Live poker
WSOP Horse
As most of you know already, ESPN this past Tuesday aired 2 hours of the 50k Horse event. I was eagerly awaiting this show because I love it when they show something other than No Limit Holdem and I wanted to see this star-studded packed final table. Also, horse is an amazing game and my favorite form of poker to play. When this final table was happening I had heard about the raucous atmosphere going on but what I saw on ESPN blew me away and shocked me.
Weekend Vegas Trip Part 2
On Saturday we woke up around 12pm and went down for breakfast around 1pm. We decided we would check out the Rio and then try to get into a 7pm tournament at Planet Hollywood.
Weekend Vegas Trip Part 1
For some reason, I haven’t been in the mood to post in awhile- despite having resent success on Poker Stars. However, we took our first weekend trip out to Vegas on 6/6-6/8 after moving to LA.. so I asked around and found the best time to leave on Friday would be after rush hour.. so we hung out til about 7:15 and couldn’t wait any longer so we hit the road. It was an easy drive that took a little under 4 hours (probably with the excitement I drove a little faster than I should have in my Jeep)… and gas wasn’t too too horrible.
Day 5 of my WSOP week. Event #12, 1500$ Limit Hold’em
Finally, some sleep. It is 11:30am and I am just waking up. The TV is blabbing idiocies about Hillary Clinton and her endorsing Barack Obama. But I just have to watch. I make my way down to the coffee shop. I am so hungry, I say to myself “screw the comps” and just go in and pay for a nice hearty Omelette breakfast. God, it is taking me so long to get going. I don’t know if it’s the 1k I lost the night before or just laziness on my part. I do not feel excited at all. As I sit in front of the Video Poker machine to get my mailings activated, boredom settles in. Man, you can lose so much time in Vegas and survive.
Day 4 on my WSOP week. Mt. Hopkins - Las Vegas
I’m sorry, I just ended this report so abruptly. Las Vegas happened, plus a bunch of other personal stuff (good stuff, don’t worry). Finally I’m getting to update this. Anyway, this is Day 4 on the WSOP trip. Let’s get on with it!
Observing was great. We got a lot of data and I’ve got a lot of work for the next few weeks. But this isn’t about work. This is the day I go to Las Vegas. A lot of driving to do today, but I have done the trip before and I know it’s beautiful. So we all get up at around 11 am (after having worked until 5:30 am), I guess we are all just eager to leave the mountain. After driving down the long and winding road, basecamp is reached at around 1pm. I am in the real world again…
Day 2 on my WSOP week. Phoenix - Mt. Hopkins
It is always nice finding a bargain. The hotel in Phoenix certainly was one. It was almost like a nice little mini-suite with sofa and everything for 53$ (tax and everything included), less than my tank filling anyways. For good bargains in terms of hotels, especially in Las Vegas I have two recommendations.
Day 1 on my WSOP week. Pasadena-Phoenix
So this is it! Travel week is here. I’m writing this on Tuesday, but it is a small blog of my weeklong experience that will be observing and playing at Event #12 (1500$ LHE) at the WSOP.
I (almost) hate floppin’ the nuts in Omaha
I got into a huge hand with my old professor, Jim McManus, at our home game a few weeks ago where I should have laid down the nuts on the flop. The notion of laying down the best band sounds crazy to hold’em players, but it’s something that you have to be willing to consider in Omaha.
At our home game, we play alternating rounds of $5/$5 no limit hold ‘em and pot-limit Omaha. In a big family pot that had been raised preflop, the board came down 9h 7s 6s. It had checked around to me on the button, which made me feel pretty safe. I bet the pot with my 8 10 straight, hoping to take it down right there, but then Jim reraised the pot.
Not Afraid to Look the Fool, Another Difference Live/Online
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the more information you can accumulate and process, the better you will do. One thing that actually hurts a lot of players in this regard is ego. I have a pretty big ego internally, but externally I will very rarely talk about my accomplishments or show my big laydowns, bluffs, etc. at the table unless I am doing it to set someone up for a play later on or get information.
Drama with a smart/dirty player
At the casino this past weekend, this guy named Lucas randomly told me, “I keep my nails really short because when they’re longer I get tempted to mark cards.” I’ve learned from teaching kids that guilty people usually admit to things that are a little less worse than what they actually did. If a little girl told me that she took three pieces of candy that were off limits, she probably took five. Since this guy was looking for an opportunity to tell a perfect stranger that that he had such a strong desire to mark cards that he had to take physical action to stop himself, I knew he wasn’t afraid to play dirty. Then, a little later, he proudly told the table that he had once won an $800 pot by saying he had two pair at showdown when he didn’t. Saying this made the other guy prematurely muck his hand, and thus forfeit the pot.
