2000 Flushes: My 2011 WSOP journal

Collapse
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • BeerDog99
    SBR MVP
    • 09-22-10
    • 4894

    #36
    good job Ian!
    Comment
    • Ian
      SBR Hall of Famer
      • 11-09-09
      • 6071

      #37
      I took yesterday off, opting to get drunk and watch the hockey game while giving SBR posters a chance to freeroll me for points. Before Christmas my Dad sent me some money to pick up a bunch of futures bets on Boston teams for him that he could give out as gifts. He shamelessly regifted the Bruins winning the Cup at +1200 back to me, which I didn't stop rolling my eyes about until Boston beat the Habs in the first round. I stand to win less than a buy-in, but that hasn't kept me from sweating the thing. I passed out after the 2nd period and woke up in time to head back to the Rio at dawn.

      I ran good right off the bat when I followed a hunch that the normally packed valet parking area next to the ballrooms would be empty. I snuck in without even seeing a valet and saved myself a 1/2 mile+ of walking in flip flops. My luck ran cold after that when the board opted against the usual routine of: putting me on a non-moving list, me doing their job for them and finding all the open seats, then getting seated; in favor of a simple yet effective misdirection play of giving me a seat card to a table on the opposite end of the ballroom that had no open seats.

      In the actual poker game I found a bunch of amiable locals waiting for a tourist to drop by. Most of the locals were playing what I call "lottery ticket poker." They were limping in and calling preflop raises loosely, hoping to catch an unlikely monster that a drooler would pay off, but otherwise giving up when their suited 2 gapper or whatever didn't get smacked with a perfect flop. I was able to build up a small profit by repeatedly jumping in with them and then stealing the pot with aggression on later streets. Once my image got built up I switched gears and waited for a hand, expecting the locals to call me down atypically light. In a way my plan worked. I 3bet a 3X raise in a straddled pot with AKs and a set miner who didn't have pot odds flopped quad deuces on a K high flop.

      I rebought and almost got it all back the very next hand when I overbet a full house on the river against a bartender who had called me all the way with 2nd pair and tanked before finally letting it go. A couple hours later I caught a set against the same bartender, but by then my crazy image was gone and he was able to get away from (I think) a top pair hand that he probably would have paid me off with earlier. I got unstuck by switching back into steal mode. I probably should have stayed in it, as I spent the last hour of my session joking with the locals, waiting for one last big hand that never came.

      I had a non-flicker of hope when a dealer accidentally dealt me the Ad face up and replaced it with a 3 to go with the other ace he had dealt me face down. I have some personal animosity with this particular dealer stemming from an incident a year and a half ago at the Hard Rock (aka the worst poker room in Vegas). He was playing on the clock and non-sarcastically threatened to murder a fish who rivered a straight on him. I reported him his supervisor, but being the Hard Rock I'm 100% confident they didn't do anything about it. Anyway, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he screwed me over, so I acted like the exposed card didn't effect me. Exposed cards aren't worth getting upset about anyway.

      Week 3: 5 1/4 hours +$14
      Comment
      • BeerDog99
        SBR MVP
        • 09-22-10
        • 4894

        #38
        Hey Ian, just to make sure, when you say he was playing on the clock, you mean he is a prop player, right?
        Comment
        • goofyre
          SBR MVP
          • 04-20-10
          • 1933

          #39
          Congrats on the luck. I've been following jymaster11 since hes from near me. Would be cool to attend this next year if nothing else but just to watch.
          Comment
          • Ian
            SBR Hall of Famer
            • 11-09-09
            • 6071

            #40
            Originally posted by BeerDog99
            Hey Ian, just to make sure, when you say he was playing on the clock, you mean he is a prop player, right?
            Sort of. He's a poker dealer first and foremost, but some rooms will allow dealers to play poker on their shift if the room isn't busy and they want to keep a game running. That's what he was doing at the Hard Rock.

