The Evolution of a Poker Player’s Blog

In reading other people’s blogs I’ve found it pretty amazing (and amusing) how similar a path everyone seems to follow, myself included. So I give you my take on the evolution of a poker player…’s blog.

Admittedly it’s basically my entire blog in a nutshell (with a few fun alterations) but I wonder how close it is to yours?

***

Stage 1: The excitable beginner

Hey guys! My name’s John and this is my first blog post. I’m a 20 year old college student studying Finance at the University of Detroit and have been playing poker for three years. I played mostly for fun in high school at first but now I want to take it more seriously and really get better. Hopefully my subscription here at CrackingCards.com will take me to the next level! Wish me luck!

Stage 2: The goal setter

I deposited $100 and currently have $107.37 in my bankroll. I’m going to try to win 10 buy-ins at 10NL at 4PTBB/100 before taking a shot at 25NL. If I lose 2 buy-ins there I will move back down to 10NL and try again. I hope to finish the year as a 25NL regular with a $500 bankroll. Anything above would just be gravy!

In addition, I’m aiming to:

a) Work out more
b) Maintain a 3.0 GPA
c) Watch 3 videos a week and take good notes

Stage 3: The hand history machine

I played a nice 438 hand session in 52 minutes today and booked a solid $31 win. I think I ran pretty well but also played really well. Here are the more interesting hands from the session.

[insert HH 1]
[insert HH 2]
[insert HH 3]
[insert HH 4]
[insert HH 5]
[insert HH 6]
[insert HH 7]
[insert HH 8]
[insert HH 9]
[insert HH 10]
[insert HH 11]
[insert HH 12]
[insert HH 13]
[insert HH 14]
[insert HH 15]

Thanks for reading through them, I would love any feedback!

Stage 4: The obsessive statistician

My VPIP/PFR is currently 23/15 but it’s meant to be 23/19 so I’m going to try to raise more preflop. I am showing a profit with most of my big hands but AK is still a majorly losing hand for me…must fix that somehow! I also seem to be losing too many 20-40bb pots and my W$SD and WWSF are a bit low.

Poker is going very well overall though…I’m currently winning at 3.27PTBB/100 (3.93 EV-adjusted, I run so bad). I’ve only played 3132 hands though, and apparently you need to play 10,000 before you can be sure you’re definitely a long-term winner. Hopefully my form will carry through!

Stage 5: The heads-up convert

I’ve started playing some 50NL heads-up and I have to say I absolutely love it! I think it really suits my game and my personality. I really love how it’s just one man versus another, a raw battle of wits and psychology; there’s mind games, there’s leveling, there’s the triumph of victory when you stack your opponent and send him scurrying away. HU is just the purest form of poker, and I’ll definitely be playing it more from now on.

Here’s a sick hand where I got into a leveling war with my opponent on a dry 442r flop. We both knew that it was hard for either of us to have a hand on this board and we both knew that we both knew this, so we get into a bit of a raising battle on the flop since it’s a spot where either of could easily be bluffing and re-bluffing. In the end though he had JJ while I had QQ so I guess it was a bit of a cooler.

[insert HH ]

*** Fast forward a few years***

Stage 6: The red-line obsession

My red line has always been in constant decline and it’s really starting to bug me. All the sick high stakes players have really positive red lines so if I want to ever get to high stakes myself I need to try to make mine go up as well. I’ve thought about it a bit and decided that the following changes to my game will help my red line.

1. Every hand I’m going to roll a dice. If it lands on 1, I’m going to triple barrel bluff no matter what.
2. If I have the nuts on the river, I’m going to tell my opponent before I shove. That way he will fold and I will win a non-showdown pot instead of a showdown pot.

Stage 7: The HUD-less Horseman

After watching Sam’s video, I decided to experiment playing without a HUD. Man, has it been an eye-opening experience! I feel like I’m suddenly so much more in tune with the game. I’m making much better reads, understanding my opponents much better and really just have a great handle on the flow of the tables that I’m on. I can’t imagine ever playing with a HUD again!

Stage 8: The expert live player

I decided to mix it up and play some live poker this week. LOL were they bad! I started with some 2/5 cash on Tuesday. Limpers everywhere, passive play all around…what a goldmine! There was this one hand where an old Asian lady called a 3-bet cold with J5s, flopped a pair of 5s on AK5 and then called three streets versus KK! So funny! Unfortunately I ran pretty bad and ended up losing $800 or so. It was so frustrating because no one would fold preflop or on the flop and needless to say my AK never hit!

