Month: June 2008

I stayed up late Friday night to get acclimated to the new time zone. I was hoping to break my usual habit of waking up in the pre-dawn hours in Vegas. Sin City is not really a morning town. I stayed up until 2:30, I think. I was quite pleased when I woke up and turned on SportsCenter to discover that it was past 8:00AM. Unfortunately, that turned out to be East Coast time, so it was really 5:00am. W00tah, three hours sleep. That should do me good.

After goofing off on the internet, enjoying my comped breakfast and making sure my various gadgets were fully charged, I wandered over to the Rio. It was too early to call Pauli since I noticed he posted last at about the time I woke up. I headed down to the SNG room and they only had $175 events running, so I bought into one. They advised me it would be my last, because they were going to set up the room for overflow space for Event 2A. The guy to my left asked me if I would be interested in a last longer bet. Since he proposed it, I figured he might be an experienced player, but I figured it might add some drama. I assumed it would be for like $20, but he dropped $100 on the table. I joined and the guy on his left said he would join if someone else did and then the guy to his left said he would join if someone else did so the guy in the 10 seat joined in too. I was in the six seat, so our whole end of the table was in the chop. The other end was mostly older rocky looking guys, so I figured this would set up a real nitfest. The one seat decided $500 was too much to pass up so he joined too and we had six of the ten in the last longer. The one seat busted in the first level in spectacular fashion. There were four limpers and he raised in the small blind. His raise was smallish for all the limpers, like 150 or so at 25/25. The UTG player shoved without any apparent thought. I figured him 100% for a big pair, because live guys limp-shove with pretty much AA. I figure the very loosest is QQ+/AK. Seat one calls his stack (another 850 or so!) with ATs. He doesn’t catch and my equity just went up $20 in the last longer pool. I really had only one interesting hand where I caught bottom pair in the big blind after a walk. It checked around. The turn gave me a rough two pair and I led out about the size of the small pot. The button min-raised me and I almost shoved, but he was looking extremely confident so I just called. The river made a straight possible and brought a ton of paint, so I check called. He flopped top two pair and I took a hit, but not nearly as big a hit as I might have. This moved me well into shovebot territory and I did. I shoved like twice an orbit for a while and only got called once by a guy who was even shorter than me. I had him crushed with 88 against 66. About my fourth or fifth shove, I pushed first in on the button with a suited King and the BB folded AQs face up. He was in the last-longer and I began to really like the last longer bet. Another guy was down to like 2x the BB trying to talk us into a 3 way chop for the last longer. A 3 way chop would give us each a $100 profit and he’d still be down $75 for his original buy-in so this defies belief. He got busted soon thereafter and we were four handed. I had him outchipped 2:1 to and he wanted to deal. I offered a chip chop where I took $400 and he took $200, but he figured he would play it out. He shoved soon thereafter and was called. I forget the hands, but he was like KJ against AQ, but he caught good and doubled up. We were now even and I agreed to an even chop. I was now freerolling the SNG. I busted the guy who doubled up my last longer bud with KK. Then the SB limps into my BB and I shove with KQ. He has Ace-rag and flops it to cripple me. I shove the next hand with crap and bust. Ship me the $25, I’m rich!

I can’t play any more SNGs so I hook up with Pauli and we decide to go shopping for supplies. I like to keep a few snacks in my backpack for the tourney so I can get a little something in the middle if I want to. I decide that Wal*Mart would be a good American experience for Pauli and I load up on nuts and whatnot. Pauli starts whining about not getting his favorite protein bars. He corners some Wal*Mart guy and asks him where protein bars are located and the guy doesn’t understand a single word Pauli is saying. Live, I don’t think Pauli’s accent is that bad, but this guy thought he was speaking Martian. To shut Pauli up, I drove him to GNC where he gets all excited about the various chemical compounds that we are willing to sell to people who want to be lab rats, but he finds the bars he likes and seems happy. When his UK discount card for GNC actually works, he actually is so disgustingly happy I can’t stand it. This turns into a borderline gay guy spa day when he joins me for a fancy shave at the place at Mandalay Bay. We also breeze through the shark exhibit and gorge ourselves on the buffet for lunch.

We roll back to the Rio and meet up with Chrisjp and Elmo. The three of us head over to the Palms to collect our Stars logo gear and show them our proof of entry to the event so that they will give us the rest of our cash into Stars. After that, we go play a SNG, electing to pass on the Supersat to the Main. Matthew and his friend play that. Elmo and I are at teh same SNG and I outlast him, but bust soon afterwards in 5th. I flopped an oesd with QT, but the other guy flopped a flush draw. He calls my stop and go shove and catches his draw. There were still a lot of folks filling the tourney tables and the list is long for limit, so I play some $500 NL. The play is astonishingly terrible, but I lose $40 because I can’t hit a flop to save my life. Matthew busts out of the super and suggests dinner. Elmo and I get up from our cash games and meet up with Pauli. We end up at the seafood place at the Rio, which is pretty good. We have a good meal with lots of poker talk. When we finish, we decide to get an early bed (like 11, I think). On the way out, we meet Matthew’s friend who has read 1.5 poker books and just won a seat in the Main Event in the super. He said he flopped five sets in the first couple of hours. I haven’t flopped a set all day, so I guess they are waiting for tomorrow.

I got about five hours sleep last night, which isn’t too bad for me. I got up super-early, but I went to bed fairly early so I should be OK. Also, today will only go to midnight, so it won’t be so tough. Today the WSOP begins in earnest for me and I will be podcasting like mad. We have a huge field of ITHers, so hopefully someone will make a deep run!