 Vegas June 2007 (WSOP) |
| Day Two (Sunday) |
| Last Updated: 2007-06-25 |
| It's 1:08 PM [Monday], I just woke up. Day two was a little more interesting than day one...
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| Checked out of the Super 8 around 9-ish and headed over to the Gamblers General Store. Bought a gross of cards, in theory I have about a 3-year supply at our current rate but we know from last time there will probably be a certain number of decks that are marked and unusable. I could spend a lot of money at that store...
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| Then it was on to Mandalay Bay for the buffet. A champagne brunch, as is typical of most/all Vegas buffets on Sundays, so I had the opportunity to put waffles and prime rib on the same plate. Very good buffet as always, I don't care for the seafood myself but Joann does.
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| Then we checked some bags at Paris because we couldn't check into the hotel yet and it was on to Binions to sign up for the big Omaha 8/b tournament. Joann dropped me off, I bought in and had an hour to kill. Went over to the craps table and won about $40, killed a little more time and then took my seat.
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| For my readers who aren't part of the regular poker crowd, Omaha 8/b is a complicated game. In Omaha you get four cards instead of two in your hand, you use exactly two from your hand and three from the board. So if A-K-Q-J-10 is on the board, everyone DOES NOT have a straight because you can't just "play the board" you only have a straight if you have two of those cards in your hand as well. The 8/b part is that someone can win half the pot with a "low hand" (which I'm told should happen about 44% of the time) if they can make a hand with no pairs that includes 5 cards 8 or lower (still two from your hand and three from the board, but you can use a different two from your high hand). For low, Aces are low and straights and flushes don't count so A-2-3-4-5 is the best low hand. Besides trying to figure out your hand, you have to consider a lot of things in this game - like the possibility of having you winning hand that's only high or only low and getting only 1/4 or even 1/6 of the pot. Say one person had the best high hand and that person and two others are tied for low, one person gets half for his high, and all three split the low three ways.
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| Like I said, it's complicated ... and that's probably why it's my favorite game right now.
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| Also the tournament is "pot limit" rather than "no-limit". At the end there were 389 people with 36 places paying out.
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| So I was slowly building my stack all night, generally staying about average stack size with some spikes (I was chip leader at my table at one point a few hours in) and some valleys. I did miss one enormous opportunity. In Omaha wired pairs don't have nearly the value they have in Hold'em. A pair rarely wins a hand, which means you almost certainly have to improve and that's actually harder to do with a pair. What you really want are suited and connecting cards to have a chance for straights and flushes. Still, big wired pairs do give you an excuse to raise out and try and win before the flop. So a good player who was putting up a "dumbass" act at the table (most were buying it, I wasn't) raised out and for some reason I immediately thought Aces because he was very early to act. He got one caller and then I look down at K-K-J-7 with neither K suited. My gut told me to call, but if I'm really up against Aces I'm in trouble and I have no low possibility to fall back on. I lay it down. Flop comes K-3-5. I'm immediately sick to my stomach when original raiser bets the pot and caller calls again. Turn is a 3. Full house if I'd played and I'd have tripled up. Original raiser guy went on to become monster stack in the tournament, I would have been that monster stack. Argh! And I was right, he had Aces...and they held up...
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| A couple of hours later I was low on chips and was waiting for an excuse to just throw my chips in. I got A-A-6-7. I bet pot which was 3/4 of my stack - I'm pot committed, there's no board I'm not throwing the rest in on. I get two callers. Since I'm small blind, as the dealer is getting the flop I push my remaining chips in "in the dark". Flop comes 9-9-J, a great flop for me if nobody has a 9 ... or so I thought. First caller folds (obviously she was playing low and doesn't have a 9) and the other caller says "you're not going to be happy" and turns over J-J-Q-Q - he has a full house. I get up out of my chair and watch the dealer turn over ... an ace! Two outer and I almost triple up. I sit back down stunned at what just happened.
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| Another thing about this game is that it's almost impossible to bluff. Someone always has some kind of draw or some kind of borderline hand that they'll call you with. But I managed to cultivate a tight image and over the course of the next few hours I made more than a few successful stone-cold bluffs. I believe about 5 times I either pushed or pot committed myself with nothing or almost nothing (pair of twos once with no chance of a low for example) and every time my read of the table was dead-on and I stole the pot. That actually gave me more confidence than anything else.
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| So eventually I ended up I believe 29th out of the 389 person field, winning $221 for my $150 buy-in. I ended up short stacked, decided to take a shot with 5-5-4-2 hoping I'd at least get a low, got called by an equally short stack who had A-4-6-7 and he ended up winning with a lousy pair of sixes. That actually left me with like 2500 (blinds 3000/6000) which I pushed in dark the next hand, ended up with pocket Ks but two callers both had Aces and an Ace flopped. Horrible ending...oh well. What's important was that I played a solid game and got into the money. Now Joann and Patrick are trying to talk me into playing in the WSOP today...and I'm actually starting to consider it...we'll see, I have until 5:00.
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| Anyway, I've gone on enough but I do want to mention that we went to Planet Hollywood after that to play in their $60 buy-in 2am tourney. I got no cards and didn't last long, Joann was chip leader when about 1/2 the field was gone (30 or so left out of 55) and played very well but went card dead while the tournament cut down from about 20 to final table and ended up taking only 8th with 5 paying. Frustrating for her but when you don't have a playable hand for an hour blinds are going to eat you up.
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| So we staggered back to our room at 5am, slept until 1pm and now it's my turn to get into the shower.
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| Tomorrow either I'll have a story about playing in the WSOP or I won't...we'll see...but I do need to go see how Cody and Hans are doing at the $1000 buy-in at the Venetian...
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