Final post

First I'd like to thank everyone who read this blog and supported me through this whole thing, it was a great experience and I hope to do it again.

It's not fun to talk about how I lost, but I'll go through with it, so here goes.

Basically, I played three hands horribly, in my opinion.

The first hand I had A9o in the bb with the blinds at 250-500 and a 50 ante, I had about 23500 at this point. One player limped from middle position, the small blind called, and I checked. The flop was 567 rainbow and it was checked around. The turn brought an A, the small blind bet out 3000, I called, as did the player in middle position. The river brought a 3, and everyone checked. The small blind showed A5o for two pair, and the player in middle position showed A3o for a worse two pair.

The second hand was my downfall. I had about 20,000 on the button with the blinds and antes the same and picked up AsQc. It was folded to me and I raised to 1600, and only the bb called, who had me covered by about 5,000. the flop came A75 with 2 hearts, he checked, I bet 2000, and he raised 4000 more to 6000. I called. The turn brought the 6h, and he put me all-in. I folded. He showed Qd8h for a complete bluff on the flop and a semi-bluff on the turn. My gut told me to call but I basically played survivor to try to find a better spot, even though I had put half my stack in at that point.

My final hand I picked up AsKc in the cutoff and had about 11,000, with the blinds and antes the same. It was folded to me and I raised to 1700, and the small blind, who had me covered, reraised to 5000. I pushed, and he called with QQ, and I went out with a board of 77565.

I picked this time of day to write the final post of this blog as I can't sleep with my body still on Vegas time, and I don't think I'll adjust for another couple of days after the last 10 have been ridiculous in one way or another. It was a great time, but all things come to an end, so it's back to reality, for now that is. This will not be the last trip I make to a big event like this, as from here I feel I can only get better with experience. Thanks again to everyone for reading, and I look forward to my next trip weblog.

Out

Day 2 was a complete flip-flop from Day 1, nothing seemed to go well. Oh well, I've had a great time so far, and I'm going to continue to have a great time... I'll go into details later when I'm more in the mood to talk about it.

Tues-day-off

I woke up around 3 pm Las Vegas time and felt good after a good night's sleep. I paid an extra fee to use the workout facilities, then waited for 3 other buddies to get in. They arrived and we instantly went downstairs to play some table games. A few hours went by and we decided on Studio 54 at the MGM Grand, and I decided on a 1:30 curfew and a "few" drink limit. It was very fun, and I really really really wish I didn't have to leave early as they're still out and I'm here blogging... oh well. I really really really hope it goes well and I make day 3 with another healthy stack of chips, I'll set a goal of 125% of an average stack.

Next post: hopefully about 27 hours from now, with good news. Day 2 will be much tougher as I'm likely to run into much better competition, and maybe I'll even play with a celeb or "name" player. Whatever happens, it's been great thus far and I couldn't ask for anything more. 'Nite!

Some more Day 1 notes and hands

No celebs or "name" players at my table, and hardly any nearby either.

Some hands...

I have JJ in middle position with about 12,000 when the blinds are 50-100. A guy in early position and about the same size stack as me raises to 200, one calls, and I call. Flop is 578 rainbow, and original raiser bets 200. Caller folds and I raise to 700, original raiser calls. Turn is a T, opponent bets out 300 and I call. River is a 4, opponent bets out 1000 and I call. He shows A9, and I win.

Blinds are 100-200 and I have AdAc in middle position with about 14,000. One limper, I raise to 800, another behinds me calls, bb with about 10,000 calls, limper calls. Flop is 2s7s8s, checked to me and I bet 800. Only the bb calls. Turn is an offsuit 8, BB checks, I check. River is a 2, BB bets 1500, I call, he shows KcQs and I win.

Blinds are 100-200 with a 25 ante. I have 7d6d in middle position with about 17,000 and limp after another limper with about 6000, another limps behind and bb is in. Flop is JdTd6x. First limper bets 650, only I call. Turn is the Ad, limper checks and I bet 1700, he calls. River is an offsuit Q, limper checks, I bet 1500, limper calls, I show my flush and it is good.

Blinds are 100-200 with and I have about 13,000 in front of me and pick up QQ in middle position. One before me limps, I raise to 800, and guy with about 25,000 reraises to 2,500, BB calls, original limper folds, and I fold.

