We are playing in one of their conference rooms with a breathtaking view of the lake and the fountains out in front of the Bellagio. Except we are suppose to be playing poker. It’s a very cool windy day, and when someone opens the door to walk out on the patio…start up the wind tunnel! The glare is bad too. We finally all moved to another table away from the windows.
Another problem. I have a friend playing in this too, so of course we draw the same table. In fact we draw seats right next to each other. We try to get one of us moved. As it turns out that’s no problem. But….I am put at a new table for the late arrivals. So I get to wait until more people register. Great. But fortunately my table gets going within 15 minutes.
Starting stack is 10,000 chips and we begin at 50/100. Late registration is available through 4 levels. And people trickle in. The last player signed up immediately after he busted at the final table from a previous tournament. He made it with 5 minutes to spare. That gives us 73 entries. They will pay nine spots with 1st Place getting about $24,000.
The weird part…we only play 7 levels today at 50 minutes per level. That will only take us to maybe 7pm. But that’s it. Then we come back Day 2 and play only 7 levels again. This will be a three Day Event even though there are only 73 players.
Time for poker. I’m in 4 Seat and the Italian guy, Georgie, is a real character in Seat 1. He’s some super rich guy. He's pretty good but he’s lacking in understanding some of the math. Seat 2 is some older guy Stan who ran lots of horses in the Kentucky Derby. Lot's of these guys know each other. But of course they don’t know me from Adam.
Second hand Georgie limps in, another limper, and Seat 6 raises. Georgie calls. Flop is A82 rainbow. Seat 6 bets and Georgie calls. Turn is a 4. Seat 6 bets and Georgie raises. River is a 5. Georgie makes a bet of about half the pot. Big pot. Seat 6 calls. Georgie shows
53o The other guy is steaming. Lol.
Shortly after this Georgie raises in the CO, BTN calls and I call in the BB with 64s.
Flop: A35. This could be good. I check and Georgie bets, BTN folds and I call.
Turn: K Georgie makes a big bet and I don’t have the odds to call…. Oh well.
Nothing of note the First Level and I am at about 11K.
I mess up a hand. I’m in the BB and a decent but careful player to my right completes. I really think he is going to fold and I raise with my 63o. Surprisingly he calls.
Flop 854r. Pretty good flop all in all. He checks, I cb, and he calls. What? Does he have two overs?
Turn: A He checks again. So should I take the free card? I decide that he can’t have an Ace and so if I bet I’ll take it down. I bet and he check raises all in. Yike! Chris you blew it. Anyway I fold. Sure he doesn’t have an Ace, but he probably has a set. Not proud of this one and cost me a fair amount of chips too. Against a guy like this who calls the flop….he has something! And it could be A8. Who says he can’t have an Ace. Sure he can.
I get AKs UTG+1. UTG raises. I hate this situation, but have started calling when they are suited. AKo sometimes I call and sometimes I raise depending upon who the raiser is. Feels so weak to just call, but I don’t think so. Two others limp behind me. The flop misses me and I have to fold.
I raise UTG with AQo and Georgie OTB and the BB call. Board comes all low and it checks to Georgie who bets. BB calls and I fold. Board comes xxxxQ and AQ>44. Yes the BB had the same holding as me, but I was long gone before the Queen.
The next time around it's Deja vu. This time I raise with ATs. It's a low flop and I don't have a backdoor, but I cb this time and they both fold.
The first three levels are nothing special. I inch up and have like 14K at the completion of the Second Level and then around 17K after Level 3. There was one hand of note.
Two limpers and Georgie raises 4x to 800. I reraise to 2850 with JJ out of BB. The limpers fold and Georgie calls. I don’t have a big enough stack for Georgie to be playing here unless he has a really good hand. So he’s almost certainly making a mistake.
Flop Kxx. Hope he doesn’t have a king. I bet he folds showing 88. He was getting like 6-1 implied on the call preflop.. Not good unless he thought I was making a move.
We are nearing the end of Level 4 and one of the players who just busted out of a final table from the previous day jumps into ours. He’s our last registrant before registration closes and he takes a seat at our table. He’s down in Seat 8 so we are pretty much opposite each other. I figure he’s likely good since he just made a final table.
Early in Level 5 we play a key pot against each other. He limps in early position, another limper, I limp otb with 54s and the BB checks. Four to the flop.
763 rainbow….gin!