            He's actually a good dealer, but while playing he is (or at least was) a horrible sore loser.
            Comment
            • Ian
              SBR Hall of Famer
              • 11-09-09
              • 6071

              #41
              I started this journal to give myself motivation to grind a lot of hours during the Series. So far it hasn't worked. I'm going to come up far short of my 45 hours/week goal for the third straight week, and because of the short hours my one bad session last night will most likely cause me to end the week in the red. Fortunately, I have developed the ability to run hotter than Jesus in the Bible Belt betting sports whenever I lose money playing poker, so I'm actually up slightly this week, but I'm only counting poker results here. Besides, if I really wanted to get technical I would also count the quarterly tax payment I made to the IRS on Wednesday, which was larger than my combined winnings for the entire series to date.

              Wednesday I played 1/2NL at the Mirage while I watched the Bruins win the Stanley Cup. When I first moved to Vegas I would play 10/20 limit hold 'em at the Mirage once a week. 10/20 was always spread in the elevated "top section," and from the perch you had your choice of either looking down at the second busiest card room in Vegas, or looking to the side at the most kickass mural ever painted. The mural ran the entire length of the back wall, and featured a life-sized depiction of a tropical South Pacific village populated solely by hot, topless, teenaged lesbians. The mural is long since gone, and so are the players. These days, even during the series the room is 3/4 empty and doesn't spread anything bigger than 1/2. It's still probably the best room in Vegas for watching a game though, which was all I really cared about Wednesday. I played for an uneventful hour and a half and lost $34.

              By Friday I had switched my sleep schedule around to that of a normal person. Typically dayshift games are a waste of time, but with all the tournaments starting in the afternoon I had a hunch that the games would be filled with fish who had already busted out of whatever tourney they had played. I was not disappointed. At my table at the Venetian I only saw one familiar face, and he was gone after half an hour. The other players were a constant stream of tourists and tourney bustouts.

              I spent most of the session folding junk hands while pretending to be interested in the bad beast stories I was being told. I was able to hang around even by bluffing about twice an hour combined with winning an okay sized pot with AA and losing only 50 when I 3bet AK into AA. The result wasn't anything to be upset about, but after five hours my patience was worn out.

              With a stunning degree of accuracy poker players tend to clam up when they're losing, and blab when they're up. Friday I had the misfortune of being at the table when the most annoying man in Portland, Oregon doubled up with AA vs. KK the first hand he was dealt in, and then went on an uninterrupted roll of stories about how cool he is/how smart he is/how great he is at poker/and how unlucky he is at poker. I took a 15 minute break from the game/him, and when I got back he was finishing a story he started telling when I left. By this time I was untilted, but I got cleaned out anyway when I value bet the 5th nut flush all-in against a calling station who had the 2nd nuts. I rebought, and shortly thereafter reraised a spaz with QQ from the button and got action from a tight local who had just sat down and limp/called UTG. I knew this meant AA, KK, or AK, but for some reason I c-bet $100 into a K high flop anyway. The second I made the bet I knew it was time for me to rack up. I folded to his all-in, and played very tightly until getting up when the blind came.

              Week 3: 12 3/4 hours. -$591
              Comment
              • Ian
                SBR Hall of Famer
                • 11-09-09
                • 6071

                #42
                I've played 3 sessions since my last post, resulting in the same slightly below average results I've been putting up since the beginning of the series.

                Saturday night I immediately gave all my chips to a local grump who I remembered from last fall because he spent most of his time at the poker table intensely studying a packet of printouts from Glenn Beck University. I raised preflop and flopped middle set on a KJ5 board with a flush draw. The Beckite called and nearly jumped out of his chair when an offsuit A fell on the turn. I sort of knew what I was in for, but he could have held AJ, AK, or top pair with a flush draw, so I bet/called his shove and paid for his next semester after he flipped up QTo. I spent the rest of the session slowly clawing back. The weaker players all left more or less at once, so I followed them out with a $71 win.

                The next night was the opposite. I was up a couple stacks early and stayed that way until the very end. The table donator racked up when his male companion showed up in a shirt resembling a wrestling singlet and announced they were going to gay night at a club in the Mirage. It's bad form to immediately rack up as soon as the fish leaves... just because they're stupid at poker doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid. So as is custom I played one last orbit, and uncustomarily lost the night's profit.