Stage 9: The MTT non-convert

I played the Sunday Million today and OMG what a joke! I had 25K by the first break because MTT players are just clueless postflop but then the blinds got bigger and I got in AA v 88 for a 60K pot and what do you think hits on the river? F#$king unbelievable. I’m 80% to have a 60K stack and would have been one of the chipleaders but nooooooooooooo, I’m left with 2K chips and got knocked out the hand after. Not playing an MTT ever again!

Stage 10: The down-swinging Emo

Man I can’t catch a break! I lost a little over 7 buy-ins today at 2/4 NL, all in all about $5000. The session started off well but then I lost 3 races in a row and got sucked out on with a set versus a flush draw. I seriously run worse than anyone in the world! Here’s the graph.

[insert graph with brutal EV line]

I don’t know what I’m going to do now. I’m now down 20K for the month and 15K below-EV. I think I’ll take a break and drop down in stakes to regain some confidence. I really thought I was going well and going to hit my goal and move up to 3/6 by the end of the month, but the poker gods have f#%ked me again and it looks like I’ll be slumming it down here for a while longer.

Stage 11: The inspired philosopher

Winston Churchill once said that “failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”.

Ne’er have wiser words been spoken.

And thus, though I may have been brought to my knees…though my confidence may be shattered and my bankroll decimated, I shall persevere.

I shall continue.

I shall be courageous.

And I shall succeed.

Stage 12: Reborn and rejuvenated

I watched a couple of videos from Ben’s new series and have been implementing some of his plays into my game. It’s been working out great and I really feel like a new man! I’m really glad I took a break, I’m actually excited about poker again and feel like I’m playing better than ever! I don’t want to jinx myself but here are my results for this week. Pretty sick!

[insert graph]

*** Fast forward several years***

Stage 13: You’ve made it!

Hey guys, sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been busy travelling across Europe and Asia. Just got back from Thailand yesterday actually, it was simply awesome. Great location, great views and a great time. Here are some pics.

[insert pic 1]
[insert pic 2]
[insert pic 3]
[insert pic 4]
[insert pic 5]

I haven’t played much recently but I did log a short 30 minute hand session yesterday and made about 500K. Mostly standard spots, although there was this one fun hand:

[insert link to HH instead of the HH itself :(]

I’m going to a friend’s house for New Years Eve tonight, should be fun to see everyone again. Take care, happy new year and have a great 2010!

-18K Day, Might’ve Played Isildur Accidentally

No prizes for guessing what happened today lol.

I dropped about 18K at 10/20 and 25/50 and am now below my goal again! Oh well.
It was pretty cool though because for the first time I played a fully-fledged 25/50 session, at one stage 5-tabling it across various sites. I’ve taken shots at 25/50 for a long time now but usually I’ll only have one or two tables up and running. To have my entire screen filled today with 25/50 and not a single lower stake game running felt so sick!

So I’m only up 14.6K for the month now and need to get back to 21K to hit my ‘tier 1’ goal. My ‘tier 2’ goal is to get to 58K so that I can say I’ve made 100K in the one and a half months since uni finishing. That’s obviously a long way off now, as is my ‘tier 3’ goal, which as I said last time is to get to 71K for the month.

My other concurrent goal is to get my 10/20 6-max winnings out of the red for the year. I was down 90K at one stage at 10/20 6-max but managed to get it to +5K or so a couple of days ago. It’s now back down to -12K though so I’d like to finish the year with that in the positive.

The other thing that I’ve been meaning to mention but keep forgetting (but re-remembered today because of the FTP Regs Thread) is that I might’ve accidentally played Isildur1 at 200/400 HU. If you remember I did a gimmick of a shot at this player who I thought was a huge fish and who was down over 1M on iPoker: http://thepokermind.blogspot.com/2009/10/very-brief-200400-nl-shot.html. I later found out though that my opponent is likely to be Blom90, who of course is also rumoured to be Isildur1.

