 Vegas June 2016 (WSOP Seniors, Solstice) |
| Day 4 - WSOP Daily Deepstack |
| Last Updated: 2016-06-19 11:46:23 |
| Wow. Emotional roller coaster doesn't begin to describe my day today. I'm wondering how long it's going to take me to get to sleep tonight.
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| Took our time getting going, the only requirement was to get to the bank in time to get to Rio by 1:30-1:45 to buy in for the daily deep stack. Lunch at Cafe Bellagio, just because we ate there a long time ago and enjoyed it but never got back. And frankly we are in a bit of a rut when it comes to meals out here.
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| Smith and Wollensky. Bellagio Buffet. Bacchanal Buffet (Caesar's). Aria Buffet. Cafe Aria. Pizza at NYNY. Carnival Buffet at Rio. Noodle Asia at Venetian. That's the majority of our Vegas meals right there. Oh and Starbucks for Pete every morning while he finishes up his BLOG and/or reads his newspaper since Pete doesn't sleep as much as Joann. Well, Pete doesn't sleep as much as most people... OK enough weird 3rd person writing.
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| The list used to be longer, but as we've lost interest in some places and dropped them off the list (Planet Dailies and Spice buffet at Planet Hollywood for example) we haven't replaced them with anything else. Noodle Asia is probably the only somewhat recent addition to the list in a while. So we are determined to try some different things, and today that meant Cafe Bellagio and Tom's Urban (I've eaten there once before, Joann hasn't).
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| And it was basically sandwiches at lunch. It wasn't anything special, but it was good and it was someplace different.
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| On to the bank, then on to Rio and the daily deepstack.
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| What a difference a day makes. Completely different from my Friday.
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| Started out slow, but after the first level I was catching some cards and building my stack. There weren't any special hands, but at the first break after four levels myself and the woman sitting next to me to my left were the chip leaders at the table.
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| For someone outside looking in it would have been interesting to see how we got there.
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| She was playing 90% of hands, almost always calling and almost never raising in the early levels. Her game plan was to play almost any two cards in small pots and outplay everyone after the flop. And for the most part she did. I hesitate to call it "loose-passive" because that kind of style is almost never good, but she was very good post-flop and didn't make a lot of mistakes. It was a strong small-ball game. I would say the only thing she didn't do well was float/steal much. Generally she continued in the hand with any piece of it, and she very clearly knew which players she should call down against and which players she should avoid post-flop. But she rarely tried to steal pots, was generally happy to check/call flops and check down or check/call turns and rivers. If she stole just a little more she would have been a formidable player.
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| I, on the other hand, was generally playing tight aggressive and playing only solid hands and position. I won most pots I got involved in, took some pots from my small-ball neighbor with pressure, naturally lost a pot or two to her as well but overall I got more from her than she got from me.
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| I thought it was an interesting contrast in styles.
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| I was at 27K from a 15K start at the first break, then more of the same in the next two hours. Built my way up to 44K by the second break.
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| No especially notable hands, but it's always fun playing poker when you can actually play poker instead of looking for spots to get all in. Like when I picked up pocket 7s, my small-ball friend is the only caller, and the flop comes K-6-8. She's playing any two, I can credibly represent a king and bet out. She calls, pot is already a decent size. Turn is a 9. This is a great card for me to apply pressure with against this player. Against a tight player I would check with some newfound equity since a flop call from that person would likely indicate a weak king. But against this player she's not likely to be strong and she's not calling two streets against a tight-aggressive player like me without a really big hand. I bet about 2/3 of the pot and she goes away. She probably had some kind of hand on the flop, maybe the best hand.
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| Our table gets broken up, and we had only eliminated a couple of people so stack sizes weren't huge. I was still around 40k. I get moved to the big-boy table, several players with well over 100K stacks.
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| But it was not an overly aggressive table and I was able to continue playing the way I had been. Took a good size pot from one of the big stacks and built my way up to 55k or so when the sickest hand I've ever been involved in came up...
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| Guy to my right was a big stack, but he was a gambler. He was playing a lot of pots and limping in a lot. Put it this way, with a short stack all in and a bigger stack over-the-top all in he agonized over A-J off. That should be an easy laydown in that spot. He shoulda called, tho, he was right, he had the best hand and it would have held up.
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| Anyway, he open limps at 1000/2000 blinds and I look down at pocket 10s. With a limper in front of me I make it 7000 to go. One caller at the other end of the table and my buddy who's never limp folding calls.
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| Flop comes 10-7-K. My buddy immediately goes all in. I beat him in the pot calling. Guy at the other end says "I guess these are no good" and folds. My buddy turns over King-Seven suited. He's got two kings and running 7s in the deck.
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| King on the turn. "Un fucking believable" I say. I get up to leave.
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| 10 on the river. One outer. Wow.
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| The entire table goes nuts. People come over to see what all the noise is about. The guy I just hit a one-outer on laughs and high-fives me. I could never laugh and high-five someone if I took a beat like that.
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| People whipped out their phones to take pictures, the dealer arranged the cards so we'd all have a good shot of it. Here's my pic:
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| Took me a while to calm down after that, but after about 10-15 hands that table got broken up and I got moved.
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| First hand at the new table I look down at KK. Can't make it up. Blinds had gone up to 1500/3000 so I made it 7500 to go.
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| How many times do you see someone walk over to a table and raise out the moment they sit down? Happens all the time. Always the aggressive guy.
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| Folds around to the small blind who makes a big overbet to 50K. I have to assume he thinks I'm "that guy" and is trying to re-steal from me. For some reason I just call for half my stack. Flop comes all rags, he goes all in, I call and he rolls over aces...sigh.
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| Just like that I'm out. My stack was 100-110K, he had a little more. I had plenty of chips, but I don't think I can get away from that hand in that spot.
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| Oh well.
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| We've changed plans a little bit. Sunday is now an off-day, so I might not have a blog entry tomorrow. We're changing hotels, going to do some shopping and other stuff. That's because on Monday I've added something to my poker itinerary I hadn't expected.
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| I'm going to keep it my little secret for now, but I will say that I've decided to play in something I wasn't going to play in but I'm giving up all rebuys and second tournaments the rest of the trip to fit it into the "worst case" budget. So aside from the monster stack, it will be one-and-done for me every day. At least until I hit a big cash in something...
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| PS - It didn't take me long to fall asleep last night. I was pretty upset blowing a big stack so late in the tournament (400 or so left, 224 paying) but I think those two emotional hands so close together just drained me. |
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