Reno sucked. They ran the tournament terribly. I don’t know exactly what they did for seat assignments, but 90% of the satellite winners were on one side of the room, and 90% of the pros / direct buyins were on the other side. All 9 players at my starting table were pros. It was pretty absurd. I didn’t get deep or anything, and there weren’t any hands worth writing about, so I’ll get straight to Foxwoods.

I got to Foxwoods the night before the 2k. I went to buy-in at 1am, and unlike a real casino, registration was closed. I also discovered the tournament started at 10am. This basically meant a 5 hour time change for me (PST – 3, regular noon start time -2). I honestly probably wouldn’t have come early if I had known that.

So anyway, I ask the floorman how late I can buy in. He tells me 7am. I clarified that I didn’t misspeak, and actually wanted to know how late I could buy in. He said noon.

I “slept in” a little bit, and by “slept in” I mean that I got 5 hours of sleep, and strolled down to the tourney area at 11:15. They informed me registration was closed 30 minutes ago.

Thanks Mr. Floorman for making up an answer to a question that you just didn’t know the answer to. It’s not like I flew across country and sacrificed sleep to play the tournament. No big deal.

I used that time to change hotel rooms. They only had king beds available when I checked in despite having 2 male names on the room, and a request for 2 beds. They moved me to room where neither the phone nor the internet worked, so I had to change rooms again. The room I’m in now has a bath/shower in one where the bath part still gushes out with the shower on, and floods the whole thing, but there’s no way I’m changing to a 4th room. It could be a worse I guess, but it’s things like this that just make me hate traveling. There are always so many hassles to deal with.

I played the 3k and it started off very well. During the first level (25/50) I made it 200 with AA. A young kid reraised me to 600. I reraised to 1700 total, and he moved all-in for his starting stack of 10k. I beat his AKs, and doubled up to about 18k (had lost 1k or so before this hand). I doubled up again sometime later with my opponent drawing fairly slim. I maintained a relatively steady stack (which is VERY rare for me since I generally play so many hands). Level 8 or 9 rolled around, and by this time the blinds were pretty big. Johnny Bax raised from late position, I set him all-in with AQ, and he tanked before calling with 77. He won the race.

Today was the 5k. We started with 15k chips and I had a couple of nice hands that let me build to 45k really early on. I think I made one bad bluff today (the one play of the day I think I regret), and dropped down to 35k or so. I kept grinding up somewhat steadily to like 70k or so. I reached 110k or so before losing a couple of unfortunate hands down to 80-85k when a Doozy of a hand came up.

At 400/800, a Middle Eastern player limped the button. Bax completed from the small blind, and I raised to 3800 from the BB with ATo.

I felt like MEP (Middle Eastern player) was frustrated with me at this point. I bet him out of a few pots, and I think he realized that he was bluffed out of at least one of them (most likely more). Despite playing with him for a relatively long time, these hands happened within a short span of each other, making them more frustrating. As a player he wasn’t terrible, and was mostly tight, but played a little weird with open limps and unusual raise sizes.

Aanyway, MEP called on the button, and Bax folded after muttering some obscenity. The flop came A92 with 2 diamonds (I did not have any diamonds). I led out for 4500, and MEP raised 10k more to 14,500. He had about 35,000 behind at this point (I was the chipleader of the tourney at this point and had him significantly covered). I didn’t want to just call, because he would most likely just shut down with made hands that I had beat unless he improved to a better hand. I also didn’t think it was that likely I was beat, although I was a little worried about bottom set. The main factor that led me to shove was that I thought he might call with a bad ace or some other worse hand just because he was so frustrated with me.

I moved all-in, and he INSTANTLY said call. This was by far the largest pot of the tournament played up to this point, so I thought he must have had a set when he called that big all-in so quickly. I flipped up my cards and saw his face cringe. He reluctantly flipped over 98 of spades (no spades were on this board). Shipit, right?

Nope, turn: 9. Add another 9 on the river to add insult to injury. Bax being the true gangster he is said something like, “Nice hand, well played.” As this guy dragged the pot for over 100k. He knew I would never say anything so felt it was the friendly thing to do it for me. I thought that was kind of funny. Bax is pretty awesome sometimes.

So I fell down to a bit below 30k. I got a little lucky when I raised A4s and a short stack moved in on me. I knew I was never ahead, but he had so few chips that I was getting over 2-1 to call. He had A8, but the board double paired and we chopped. I also “caught another break” when I got TT all-in pre vs KJo and my hand held up. I also had a nice hand where I raised KK, Bill Gazes 3 bet me, and I 4-bet all-in and he gave me some speech about how he misread me for weakness and was sure I had nothing before he folded.

I also caught a couple of people bluffing against me including this doozy of a hand at one point:

6 limpers including me with 72s. Flop A26 checks around. Turn 8, checks to the button who bets 2/3 pot. I call. River jack. Checks to the button who bets 2/3 pot. I call. My bottom pair is good. Basically I knew he was just trying to steal after everyone showed weakness because he would have bet an ace on the flop, and wouldn’t value bet anything worse than an ace on that river.
Eventually we were down to 10, and I was 2nd with 170k chips. This was the bubble since only 9 spots paid (only 75 entries or so).

At 1.5k/3k it folded to me in the CO with 85 of hearts. I raised to 8k. It was a great steal spot because the big blind was clearly playing tight trying to make the money. The only downside was Bill Gazes in the small blind who I had some history with. We had been the two most active people at the table for a couple hours now. I was surprised when he just called because it seemed like a good reraise spot for him.

The flop came KJ7 with the J7 of hearts giving me a flush draw. There were 23k chips in the pot, and he led into me for 24k. He had about 90k behind, and I covered him by about 30k. There was almost 50k in the pot, so I figured I didn’t need that much fold equity for a shove to be profitable. Also, I didn’t think he would overbet like that with anything better than one pair as it would most likely kill his action.

I raised 50k more effectively committing myself and he tanked for 3-4 minutes. Eventually he said all-in, and I obviously called given how little more it was and how much there was in the pot. I was shocked to see him flip up AK. I think he played the hand pretty terribly both preflop and by leading out such a big amount. Anyway, despite the offsuit 8 on the turn giving me approximately 72 outs, I bricked the river.

About an orbit later a short stack busted. That means I’m going into the final table with 18k as the short stack. Better than a bubble I guess.

Except for one bad bluff I made early on yesterday, I think I’ve been playing great poker which is a relief because I haven’t really been as focused as I always like to be the past couple of weeks. I’m always extremely hard on myself when I’m not playing my A game.

My waffles are getting cold (have you noticed that I always have room service waiting for me when I finish my blogs? That’s like the only free time I can find to write one), so I’m gonna end the blog here.

GL to me tomorrow! Only ~120k for first and ~13k for 9th, but a decent finish is still a decent finish.