If true, this would make my shot rather dumb. The thing that makes me think it’s not Isildur1 though is that a) he plays 6-max and b) he’s a complete galah at 6-max (I’ve been shown some pretty lol hand histories). Either way though I think it’s a pretty funny development and it definitely makes you think twice before shot-taking just because you saw someone’s PTR!

21K Day at…HU!?!?

Wow how things can change! I’ve been running so poorly this month at 6-max that yesterday I thought “screw it, let’s give HU a whirl”. For those of you who don’t know this is generally a really bad idea for me. I’ve never really studied HU videos or gotten coaching for HU or read HU hands in forums. My HU career has basically been me clicking buttons versus I Win Flips and slowly learning how much I suck (though he loves constantly reminding me as well).

Anyway yesterday I played two different opponents for about an hour each and won 10K in the first match and 11K in the second. I felt I actually had an edge in the first game (which surprised me as much as anyone else) and in the second I just ran quite possibly the best I ever have in a 20 minute period in my life. There were simultaneous stacks going in everywhere and I just kept flipping over the nuts. I’m surprised he kept his game together as much as he did. I probably would have been open shoving every hand in his spot!

My plan now is to never play HU again in my life and run away with my run-good! Hehe.

I logged on this morning to check my e-mail and without any intention of playing but someone informed me that a massive fish was playing 25/50 so I had no choice but to sit. I won 8K there in about an hour of 1-tabling before I had to go off to the travel agent to pick some stuff up.

So all in all I’m suddenly up 27K for the month and out of the blue have hit my main goal for the year! There’s two weeks left in the year though and I can’t see myself just stopping now. I’m going to try and hit my secondary goal which is basically just to win another 50K (44K from here on in). I know I’ll be life-tilted if I go on a downswing and finish below my original goal but, I mean, what can you do…

In regards to HEM the problem seems to be that HEM won’t import hands if I import them AFTER the session (as opposed to during). I don’t import during HU because I don’t use a HUD for HU so this is probably why only my HU sessions have been affected. I think this must be a recent problem caused by the spyware that infected my computer. It must’ve damaged my hard drive or something. Anyway since I know how much I should be up or down after each session (sometimes you just can’t beat trusty Excel) I’ve just been deleting hands to get to the right dollar amount. It’s not perfect, but it’ll do until I get my new computer next week.

On Tilt from F*#king HEM

My HEM has turned into a useless piece of shit. I’ve literally spent more time trying to fix HEM these past few days than I have actually playing.

It’s so frustrating because I really have no idea how much I’m up or down this month now. I don’t know how close or far away I am from my goal. Heck I don’t even know if my HEM has been stuffed up this entire year and my results this year are completely off. I only started double checking my HEM results with my poker account balances after every session recently.

I spent yesterday and the day before trying to get these 3 tables of HU on Stars to import but they simply wouldn’t. Eventually I changed the SN, hand history numbers and table names in them, re-imported them and added the new SN to my Alias. Then I realised a table of FTP was also missing as my account and HEM were $700 off. I did the same thing for that and breathed a sigh of relief when it all worked out.

But then today OMFGdsfnakafdsadfad I played another 4 table HU match. Of the 4, one table imported correctly, one did not appear at all, and the other two only half imported.

Even weirder is that if I filter for the last 2 days, say, and I group it by ‘Sessions’ it’ll show a different amount for winnings than if I group it by ‘Sessions (by Table)’. This is obviously retarded. It somehow wipes out 2K in winnings when I move it from one to the other!!!


I had an inkling something was wrong with my HEM a while ago. If you remember I posted an entry where I showed myself a zillion dollars above-EV. When I analysed it afterwards though I realised my HEM said I was 35 buy-ins above EV in a heads-up match versus I Win Flips. I thought to myself “that can’t be right, I ran hot but not THAT hot”. When I asked him he agreed it was impossible and said his HEM showed I was only up 8 buy-ins in EV. I assumed the problem was restricted to EV calculations though so didn’t think much of it. But now that it’s the actual dollar amounts which are wrong I’m mighty pissed off.

I’m getting a new computer next week and will start a fresh HEM database. Hopefully that’ll fix the problem somehow. It’s annoying though because I planned to finish his year with a review of how I went and to know that the figures might be completely wrong is so bloody tilting. It’s kind of weird I know but it’s kind of like a piece of my identity has been taken away…

Stars is Rigged, X Factor: Go Joe!