And to make matters even better the BB leads out. And Mr Final Table calls. Oh boy. It folds to me and now what do I do? I figure out that if I make a normal type raise here I will be able to push the turn with a bet of like 75% of the pot. Sounds good. I raise, the BB folds and Mr. FT calls. What does he have? Could he have 98? A set?
Turn: A
Well this shouldn’t help him since he’d never limp with AK pre, but maybe he has A7 or A6 who knows. Doesn’t make any difference to my play though. He checks and “I’m all in.” He quickly calls. And sure looks happy. Well his happiness is short lived once he sees my straight. Boy is he pissed. He tables AA, turned top set. Well I have to fade ten outs or I’m gone, but the river is a blank and I win a big pot. He bolts toward the door but they have to call him back since he had me outchipped. This moved me up to about 37K and among the chip leaders. Way to slow play those Rockets buddy…
Thor Hansen is moved to my table in Seat 9. He plays efficiently and quietly.
3 limps I check BB with 75. Actually I usually make a healthy raise here, and don’t remember why I didn’t.
Flop is Q64r I check and it’s checked to Thor. He bets. Now I had considered betting out and I may have given that away…dunno. I had seen him fold to raises earlier. Anyway I decided to raise and figured I’d likely take it down. I raised and he folded.
I play another hand against Georgie. I have K9s utg+1 and raise. Georgie, in the SB, calls.
Flop: QdTd9h He checks and I check behind.
Turn 9d: He checks to me and I’m betting now. I make a healthy bet to make him pay to draw, but he still calls. Looks like a draw. It’s a dangerous board for sure.
He checks the river and I look at the board and see the case 9. Quads, wow. Anyway I bet and he folds showing the Jd.
Georgie finally busts. And now, during Level 5, we redraw at 27 players. I draw Seat 1 and get a poor table. Seat 2 is aggro and unpredictable. Not good but an overbettor with chips. Ugh. Seat 3 is Paul Magriel. He’s the quack quack guy and the inventor, according to Harrington, of “M”.I’ve played lots of casino tournaments against Paul. He’s your true brilliant eccentric …super genius. And also a very nice guy. He’s not a great player but I wish he weren’t on my left. Oh well. Seat 4 is short, but he is also a good player. The passive players are down at the other end. Too bad. One player in particular, Barry from NYC, is a crack up. He’s an attorney but full of jokes, a very nice guy. But he has a bad habit of exposing his cards. Barry actually makes it to the final table despite being out of his league. We finally get him to quit exposing his cards by then.
I raise with 22 utg+1. Guy on my left makes a healthy reraise of 5 times my raise. Magriel into the tank with JJ and folds. He has an in depth discussion with Seat 4 about his fold later. He’s talking ranges, stacks, ICM, etc. Really giving Seat 4 lots of valuable tips. That’s Paul.
Things are just proceeding smoothly despite my bad table position. Barry raises and I reraise him with AKs out of the BB. He is not happy and folds. Next orbit he raises and I put him all in with QQ. He folds again. .
And now the second key hand of the day. I really had been playing very little at this table. Seat 5 was the Kentucky Derby guy from my first table. This hand comes along. We discussed this in IRC:
<chrisjp> one i agonized over
<chrisjp> i raise CO to 1800 playing 400/800
<chrisjp> folds to BTN <The Kentucky Derby Guy> who pushes 18K
<chrisjp> I have AKo
<chrisjp> into the tank
<chrisjp> I'd played with this guy for 6 hours
<chrisjp> 16K to win ~20K, most of my stack
<chrisjp> anyway lots to it but I called, he showed ATs
Board came Kxxx and he was drawing dead. That's always nice not to have to sweat the river.
<chrisjp> the interesting thing about it is that I went into the tank a long time
<hawk> wow
<chrisjp> and i realized that some of the players at the table, this was after the redraw, thought i was real tight
<hawk> in a vacuum I think you're folding there
<chrisjp> that was my initial feeling
<chrisjp> but after thinking it through and thinking back to all the hands this guy played, and the things players who knew him had chatted with him, much of it non poker, I switched to a call
<chrisjp> i never call a big raise like this with AK
<chrisjp> almost never. Well live anyway…online it’s an easy call
<hawk> yeah
<chrisjp> nice guy, we had a friendly chat during one of the breaks
<chrisjp> anyway i thought he might be light since he’ll figure i would fold
<chrisjp> and no way did he have AA or KK, that was certain
<chrisjp> from my image of him
<hawk> well if you can rule out KK+ with some confidence that obviously changes matters
<hawk> a lot
<chrisjp> yeah i ruled that out completely (almost) after a while
<chrisjp> more than half the time he has some pair and I am 43-46%, which is pot odds break even, but the rest of the time I'm quite a bit ahead...or we both have AK
<chrisjp> the intangibles, just looking at him, nothing i can really explain, i just thought he might be light
<chrisjp> that's what makes poker fun...
