 Vegas April 2010 (WSOPC) |
| Epilogue |
| Last Updated: 2010-04-21 13:59:33 |
| Yes I'm still steaming a little.
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| Breakfast at Rio buffet w/ Leon. Was just OK, I guess there's only so much variety you can have for breakfast and only half the buffet was even open. But the walk there and back was refreshing (tho Leon mumbled something about if he knew how far it was... :) ).
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| Gave some of my winnings back at the craps table. Again, considering how much I've won at craps tables you'd think I wouldn't mind, but this was the first time in probably a year and a half that I came away behind at the craps table on a trip and now I'm never playing that *(#@&$-ing game again ... ha ha ha, yeah, right!
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| After all, if you've been reading my musings for the last 6 months you know I'm on quite a tear. Since November I've played in 8 large tournaments, cashed in four and made two final tables. Two fields of over 200 included in my cashes. They only pay about 10% of the field, so I'm cashing 50% in a world where an average person is going to cash once out of 10.
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| That's not just good, that's smokin'. And way ahead overall at the craps table.
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| And I won money in a cash game. Do you know how long it's been since I was anything but a contributor in a cash game that wasn't at my house? So long that I don't even know how long...
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| I'll say this, it's not just me. Leon is 2 of 3 cashing and had a much bigger cash than I did and HE was steaming at breakfast this morning. We hadn't chatted last night, turns out he got all in w/ QQ vs A-J and the guy caught an ace on the river to cripple him. He's only a 2-1 fave so it's not even that bad of a beat but there he was questioning getting in with queens when he was middle or lower stack at his table.
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| I talked the poor guy down. Absolutely he made the right move. I love the quote they use from Doyle at the beginning of Poker After Dark - (hope I get this right) "Poker isn't about winning and losing, it's about making the right decision." I'm sure there are a lot of good truisms about the game but if there's one quote every poker player in the world should take to heart, that's about as good as it gets.
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| Basically when more than half the people have more chips than you, you're happy to get your chips in with queens if your goal is to win thousands rather than to try to move up another couple hundred dollars.
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| But back to me :)
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| I played nearly flawless poker this weekend. I got very lucky on the one really bad decision I made, and really the two things that grate on me are good decisions where I wish I'd made the wrong one. Slow playing the aces yesterday and not calling shove-shove w/A-K the night before were good poker decisions.
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| On the aces, you need to get paid for monsters and that table wasn't obliging. I had to get creative and it didn't work out. The other one, I couldn't call w/ A-K with an all-in/all-in ahead of me one of whom would have taken me out 2 short of the money. You CAN'T make that call...but I wish I had :)
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| Really the idiot decision was that guy shoving over the top of me w/ 88 when I raised w/ A-K. The short stack w/ Kings was in the big blind and probably had to call w/ any two cards. Why bet me out with just 88? Made no sense and it ended up costing the guy because the KK guy ended up finishing a couple of places ahead of the 88 guy. GOOD!
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| One more thing to get off my chest, and that's the fact that I never stop being amazed at some of the truly bad poker I see even at these buyins. Really, really bad.
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| I watched a woman who was desperately short stacked, less than 10X BB already, raise out for half her stack and then fold to a re-raise. I'm sorry folks, don't ever bet half your stack. Period. Never bet half your stack. Ever. Shove and hope in that spot. Especially when you're desperately short stacked.
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| Let me put it this way, if I ever put half of my stack into a pot, believe me, I WANT you to call and the rest is going in one way or another. If Pete puts half his stack in a pot and you're in the hand and you don't have alarm bells going off in your head, well, you should read my blog more :)
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| Then there was this other guy...ugh. I'll describe two hands this guy played, one involved me and one didn't. Oh and of course he cashed higher than me yesterday...so what do I know, right?
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| Anyway...
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| I've got Ah 4h in the small blind, knucklehead who I've tangled with a couple of times is BB. I raise, gotta raise any ace with nobody else in the pot in the small blind. He knows this and calls me. OK, fine, he figures I'm stealing.
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| Flop 9-10-J two hearts. I make a very strong bet with my nut-flush draw and an overcard. Guy calls me down. Offsuit K on the turn, offsuit 4 on the river. Guy turns over K-8 spades. REALLY?
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| I haven't shown down a weak hand yet, in fact I've shown nothing but strong hands when I've bet strong. But this guy called me down with no hearts on a two-flush with one over card. What does he think he can catch to win? Two of his straight outs put a possible flush on the board so he really only has 6 straight outs. If he catches an 8 or a K he's got just a bare pair (bottom pair in one case) with four to the straight on the board. It's only going to get him into trouble. Had I been gutsy enough to bet the turn card, how much can he like his top pair with a four straight on the board? Ugh. But he won the pot, right, so he's a genius...
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| OK I had to look, I was a little less than 60-40 preflop, a little better than 70-30 after the flop. Got my chips in real good, just didn't work out.
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| Then a little later, he was a little loose and would do things like raise out badly out of position with borderline hands. In one case, a desperately short stacked woman was in the big blind and my buddy the genius is about 3rd to act and raises out. So it folds around to the short stack and she shoves. One caller, and back to genius and he goes in the tank. Understand that he and I are big chip leaders at the table.
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| So let me lay this out for you. You have a short stack who has to shove almost any two cards in her big blind because she's desperate and can't afford to wait. You have a really big stack who raises into this short stack, and then apparently is: A) taken by surprise by the shove (DUH); B) and actually considers folding the hand!
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| Lesson number two for today - don't raise into people who can't fold unless you intend to call the shove. Put another way, a desperate short stack is almost always going to shove in their blinds with almost any two cards, expect it if you raise into them. Always.
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| So the lesson here is really this - whenever you're going to raise, look at the stack size of the people who are still in the hand. If there are any short stacks, ask yourself beforehand whether you're willing to play for that many chips before you make your raise.
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| Especially when they're in the blinds. I suppose you can raise into a short stack who has no chips in the pot and hope they don't put more in, but you have to expect the shove at any time. A short stack is going to shove lighter than a big stack would shove. If you raised into them say half their stack, you are getting the right price when they shove even if you have 7-2 off. It's an instant call, folks. Not only that, but there was another caller. He's getting roughly 5-1 on his money AND he's such a huge stack that he's not going to miss the chips even a little bit if he loses. And what I didn't say is this was a possible takeout just a couple of players from the money.
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| As it turned out, genius had 7-8 suited (ok, I'm raising more suited connectors in late position myself, the raise isn't the problem here) and woman had pocket queens and tripled up. Good for her. She ended up barely making the money.
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| So now I look forward to June. Right now I'm leaning back to playing at Caesar's. I came out here on this trip expecting to play in Venetian in the deep stack tournaments with WSOP as a backup plan. Turned out that Caesar's was getting much bigger crowds. They are going to have a "mega stack" series again this summer, last summer it was essentially canceled due to lack of participation (while Venetian was getting massive crowds). Don't know what drove the players back to Caesar's but I'm going to go wherever the crowds are!
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| As always, thanks for reading! |
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