Blinds are 150-300 with a 25 ante and I have about 14,000 and pick up KdJd in the cutoff. It is folded to me and I raise to 1000, button (the newbie guy from the previous post) calls, blinds fold. Flop is JT8 rainbow, I bet 800, button calls. Turn is a 6, I bet 1000 and button calls. River is a 4, I bet 1700 and button calls. I show, he shows QT and my hand is good.

Blinds are 200-400 with a 50 ante and I pick up AhKc in early/middle position with about 16,000 in front of me. Up to this point, all of my raises and bets have been getting pretty good respect. UTG, who has been playing some power poker reraising all-in a few times with a shortish stack, has about 10,000 in front and raises to 1250. I re-raise to 3750, two people behind me with about 10,000 each think and sweat for about two minutes each before folding. UTG looks disgusted and calls. Flop is Q83, UTG still looks disgusted and checks, I bet enough to put UTG in and he insta-mucks.

Blinds are 100-200, I have about 19,000 in front and pick up 88 in middle position. UTG, who has about 30,000 and has been raising preflop often up to this point raises to 850. I call, as does the bb. Flop is T93. Everyone checks. Turn is a T, bb checks, UTG bets 1200, I call and bb folds. River is a 6, UTG bets 1200 and I call. He shows AK and my hand is good.

There were some other hands that I raised preflop and I either won the blinds or folded on the flop or turn, hopefully losing the least amount I could in those situations.

I hope day 2 goes just as well.

So here's what happened

My stack is up to about $25,000, it's level 3 and the blinds are 100-200. The UTG player raises to 800 and it's folded to me on the button with JJ. I call, as does the small blind who has about the same amount of chips as me, and who won his seat by a drawing and has never played a live tournament in his life, and is putting horrid beats on everyone. The flop comes AJ7 rainbow, and the small blind bets out 1000. The original raiser calls, and I raise 3500 more to 4500, the small blind instantly calls, and the original raiser folds. Turn is a K, completing the rainbow and small blind bets out 3000. I am about 75% sure he just nailed his gutshot, but with the size of the pots and outs, I call. River is a T, putting a 4 card straight out, and small blind bets out 2000. I call and he shows QT for the turned straight, and I'm sitting at about 14,000 when I just had about 25,000, boo. And that was the only hand that I can say I was disappointed by. Up to that point, I never dropped below about 9,800 (we started with 10,000) so I was never even close to being all-in, and after that point I kept cool and worked it back up to 24,650, where I now stand. So yeah, I made day 2. It's about an average stack, so I can't complain.

I play next on Wednesday at noon, Vegas time. But for now, SLEEP. I'll post more hands when I get up... later today. Whew!

Last minute thoughts

My day of play begins in a few hours, and surprisingly the nerves still haven't hit me. Like I said before, just getting here was good enough and anything on top is all gravy. If I do somehow make it through the day I'm looking to go to about 5 AM tomorrow as that his how long it has taken the previous days to finish... that's a lot of sitting at a table.

Believe me, I am hoping to get past this day, but I also realize the numbers involved... ~2100 people play down to 800, so don't be surprised if the title of my next post is "How I busted out of the 2006 WSOP". But please, don't hope for that :)

Well it's time to leave, hopefully I'll be back with good news. If I do somehow make any media coverage, I'll be sure to leave links. Thanks to everyone for their support, it's time to have some fun.

Starstruck II

La dee dah, just gettin' onto the elevator. It goes up one floor, and another person gets on. Oh, it's just Luc Robitaille getting done with a workout. Now that's the kind of star I'll be starstruck by. He should be in the Hall of Fame anytime now, pretty cool.

Starstruck

So yesterday four of us headed over to the Rio to see the day's action, and wow was it a zoo. There's also some poker expo going on so every poker site on the internet had a booth set up with tables and laptops and girls. I was there on Friday as well to finish up my registration and it was the same way. I don't care much for all of the poker hype anymore, so on Friday I registered and got the hell out of there as fast as I could. When I was there yesterday, I was there to see celebs, period. And I'm not talking about big name poker players, I was looking for the movie star types. I didn't get to see many, the only stars I recognized were Brad Garrett (from Everybody Loves Raymond) and Ron Jeremy. Quite a difference in genres. Okay, I'll mention the big name poker players I saw as well. Howard Lederer ran past me during a restroom break, and I also saw Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Annie Duke, and John Juanda from a distance.

