 Vegas June 2015 (WSOP) |
| Day 5 - WSOP HORSE |
| Last Updated: 2015-06-11 12:07:42 |
| Thought I was going to make my 5th straight day two for a while there.
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| We started out the day having lunch at In-And-Out Burger. I still don't get it, really. The burgers are OK, the fries are OK...but it's like crack. Once you've had it, you HAVE to have it again.
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| If you've never been to one, their menu lists all of three options and even saying they sell three things is a stretch. A burger without cheese. A burger with cheese. A double burger with two pieces of cheese. You can get fries and a drink with that if you want. They do have shakes as a drink option, which apparently they're known for but we haven't tried one yet.
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| That is the entirety of their menu!
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| They also have a "not-so-secret menu." You can get 3 or 4 patties and slices of cheese if two isn't enough. You can get a burger wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun. And you can get a grilled cheese...which is basically a burger without the burger. And you can get their special sauce (among other things) dumped on your fries. If you don't like burgers, don't go there with your friends thinking you'll order something else on the menu. "Something else" doesn't exist there.
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| And it's enough. We got there a little after 10:30 and the tables were mostly full already. Not to repeat myself, but it's like crack.
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| They cook every burger to order and they don't freeze anything. Oddly enough, that selling point is the reason they haven't taken over the entire world as far as fast food burgers. Since they don't freeze anything, their restaurants have to be close to distribution centers. If they want to open up shop somewhere new, they have to set up that distribution mechanism first and I assume that's awful expensive and therefore risky for them. Every now and then rumors start popping up that Colorado is trying to entice them, which would make sense given their current footprint out west and in Texas, but usually such rumors end up in nothing but another press release from the chain saying they're not coming and explaining the "we don't freeze" thing.
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| But enough about that...
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| The wise folks at the WSOP changed the format a little for HORSE, and it worked pretty well. They cut out the very low blind levels and turned the first six levels into three double-length levels.
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| For example, what they used to do was start out with 25/25 blinds and 25/50 limit for flop games and have a community ante of 25 for stud games with only a 25 bring-in and 25/50 limits as well. It was a little odd having one person ante for everyone.
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| What they did instead this year was have the first two levels both played at 50/100 blinds, 100/200 limits. Then a small increase for levels 3 and 4, then again for levels 5 and 6. Only after the dinner break did things change every level.
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| The other change for this year was that instead of the dealer using markers to count hands and changing games every 8 hands they had a second button that went around the table one player ahead of the dealer button. Every time the second button got to the 1 seat the game would change. So if you happened to be 5 handed for a little while you would change every 5 hands. At a full table you would change every 8 hands.
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| There's no doubt that dealers were making a lot of mistakes counting how many hands got played of the stud games in the old system of using tokens to count hands. Dealers have enough to worry about and mistakes were inevitable. This was much more efficient and much less error prone.
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| First two hours were mostly neutral for me. I was up some after the first hour, down some after two. It was pretty much ABC poker, which HORSE tournaments usually are.
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| In fact at some point I told Joann that the guys who were playing almost every hand would bust out because you can't play that way and be successful. And they did. At least I outlasted those guys...
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| I did have one pretty cool hand in the first two hours.
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| It should be obvious that the best starting hand you can have in 7-card stud is "rolled up trips". Like aces in hold'em, it's the one hand you're willing to commit your entire stack on, but unlike hold'em rolled up trips are so strong that there is no board you're going to find a fold on. Even if someone's 4 to a straight or a flush you are always getting proper odds to at least call down to see your river card and try and hit a full house or quads. You're going to bet every street until you get raised, and if you get raised you're going to call down to the river and 98% of the time you're going to call the river because the pot is so big by that point you can't fold getting 8-1 or better because even those scary boards very often only result in missed draws.
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| The odds of getting rolled up trips are 424 to 1. That's any rolled up trips. Odds of getting specifically a pair of aces in hold'em are a little over 200-1. You don't see them very often.
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| It's also the only hand you'll ever consider slow-playing in stud, and only when there are people betting and raising into you. It is such a powerful hand that, again, unlike aces in hold'em, you're willing to build a large, multi-way pot. They are that strong, and nobody will ever put you on them.