                Last night I played my 6th consecutive session without doubling up, but I was able to walk out with my best result in over a week. I think I may have set a record for the most squeeze plays/hour. Nearly half the hands were raised to 3xBB, usually resulting in somebody yelling "pot builder" and several players calling. There's usually a limit on how many times you can get away with 3bet bluffing these spots, but most of my table was drunk and distracted by overly complex prop bets. Once an orbit I reliably picked up a free $30-$60 off this one move. A douche from LA was consistently and unsuccessfully badgering the UTG player to straddle my entire time at the table, and inevitably this caused some animosity. Then tension began slowing the game down, so after 7 1/2 hours I cashed out, once again losing a big pot on my last orbit, but I had built up enough of a stack that I still walked away with over $500 in profit.

                Week 1: 25 3/4 hours +$766
                Week 2: 15 3/4 hours +$674
                Week 3: 16 1/2 hours -$520
                Week 4: 11 1/4 hours +$418
                Comment
                • BeerDog99
                  SBR MVP
                  • 09-22-10
                  • 4894

                  #43
                  Good job Ian, keep it going!
                  Comment
                  • Affirmed3
                    SBR High Roller
                    • 05-09-11
                    • 102

                    #44
                    Good job. Enjoying these updates!
                    Comment
                    • Ian
                      SBR Hall of Famer
                      • 11-09-09
                      • 6071

                      #45
                      Underwhelming results are fueling my underwhelming number of updates here. Since my last post in the thread I've played 4 sessions totaling 22 hours and $12 net profit. I've been playing exclusively at the Venetian. The games have been great, but the results and the random weirdness that goes on in casinos has been getting to me. Exhibit A:

                      Sunday night I'm flanked by two drunk Libertarians who felt compelled to hijack every conversation into slurred sermons about the sanctity of Ron Paul to one another. The one to my right whacked his fist on the table, declaring to no one in particular "Name one thing the goverment runs well. NAME ONE THING!"

                      As I restacked my chips that he had knocked over I needled "the fire department."

                      This enraged him, and without me saying another word he explained to me why I was wrong until I excused myself from the table 10 minutes later. I left to partake in one of life's most underrated pleasures: a long, refreshing bowel movement. I settled down on the toilet, my frustration soothed by Ravel's Bolero playing on the sound system, and just as I'm about to let one fly two guys in the adjacent stalls start barfing in unison. A puddle of vomit from the stall to my right started creeping toward my feet. I finished my dump with my legs in the air and two fingers pinching my nostrils shut. From now on I'm sneaking into the bathroom in the high roller lounge... the riff raff can't even puke right.

                      As far as the poker results are concerned, I'm not sure what I could have done to improve them. No limit hold 'em cash games are one of the lowest variance forms of gambling that I'm aware of. Usually a person's results are pretty much in line with their level of skill relative to the opponents at the table. Of course, losing players invariably chalk up losses to coolers and bad beats, which are the same things I'm crediting for my $12 score. I'm only 1 bad beat story removed from posting a $1300 win for the last 4 days, so for now I'll blame it all on that and my inability to win with sets and big pairs. I'm not yet ready to concede that the tourists are casting their lines and reeling in the pros.

                      Week 1: 25 3/4 hours +$766
                      Week 2: 15 3/4 hours +$674
                      Week 3: 16 1/2 hours -$520
                      Week 4: 21 1/4 hours +$285
                      Week 5: 8 1/2 hours +$145
                      Comment
                      • FuzzyDunlop
                        SBR MVP
                        • 01-15-11
                        • 2422

                        #46
                        Licking my chops thinking about it, hopefully I see you out there!!
                        Comment
                        • Ian
                          SBR Hall of Famer
                          • 11-09-09
                          • 6071

                          #47
                          Originally posted by Ian
                          A puddle of vomit from the stall to my right started creeping toward my feet. I finished my dump with my legs in the air and two fingers pinching my nostrils shut.
                          Originally posted by FuzzyDunlop
                          Licking my chops thinking about it
                          Comment
                          • BeerDog99
                            SBR MVP
                            • 09-22-10
                            • 4894

                            #48
                            LOL, continued good luck to you and Fuzzy!
                            Comment
                            • Ian
                              SBR Hall of Famer
                              • 11-09-09
                              • 6071

                              #49
                              I spent most of the time since my last post on a "staycation." The majority of my adult life could probably be considered a staycation, but I made a point of blowing off steam and giving less of a shit than usual. Losing streaks tend to motivate me, and winning streaks make it easy to put in a ton of hours, but even though I haven't played half the hours I wanted to get in so far, break even streaks make me feel like doing something else. So I did.