<hawk> any talk after you called?
<chrisjp> of course i lose 30% of the time here
<chrisjp> no talk at all, wished him luck, he was gone, no one else commented
<chrisjp> i think most of them snap call
<hawk> without much of a clue
<hawk> in light of your last comment, tanking was probably a good idea (for your image)
<chrisjp> yes as it turned out that was a benefit
<chrisjp> that i didn't even realize at the time
<chrisjp> learned something there
Three limpers to me in the BB and I see AQcc. Time for a healthy raise. The first limper goes into the tank but you know these types. He’s just not going to have the heart to call. Eventually he folds, as do the others. I took down some nice pots with these raises.
Now I have a very nice stack and I ride out Day 1 winning a fair amount of pots either preflop or on the flop. Feeling good about things naturally.
There is a print out for Day 2. Everyone’s name and chip count are listed. Surprisingly, even though I don’t have double the average, I am the Chip Leader. But still a long way to go.
I start Day 2 with 54,100 chips. For almost the entire day I am between 35K and 60K. I’m really pretty card dead. After about 2 levels we are down to 18 left, and we redraw for the final two tables. At this point my 50K stack is about average. The redraw is quite amusing. At my table Seats 1 (me), 2,3, and 4 all remained, and we were now in reverse order. I was Seat 4, etc. Now Magriel was two to my right. The guy in Seat 1, Scott, made a comment, “I liked the other line up better.” No doubt about it.
This set up for me was great. Three weak players were all to my left, and they were pretty tight. Seat 5, the cardflasher Barry, was stubborn with a semi reasonable hand, but he didn’t defend his blind. Thor Hansen had busted, but now Chris Bjorin took his place in Seat 9. Very well known player.
Finally Magriel busts. He raises ep with JT and Bjorin calls. Flop is J75. He bets and Bjorin puts him all in. He thinks for a while and calls. Bjorin shows 55. Seat 2 also busts and we play 7-handed for a long time.
Now Bjorin, with a shortish stack of <20BBs, has been very quiet. But he finally doubles up against the player on his right. This guy in Seat 8 had been sitting patiently on his stack, but then he doubled up on a huge hand and had some chips. Shortly after this Seat 8 raises from the BTN, Bjorin reraises. Scott in the BB then pushes. Seat 8 folds and Bjorin is getting like 3-1 on the call so he has to call even thought this will dent him considerably. It’s clear he doesn’t want to but of course he does. Scott shows AA and Bjorin KJo. I was surprised to see him so weak. It’s not a bad play, but it was surprising given his previous action.
Scott in Seat 1 raises OTB and I reraise with J9o. Scott thinks and folds showing an Ace. An hour later Scott raises OTB and I reraise with A2o. Scott goes into the tank and finally calls.
Flop is QT9 two suited. Well I can’t bet, or don’t bet, now and it goes ck ck. Turn is an Ace. I check, and he bets. I think for a long time and fold. I think this is an easy fold really given my read of him, but still it puts me down to 35K or so. Playing Level 13, 1500/3000a400 this is not good.
I three bet all in twice, once with A5o and once with QQ. They fold.
Early limper, Bjorin limps, Scott limps, and I have KQo. I raise 7x and they all fold. Gotta love it.
Both Bjorin and Scott, the player in Seat 1, are not nearly as aggressive as they should be in stealing the blinds. Thank goodness.
It folds to me several times either OTB or SB. I raise everytime, just above a min raise.
I have Q5o, they fold
92o, they fold
63o, they fold
95s, Barry calls. Whaa?
Flop is Q95. Wow. I am praying Barry has a Q. I saw him donk off most of his stack early when he called in the BB with A6 and then called both flop and turn (villain was all in, a healthy push about pot size) on AxxJ board. Wow. Villain showed AJ. Anyway I bet and Barry folds. That’s ok.
I raise ATo OTB and the BB reraises. This is an easy fold…..Dorothy we’re not online in Kansas anymore.
I have gone from 35K to 75K just by stealing. And mostly with garbage. I feel great.
We are down to 11 players. Bellagio will pay 9 spots, but they are going to combine tables at ten players. I hate this rule, but nothing I can do about it.