To finish this year I set myself a relatively modest goal for December of $21K. In my end of year review you can find out why I decided 21K but suffice to say the poker gods have been conspiring against me.

I guess on the bright side I’m actually only down 2 buy-ins for the month and I still only need 26K (or 13 buy-ins) to hit my goal - very do-able for sure!

Most of the run bad has been on Stars and I’ve literally busted my Stars account for about the 4th time this year. Even without the run bad, for the life of me I cannot beat that site. I feel like I can walk on water on FTP and Party but on Stars I just have no clue.

I’m pretty sure it’s because Stars doesn’t use a continuously shuffled deck. On FTP and Party I can time my turn call so that I get just the right river card, or my preflop all-in call so that I get just the right board to run out. But on Stars the deck is fixed once the cards are dealt and I’m simply helpless!

In other news, after seeing Susan Boyle’s now famous Britain’s Got Talent clip earlier this year I followed the rest of the series on YouTube and then transitioned to Simon Cowell’s other show, X Factor. In one of the early episodes there was a really good audition by a boy named Joe and I thought “wow, he’s like the only one who can actually sing, he’s sure to win!” Once it was confirmed he was one of the 12 finalists I decided to bet $750 on him at 4/1 odds. Well 10 weeks later and he’s in the final 2 tomorrow! Not only that but he’s the heavy favourite! I don’t really understand UK odds but apparently I get $3750 back (or $3000 profit) tomorrow if he wins. He’s currently at 1/4 while villain is at 11/4, so I’m pretty sure I made a sick bet whatever happens.

Anyway, go Joe!

APPT Sydney Main Event Day 2

No luck unfortunately. I had my 40k stack whittled down to 20K, then I won two small pots with AK and JJ in the space of 3 hands to get back to 36K; then I got whittled down to 20K again before doubling up with AJs v A5o on A62dd to get back to 40K; then I got whittled down to 23K again before I stuck the rest of my stack in with QJo in the big blind versus a hijack 4K open. He thought for quite a bit but eventually made the call, showing A3s, and the Ace door-card sent me packing.

I’ve decided to play the last event of the series tomorrow, the $3200 heads-up event. I didn’t play this event last year as the structure was retarded: it had a best of three structure but the blinds in games 2 and 3 left off from where the blinds in the previous game finished. This year I’ve been told that problem has been fixed so I’m really looking forward to my first live heads-up tournament. Should be fun!

APPT Sydney Main Event Day 1A

I played the $1650 Bounty and $2700 6-Handed events earlier in the week but had no luck so when I rocked up for Day 1A of the Main Event yesterday I was hoping that I had saved my run good for when it mattered. I had initially planned to play Day 1B but had an Anti-VirusPro09 attack the night before which basically rendered my computer unusable and technicians had to take my computer away to fix it. Unable to grind online I thus did the only logical thing a poker player can do – grind live!

Day 1A was always going to be the smallest field but even I was surprised at the number - only 81 people showed up. The day was pretty tepid – my first table was the first to break and by the end of my two orbits there I had already lost 5K of my 30K starting stack, mostly due to a failed river bluff. On the whole it seemed like it was going to be a pretty tough table though so I was pretty pleased when I got moved to my new one and saw fish galore.

I had three middle-aged fish to my right, an annoying, slow-acting, and constantly-talking-to-his-imaginary-friend loose nit to my left (loose because he played a lot of hands, but nit because he wouldn’t put a cent in the pot if it put him at risk), a middle-aged Asian TAG two to my left, and then three notables around the Australian poker circuit filling seats 3 through 5. Seat 3 was Jamie Pickering who played in the Aussie Millions cash game with Durrrr and co. earlier this year. Seat 4 was Jason Gray who is an Australian pro and who I believe has come 2nd in this event before but who in reality seems very bad. He called a 3-bet for 25% of his stack with 35s and managed to smash a Q55 flop to crack aces. So that’s how you do it!

And then seat 5 was none other than Tony Dunst, AKA ‘Bond18’. A year ago when I was learning MTTs I actually watched quite a few of Tony’s videos and consider myself a fan. MTT videos are dry as hell since nothing at all happens so you need someone interesting and talkative to keep you attentive. I decided not to introduce myself as a 2+2er as I’m sure it would have affected the way he played against me and would instantly have given him a zillion reads.