                              I made my return last night. I played for half an hour at Wynn. My table was filled with a combination of local pros and former internet pros. Almost the entire table was on the table change list, so I decided to stay put and let everyone else switch into the other games. Sure enough the pros all switched out, but every new player turned out to be solid or yet another professional. I racked up $11 in profit and headed next door.

                              I was immediately seated in a very good game at the Venetian. I sat down to the right of a drunk Aussie who I had seen repeatedly embarrass himself earlier in the week. His antics were more amusing from afar. He informed us he had been playing for 14 hours straight, apparently without washing himself or brushing his teeth, because he smelled like a meatball sub that had been left out in the sun, and his breath smelled like that same sub after it had been eaten and pooped out. He lacked the coordination to go more than a minute without kicking me or knocking over my chips with his elbow, and was totally oblivious to all of it. Fortunately, he soon left to "get some sleep." Two hours later I saw him sit down one table away with a different shirt on and equally greasy hair.

                              The drunk Aussie was replaced with a maniacal elderly Brit. He ordered rum & sprites 4 at a time and they were always finished by the time the waitress came back. I started a conversation with him so he wouldn't leave, and once he became comfortable with me he confided to me "IF THERE'S ONE THING I HATE IT'S A F***ING ARAB!" The Brit was slightly more self-aware than the Aussie, because he at least realized that an Middle Eastern guy was sitting to his immediate left after he said it.

                              I got stuck a buy-in fairly quickly, mainly due to bluffing people who I later learned couldn't be bluffed. I got a seat change to get position on the Brit, which hurt his feelings as he thought I didn't want to talk to him anymore, but the plan worked and was partially responsible for my doubling through him when I made top pair with AK. The game was good, but I was hungry, tired, and happy to have recouped my buy-in, so I left after 6 hours with a small profit.

                              Week 5: 15 hours $237
                              Comment
                              • PlatinumBerg
                                SBR MVP
                                • 03-01-10
                                • 1058

                                #50
                                How much would you say you win per hour playing 2/5? How different is 1/2 game from the 2/5 game?
                                Comment
                                • BeerDog99
                                  SBR MVP
                                  • 09-22-10
                                  • 4894

                                  #51
                                  That is an interesting comment about the Brit thinking you did not like him. I find it is always a fine line to keep the drunks/fishes friendly yet still get the right positions and payoffs.

                                  Good job Ian, lets keep the profits going!

                                  Cheers!
                                  Comment
                                  • Ian
                                    SBR Hall of Famer
                                    • 11-09-09
                                    • 6071

                                    #52
                                    Originally posted by PlatinumBerg
                                    How much would you say you win per hour playing 2/5?
                                    I'll make an educated guess for $40/hour. In live poker nobody really knows their winrate because it takes so long to accumulate a relevant sample size that by the time you get it multiple variables will have changed along the way.

                                    How different is 1/2 game from the 2/5 game?
                                    The limits aren't terribly different.

                                    In Vegas 2/5 is more aggressive. There are far more pros at 2/5 and far fewer tight/passive rocks. The biggest fish at 1/2 tend to be loose/passive players who are new to the game, and the biggest 2/5 fish are degens who treat the poker table like the pit and play maniacally in hopes of making a huge score.

                                    The rake is also lower, in both in an absolute sense and most especially in a proportional sense. The lower rake helps to counteract the increased aggression.
                                    Comment
                                    SBR Contests
                                    Collapse
                                    Top-Rated US Sportsbooks
                                    Collapse
                                    Working...