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| Can you guess where this is going?
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| I have an ace showing, someone brings in, it folds around to me and I look down at...two more aces. Wow. I raise, the one-seat actually goes over the top of me and I make it 3 bets. He calls. I have the Ad showing.
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| 4th street I get another diamond. Bet, call.
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| 5th street the Queen of diamonds. Bet, call.
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| 6th street a 4th diamond. He has three clubs including the Kc. But I have the Ac. Bet, call.
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| River...another diamond. I was hoping to improve, that wasn't how I expected to improve. I drew four straight to a flush, and I knew he couldn't have a better flush which was the one thing I had to worry about in the hand. Bet, reluctant call, chagrin from the 1-seat when I turned over my hand.
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| Ironically Razz, which I love to play, was killing me and stud high, which is my least favorite of the 5 games, was where I got all my chips. Had another hand where I started with an ace up, didn't have two more underneath but I represented them and caught an ace on 4th street and won the pot anyway.
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| Second two hours weren't great. I played maybe 4 hands in 2 hrs and didn't drag a pot. At least I don't remember dragging one, but somewhere along the way I probably raised after the initial deal and won a small pot. I went into the second break around 5500 in chips.
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| Third two hours were very good to me. I started out bad, actually got down around 4200 chips and was telling Joann that I had better win the next pot I play or I'd be in trouble.
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| Well, finally Razz came through. I won two sizeable pots. The first one I had a great looking board (4 cards 8 or smaller) and it looked like I had a monster even tho 5th and 6th streets paired me. Dude called me down with two cards bigger than 8 on his board, for all he knew he was drawing dead...but thankfully I caught the hand I was repping on the river. Then took down another one where I actually had what my betting implied I had (a made 7-perfect by 5th street so two shots at a wheel, but I didn't need it).
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| The folks at the WSOP also have a sense of humor. Joann and I were both amused by the announcement of the change of levels from the 5th to the 6th when they said on the loadspeaker "Dealers, finish the hand you're on if you've started the shuffle and then don't change anything. Same blinds and limits."
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| I gave a little back, but I went into the dinner break at 9500 having doubled up from my low point.
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| I was feeling pretty good about things at that point.
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| Things started out great after the dinner break and I worked my way up to the 13-14k range fairly quickly. Unfortunately for me I don't think I won another pot. And Razz turned back against me.
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| The short version is I had four good-to-great starting hands in different games, all four times I ran out badly. Late in level 7 lost a decent sized pot on a Razz hand when I started out four to a 9-low, which isn't necessarily great, but I was showing 2-5 on 4th st and he had a 9 and a face card up. But, disgustingly, I ran out pair, king, pair (guy made a crying call with two face cards and an 8 and 9 showing, ugh, Hellmuth would have exploded :-) ). Then A-2-2-10 with a suited ace in Omaha 8/b, flopped two good low cards with back-door draws in a multi-way pot, so have to call flop and turn bets, didn't catch anything.
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| The end came in Razz in level 8, the game that was basically the story of my tournament. Hurt me badly early, built me up before dinner, killed me in the end.
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| Having fallen back under the 6K mark and playing 400/800 limits I started out with 2-3-4 in Razz, caught a 7 on 4th street, a monster, and ran out face card, face card, pair.
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| 2-3 hands later down under 3K I started out with A-2-4, obviously committed to the hand, I ran out 4-9-10-6 for a 9-low and lost to an 8-low that was made on 6th street (so drawing dead on the river).
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| What can you do...
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| I do feel like I played almost perfect poker. The only minor thing I did wrong was call a raise once in one of the stud disciplines on the deal and then fold on 4th street. Bottom line is at that point even if things aren't looking great you're always getting the right odds to get your 5th card and as it turned out the other guys drew out pretty poorly (and yeah the cards would have changed, but from what I saw they most likely still would have drawn out poorly). If that was really the only mistake I made all day, tho, that's a pretty good day.
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| Not sure if I'm going to play at Aria or WSOP deep stack on Thursday. Probably Aria but you never know. |
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