Live poker, blah

Last Sunday I played the Venetian 1k event which had 10k chips to start and a 1 hour clock. The automatic shufflers also meant we saw a lot more hands per hour compared to manual shuffling. The Venetian card room itself is very nice and has really comfy chairs something that is a rarity in card rooms. So onto the tournament itself and I drew a really weak table, but couldn’t hit a flop or hit a draw for the first hour and dwindled down to 5k. A guy then opens UTG+1 for 400 (4xBB), and I flat call in the cut off with JJ, the BB also calls. The flop comes K J x, two hearts, BB checks and original raiser fires 1200, I move in and he calls with AK. A king hit the turn, at which point my opponent celebrated, and went to shake my hand when a blank hit the river. He was clearly under the impression that his 3 kings now beat my 3 jacks, lol. That pot put me back over 10k, and it was pretty one way traffic to the dinner break. The next big pot, a tight guy makes it 1200 UTG (bb = 200) and I look at QQ in the BB, all fold to me and make the call, with no real idea what he has. The flop is Q J x, I check and he checks behind, turn is another low card and I check again, this time he bets 1600, I make it 4k total and he immediately ships in his 12k stack. I call with the nuts and he tables AJ, wp gg. I managed to get my stack to around 50k at dinner with blinds starting at 600/1200 after dinner.

I reckon my food was spiked in the dinner break as I played so bad afterwards it was scary. I don’t remember any specifics, but just playing generally horrible, bluffing in terrible spots and just wasting chips needlessly. This led me to being short stacked in the 800/1600 level, and I re-raised a guy all in with AQ, unfortunately someone behind found AK and even though I flopped 4 to the flush it wasn’t to be. Very disappointing, but only myself to blame, it is an excellent set up at the Venetian and I will be playing the 1k event again this Sunday.

Just relaxed the next couple of days, playing some online tournaments with no success. Thursday saw the start of the $5k short handed WSOP event which I final table last year, so was confident going into this one. My starting table included Toby Maguire (spiderman) so that was pretty cool and he seemed like a nice guy, very quiet. Unfortunately I made my quickest exit to date in a 10k chip event lasting a paltry 35 mins, ugh. I raised with TT and a tight player on my left who I had played with for some time in one of the 1500 events re-raised, I called and we saw a 789 flop. I lead at the flop for 600 wanting him to fold AK etc, or define his big pair now. He instantly raised me to 2k, now is where the fun starts. I was almost certain he had and over pair, AA, KK QQ etc and was also aware he was a good player. I didn’t think he would call off his whole stack, 10k total with just an over pair on such a scary board, and even on the slight chance that he did, I still had outs. So with this in mind, I shipped in my 10k, and he goes into the tank for about 2 mins. He eventually makes the call with 88 for middle set, didn’t expect that hand, and I fail to hit a T, J or 6 and exit stage left. Some my view my play as reckless and unnecessary, but I have no regrets about the play and think it gets through a very high % of the time.

Later that night I went to Pete Haslam (bullitpetes) house to relax , have a few beers and play some mindless gambling card games. We first played Chinese poker, I’ve never played before buts it pretty simple and managed to luck a small profit. Then we played Shoot, and I ran so bad, constantly losing my bank to people shooting and winning, and also shooting and losing for $1k. Pete ‘walks on water’ Haslam, was the big winner never missing when shooting, including a $2k shot, lol. All good fun even though I was stuck $2k, so rigged. Just gonna chill out for a few days before the Venetian on Sunday where I can hopefully amass a good stack again, but no muff it.