|  Vegas June 2007 (WSOP) | | Day Four (Tuesday) | | Last Updated: 2007-06-27 | | Got up around 11am, decided to try and make the 2:00 $200 limit Omaha 8/b tournament at Binions. We picked up Patrick and Nicky and headed over. I talked Patrick into playing in it since he was nudging me into playing in the WSOP and he gave in and signed up. We play 8/b online so even though I crush him regularly (hehe) Patrick thinks he has some game.
| | Quick lunch at the Nugget and we were back at Binions just in time for the tourney. Things were uninteresting for quite some time, it was probably four rounds before I won a sizeable pot. But patience paid off, after having nothing for a long time I finally got a rush of cards and in a space of about 4 hands became massive chip leader at my table. Then our table got broken up and I got moved. Patrick had gotten busted out a little while before I moved.
| | Two things about a tournament like this - first, because it's limit, it takes a long time to start knocking people out. But eventually the blinds and limits get to the point where short stacks are going to have to pick a hand, so basically every time the blinds change for the first 5-10 minutes there's always a rush of people busting out.
| | Second, they break tables out by going up one row and down the next. So this means you always know what table is getting busted up next. So where is this all going? Unfortunately for me, they kept moving me to tables that were 3rd-5th to be broken up next so I started having to move around a lot and sitting at tables where I had no idea how everyone else played.
| | Still, though, I managed to continue building my now sizeable stack and at the next break I was probably top 3-4 in chips in the whole tournament with half the field gone.
| | It was at my second table that I had both one of my best hands and one of my two mistakes. First mistake was folding pre-flop A-Q-8-8 with A-8 of hearts. This is a very playable hand, but I wasn't sure of the table and I was under the gun (first to act) and I laid it down. I would have scooped a nice pot when I would have hit my nut flush and there was no low. I was determined that I was not going to lay down such a playable hand again - in a limit tournament you cannot miss opportunities and I missed one.
| | But then a few hands later I made up for it. I believe I had A-J-10-3 with the A suited in spades. Flop came Q-6-2, two spades. Only one person in the hand with me, he bet out and I smooth called my nut flush/nut low draw (remember, people, two from your hand, three from the board). Turn was a six pairing the board. Other person checked, I instantly bet my double-draw and representing that I just hit trips. He thought for quite a while and then called. River was a 9, he checked and with absolutely nothing but two busted draws I instantly bet again. He thought for a while, said "you have a six don't you ... I believe you" and laid down his hand telling me he had top pair. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I pulled off a stone-cold bluff in limit poker.
| | So I spent the next couple of hours getting moved repeatedly and trying to maintain my stack. I made only one more mistake, laying down a huge straight draw on the river after a bunch of raising and re-raising, in this case I missed taking down half of a massive pot. A really bad laydown, I had 5-6-7 in my hand with 4-8 rainbow on the board, if I hit my straight it's a nut straight, I had 9 outs and getting way better than 4-1 on my money and sure enough it hit. In hindsight, the odds were right to call even with the raising and re-raising and considering the investment I had made playing to the turn.
| | In the end I took 24th out of 280 which paid $285 minus my $200 buy-in. 9.5 hrs work for $85 profit. I was getting chipped away and flopped two pair, the other person hit a better two-pair on the turn and I was out. Still, a helluva run. Played in 3 big 8/b tournaments and cashed in two of the three - the wrong 2 of 3, but what can you do?
| | Now it's killing me NOT playing in today's final $2,000 buy-in 8/b WSOP tournament. I'm on a roll in that game but another $2K is not happening. Hopefully I'll take another shot next year.
| | So today we're not going to be running around to get to anything. We're going to take our time, eat lunch, look for a birthday present for Peter and at some point probably play in a cash game somewhere...
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