflop. Not one! On the second or third hand he got to showdown and I saw him turn over 9864 and I was like "Recreational Player Alert!" Then another guy raised what turned out to be J844 under the gun. The other players were not much better!

I wanted to play this tournament because tournament players don't get to play much Omaha and Omaha players don't get to play many tournaments. I've played some number in the hundreds of hours of Omaha, thousands and thousands of tournaments and some poker stuff translates across all games. But I was worried that I might run into some Omaha specialists. Nope! Every singe player at the table did something that was categorically unjustifiable.

I got garbage for 45 minutes and then I finally found a good hand. I came in raising with A25T with the A5 of spades, two players called and Mr. Never Fold 3 bet it with KQJ8, I 4 bet it and we took the flop 4 ways. The flop came down K43 with the 43 of spades. This meant I had the nut low draw, the nut flush draw, and an A, 2 or 5 would make me a straight. Mr. Never fold had a pair of kings, no low draw, no spade draw and no clue. I bet, he raised, I reraised and he 4 bet it (4 bets is a cap meaning I couldn't raise again). I should point out that no one who has played Omaha for more than a couple of hours would even call the flop here let alone go balls to the wall in a multiway pot.

We took the turn 3 way and it came out a red Q. Now I needed an 8,7,6,5,2 or A to make the nut low plus 7 of the spades and 3 other jacks to make the nut high. Mr. Never Fold bet, I made a questionable raise, the other guy called and it came back to me at 3 bets. I just called and the river came out an 8. I made the nut low, but I had no high so when Mr. Never Fold bet, I just called, the other guy called and I got half the pot.

In the second hour of play the torture really started. Keep in mind that every hand has been going down like the above where Mr. Never Fold and many others are WAY over playing their hands. In the course of 5 hands at 100/200 blinds I got dealt a hand with an A2, and two with A3 suited and I just totally bricked out. This is kind of the equivalent of getting an AK and pocket jacks twice and losing them all, but it's worse because it's a split pot game. Missing out on high and low 3 times with really strong hands was rough.

In the first two hours I won two half pots and that's it.

A little later at the 200/400 blinds level I get dealt AQJ8 with the QJ of diamonds in the big blind and call a raise to 800 5 ways. The flop comes down K99 with one diamond and it checks around. The turn brings out the A of diamonds giving me a gut shot, top pair and a Q high flush draw. It checks around to Mr. Never Fold who bets and I call. Under normal conditions you'd never call with the #2 flush draw on a paired board in a 5 way pot, but I knew none of these clowns was checking a 9 or KK on that flop or AA on that turn and Mr. Never Fold could have anything. The preflop raiser also called.

It turns out I was up against QQJ6 that had raised preflop (THIS IS SO TERRIBLE!), and AJ85 from Mr. Never Fold. If you look at the board of K99A what do they need to hit to win? This is an astoundingly rare spot where I have two players drawing almost totally dead with a really marginal hand. The raiser needs the last queen or two 9's to scoop and a non diamond T to chop. Mr. Never Fold has no outs.

The river came out a T which I thought was a good card and I got half the pot, but when the cards got turned over I was like "WHAT THE FUCK! HOW IS QQJ6 OVER CALLING THE TURN! CAN I GET A CLEAN RIVER ONE TIME! THIS IS TORTURE!"

And that was one of my good hands.

On my final hand I got a free look in the 600 chip big blind with KQ73 with the Q3 of spades. The flop came down Q72 with two spades giving me top two pair and a flush draw. I bet out and stack off for 4 bets on the flop and one bet on the turn with AQ84. On the flop I'm 79% to win the high, 25% to scoop and 5% to win the low, but the turn was an A and the river was a 9 and that was it.

Torture!

My $10,000 starting bankroll is now at $10,180.