Last night was ridiculous. We had VIP at Body English in the Hard Rock. That's all I'm saying.

Man, it's gonna be a long day. Table service with two bottles for four people is taking its toll on me now. I feel I'm lacking in creative writing today, so I'll be done. I start tomorrow, and I hope I get through the first day. Time to nap. Again.

Night 1 recap

So I'm here by myself, and for me the fun could be rated as fun^x, where x = # people, so basically I can't wait until some people show up tonight.

I decided to get to know home base, the Monte Carlo. I was walking around the table games and I found one empty table, which happened to be WAR. Yes, war, where you get a card, and they get a card. Higher card wins. The casino makes its money on the game when you actually tie and go to war, you have to match your bet to go on and the casino only matches your original bet, so you get paid 1 to 2 on your war bet. There's also a tie bet where the player wins if he ties, and gets paid 10 to 1 on that, where the true odds would pay 12 to 1. Other than that, it's all 1 to 1. So I was sitting there playing war and chatting with the dealer when a group of other young people walk up to the table and start watching. After a few hands they ask the dealer is this is really like the war that little kids play. He replies yes, and they're all amazed that the casino actually offers such a game. Then they turn their attention to me and ask my name, I give it, and then they say they're going to root for me. Okay... And that's exactly what they did for about 15 minutes. I was playing by myself, and there would be an "ohhhhh" from everyone if I lost and a "yeah!" from everybody if I won. Believe me, I never expected to get a fan club in this way. So naturally as this was the only shouting in the area at the time, others gathered around to see what was going on. Eventually about 12 people were standing behind me, watching me play war, all reacting to every card laid down. I was down to my last $10, then went on a rush to get it up over $200. With this came a lot of yelling from the crowd, and a lot of looks from the other nearby table games. After some dealer tokes and a few bad wars, I got back down to my original $100 and left, but wow, if playing war by myself attracts a loud crowd of 12, I can't imagine what playing in the WSOP with 8000 will bring.

I also played some roulette, craps, video poker, and blackjack, ending the night up a little bit. I was so tired from hardly sleeping the night before and from jet lag that I just crashed at about 11:00 pm. This will likely be the last time that I'll get a good night's sleep for the rest of this trip, so I'll enjoy the energy while I can. What to do now? I'm pondering the gym (which is an additional $20, boo), pool, visiting the Rio (where the WSOP is starting in 1 hour, 12 minutes and 4 seconds, but who's counting?), or just going downstairs and see what happens. Regardless, that's enough time alone in my room on the comp for now.

I've arrived

Everything but my sleep went smoothly, plane ride was good, hotel check-in was good, PokerStars check-in was good. And wow, did I get way more than I expected in my PS goody bag. Here's a picture from the PokerStars blog of what I got in my goody bag:



That's a lot of stuff. Included were a duffel bag, four t-shirts, a baseball jersey, a letterman's jacket, two baseball caps, a basketball jersey, a hockey jersey, a soccer jersey, a card capper, trading cards, a commemorative baseball, and a teddy bear. Wow.

So I have a day alone, I'll probably enter a small poker tournament for some practice. Not much else seeing I'll be basically living here for 10 days, so I have to pace myself. Oh, and internet costs $10.99 per day, so if the gambling's not going well, I might miss a day or two of updates :P

To be or not to be...

... a tourist. Am I going to be one of those poker nuts that goes up to every "name" player and asks for an autograph? After pondering this for a long two seconds, I have decided that no, I will not be going up to other poker players for autographs so I can show them off. I don't see poker as a profession that contributes to society, so I'm going to make these people my idols.

Honestly, I'd rather be doing almost anything else besides playing poker. I don't take pride in sitting around a table, 90% of which are usually dudes, for hours on end not knowing whether I'll win or lose, when I could be out with friends, exercising, watching movies, you get the idea. So why do I play so much if I make it sound like I hate poker? There'$ a $imple an$wer to that que$tion... and I use it to have more fun when I'm not playing poker.