Seat 8 raises and I’m in the BB. And I have AhAs, wow even I can get the rockets occasionally. OK, I smooth call. Flop is Qh8h8c. I check intending to check raise, but he checks behind. Turn is a blank. I bet and he folds. That’s OK. This guy had a big stack at one time and it’s dwindled quite a bit. He appears to be getting frustrated and desperate.
Anyway we have 6 at our table and 5 at the other. The dealer shuffles and we are ready to go, with me in the BB. Before the dealer has dealt a guy busts at the other table. But since our dealer has pulled in the antes we will play this one hand and then draw for position at the final table...we are paying 9 spots so 10th is going to get nada.
Seat 8 raises and it folds to me. I look down and the Hiltons are staring back at me. QQ: nice! He raised to 7K and I reraised to 19K. He thinks for quite a while and calls. He's left with like 30K behind and I probably have 50K left.
What can he have? Nothing really good or he would just get it in. I rule out AA or KK immediately. At the time I wasn't sure, but upon reflection I doubt he can have AK. Very very unlikely.
We take a flop. Please no overcard! Flop is JT7 rainbow. Well I have an easy push and I say, "All in." He goes into the tank. Well that's good. I have to be ahead. No JJ or TT of course. Is he thinking of calling with AK? Well....no. He finally calls and flips 99. I have to fade 6 outs. No problem…at least this time.
So now we get to go to the Final Table Nine Handed. We are ITM. Yeah!
Amazingly this was the only hand I had that went to showdown all day. That's it....
I draw Seat 9. Seat one is passive, but Seats 2 and 3 are both aggro with chips. Not good. Seat 4 is an older guy. Bjorin is in Seat 5 and Scott is Seat 6, both good players. Two weak players are in Seats 7 and 8.
We are now into the last Level of the Day. Seat 2 raises the min to 6000 and the guy to my right in Seat 8, and older Italian guy, calls out of the BB. The flop is 952. Now the old guy donks the minimum. Bet 3000. This is weird. Seat 2 calls. Turn is a 5. Ck ck. River is a 9. ck ck. Old guy gets counterfeited with 62. Seat 2 takes it with KJo. Interesting preflop call by the Old guy. And Seat 2 called the min bet on the flop with K high. I’ll remember that.
Play slows down now that we are at a full table. While I come to the table with about 125K it is almost 10K per orbit—blinds are up to 2K/4Ka400, so no sitting around. However, I am completely card dead. I don’t get frustrated though. Just stay in the moment. Finally we lose 3 of the poorer players at the table, Seats 4, 7, and 8. Six of us remain and the Level ends. On to Day 3!
I am sitting on 93K and that’s good for 4th. The stacks are:
Seat 1—weak player 42K
Seat 2—150K
Seat 3—255K
Seat 4—121K
Seat 5—78K
Seat 6, me
They are all decent players except for Seat 1, and he’s not bad by any means. This line up is much tougher than the Final Six at the Caesar’s Senior tournament. Not surprising though, since the entry fee was much higher.
Anyway the button is in Seat 1 as we start the Day. With only 15BBs I’ve got to get lucky early. First hand…Bjorin UTG raises and both Seats 2 and 3 call. No cb from Bjorin and one of the other guys takes it down on the turn. Two hands later I’m UTG. I look down and see KQo. Well online I would just push this, but here I make a 2.2x raise. The big stack in Seat 3 makes a healthy 3-bet. Oops. I put his range at 99+,AQs+,AKo and I’m not even 2-1 against that. I fold. Ugh! I take the blinds and now I’m down to about 10BBs. Bjorin is again UTG and he raises. I look down at TT. This is an easy push. I’m liking it too since Bjorin, a good player, can be pretty wide here. Liking it substantially less when he immediately calls. And shows QQ. Plus we both have diamonds and clubs so I can’t even miracle a flush.
The Director hypes up the drama but it doesn’t matter. Five bricks and I’m gone. Kind of a sour taste in my mouth, but it’s just the poker gods putting me out…nothing personal.
6th paid $3500+ so how can I complain. I see later on the website that Bjorin and the Table Leader chopped it up when they got heads up. They both received about $20K. Well maybe they chopped almost the whole thing and played it out since there are POY points involved. I don’t know and don’t really care.
Four cashes live in a row. Feeling good. I'm playing the Orleans in two weeks for sure. I'll have to see what's around before that. Thanks for all the good wishes everybody!
Chris
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