When I play online, it's not fun for those around me either. Who wants to be around someone that won't respond since they are too busy concentrating or someone that sits there and spurts out random curse words and gets angry during bad sessions? I have lived with and been around a number of friends, and here is a list of them who enjoy my company when I play:

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For those of you who don't speak English, here's that list in Spanish:

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One more time in Chinese:

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-

(by the way, I stole that from Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy on ESPN's page 2)

(wow, something from school rubbed off there, works cited, annotated bibliography, something like that)

14 hours 'til I'm on the plane...

Schedule

I have hotel at the Monte Carlo from Thursday, July 27th, until Saturday, August 5th. However, if I am still in the tournament on August 4th, I will get an additional five days hotel from August 6th to August 10th.

There are 8000 expected entrants, ~800 of which make the money.

"Day 1": Split into four days, July 28th-July 31st, called A, B, C, and D. Each of these four days 2000 play down to 800. 3200 remain. I play July 31st, day D.

"Day 2": Split into two days, August 1st-August 2nd. 1600 remaining players from days A & B play down to 700 on August 1st, and the other remaining players from days C & D play down to 700 on August 2nd. So if I make it past the first day, I would play August 2nd.

Day 3: Friday, August 4th. If I make it to this day, I get an additional 5 days hotel, possibly extending my trip to August 10th. On this 3rd day, 1400 players play down to 600. Again, approximately 800 get paid a minimum of something like $12,000-$15,000.

Day 4: Saturday, August 5th, 600 play down to 300.

Day 5: Sunday, August 6th, 300 play down to 150.

Day 6: Monday, August 7th, 150 play down to 60.

Day 7: Tuesday, August 8th, 60 play down to 27.

Day 8: Wednesday, August 9th, 27 play down to 9.

Day 9: Thursday, August 10th, 9 play to the end.

First post

So, I leave on Thursday to Las Vegas. I'll be solo for a day, then two friends from San Diego drive up Friday night and one of my roommates flies in late Friday night. The two San Diegans go home Sunday, and three more MN friends fly in on Tuesday... so I won't have a lack of company, that's for sure.

What do I expect to get out of this experience? Hmm, good question. My first goal is to have a good time. To me, this whole trip is one big freeroll. If I do happen to make the money, it's all gravy. This being my fourth trip to LV, I know what I want to do when I'm not actually playing... but I obviously can't talk about those things on here, because what happens in Vegas... :)

Now this first goal does not mean I'm going to take the actual tournament lightly. It's possible that I could win enough money to never have to work again. Of course I'm not counting on that, but wow, my 1 in 8000 chance to win $10,000,000 is much better than winning some jackpot or lottery. Even making the money would be life-changing. I'm guessing that just making the money would net me $12,000-$15,000, minus the taxes. That would definitely put a dent into my bill payments. Approximately 10% of the entrants make the money, so if everyone were on an equal level, I would have a 1 in 10 chance of making a decent sum... realistically, I'd put this number at more like 6-7% for me. So bascially all of this points to my second goal being to make the money. Yeah, that would rock.

My third goal? Hmm, it rhymes with "ten-million dollars".

On another note, I was watching last year's event where an amateur rated himself a 7 out of 10 in terms of how good of a poker player he is, and it made me wonder where I stood. I gave this some thought, and I would say that I'm a 6 out of 10, and I will follow up with what I would define each number to be, with 10 being the best.

10: no such thing. I concur with Barry Greenstein's rankings, as he has rated a number of top pros in different areas, and I don't know if anyone got a 10 in any game.

9: Best in the world, i.e. those who play in and beat "the big game" at the Bellagio. From what I've read, they play with a $4000-$8000 structure with every major game. Yikes. Probably limited to a few hundred players worldwide.

8: Top pros, ones that do it for a living, and do it well. 6 figures or better a year in cash games, consistently, or tournament pros that travel and make enough to do it as a living. "Name" players.

7: Decent pros or good semi-pros. Mid to high 5 figures a year in cash games and/or do well in major tournaments. A number of other factors but I'm too lazy to think them out now.

6: Semi-pro, makes a significant profit in the long run.

5: Break-even or very small-long-term profits.

4 and below: Overall losing players in the long run.


Of course these rankings are purely opinion, but I think I have a good feeling of where I stand against other opponents.

Enough for now.