I got off to a good start on this table and worked my stack back up to 28K within an orbit. The rest of the day however proved incredibly fruitless. I watched hopelessly as all my opponents received AA at least twice each (being live fish they always showed them) while I sat there mucking hand after hand. The only big pairs I received were KK and TT. The KK I squeezed preflop and took it down. The TT I had to fold because there was a UTG raise and MP 3-bet before it was even on me.

My other big hand of the day proved to be my double up. I had been whittled down to 19K and picked up AK UTG+2. UTG+1 raised to 1500 and I 3-bet to 4200. He called, the flop came K95hh and he led for 6K. I shoved in the extra 9K and he called. I had him covered by about 500 chips and he showed ATh. A much bigger sweat that I would’ve liked! Fortunately the red queen on the river was only a diamond and I doubled up to 40K.

I finished the day on 42600, and although it’s below the average I’m pretty happy all things considered. Tony meanwhile managed to win two huge flips to propel himself to the chip lead with over 100K. He was down to 17K at one stage so it really shows just how quickly fortunes can change in MTTs. You really have to just hang in there, wait till you run like God, and then crush (pretty much what I did at the WSOP ME, which by the way I still have to finish my trip report on I know!).

The highlight of the day turned out not to be the poker but the fistfight that broke out in the poker room. Security took what seemed like an eternity (was a solid two or three minutes) to get there and, by the time they separated the men, one was bloody and mangled. For a good read/recount I recommend reading Terence Chan’s blog entry here: http://terrencechan.livejournal.com/324249.html.

My personal highlight of the day however was a quote from the guy to my left. It definitely gave me a good chuckle. A guy raised in EP and the guy to my left re-raised. He only had about 15bb’s total so he probably should’ve just shoved but whatever. It then comes back to EP who puts him all-in with AQs. The guy to my left calls with AA. After his hand holds he happily proclaims to the table: “I was trying to represent Kings” (to get action from Ax). LOL.

I have two days off now before returning on Friday for Day 2. The blinds will be 500/1000 so I’ll have 42 big blinds which will be more than enough to work with. Hopefully I can pick up some cards though and put up a better showing than yesterday.

Swingy Month

APPT Sydney Opening Event Report

(Photo taken from biggamepoker.com.au)

So after a disastrous couple of days online I decided to take a break and play the opening event of APPT Sydney, the $1100 Deep Stack NLHE tournament. I hadn’t intended to play initially because all things considered it’s a relative waste of time compared to multi-tabling 10/20 online but I figured that I could only lose 1K in this MTT while I would probably lose another 10K if I stayed home.

So I rocked up to Star City two hours early, all prepped and ready, checked out the new poker room, got some brunch from Subway, listened to my iPod to psyche myself up, and took my seat. Before long the cards were in the air!

And then, 8 hands and 15 minutes later, I was out.

…

This is quite an accomplishment if you ask me. So much so that I now present to you a world first: a tournament report, recounting EVERY SINGLE hand! How many people can say they have done that?

Hand 1: I have 69o. A player raises in early position and I fold.

Hand 2: I pick up 83o. The player who won the first pot raises again and I fold.

Hand 3: I pick up KTs and open raise in the hijack. The button, no doubt tilting from losing 1/4 of his chips in the last pot, 3-bets on the button. I fold.

Hand 4: I pick up K2 and fold.

Hand 5: I pick up KQo in EP and fold. The king was a spade but, alas, the queen was a mere club. Thought you might be interested.

Hand 6: I pick up QQ and raise. MP and BTN call. The flop comes KJ8r. I bet 575 into 975 and both players call. The turn pairs the K and we check to the button who bets 700. I call, MP folds. The river is a 4, I check and he bets 1600.

***Random Strategy Aside***

This is usually a clear fold, but I’ve made way too many retarded folds in MTTs to fold this. I used to make all these folds which were standard in cash but turned out to be retarded in MTTs because people’s thought processes in MTTs are just so whack.

I remember a funny incident at ANZPT Sydney where I went up to Daniel Kochan, a respected MTT player, and sought his thoughts on this hand where I made a big fold. I had folded a Q high flush (using both my hole cards) to what turned out to be just a 7 high flush. I was obviously pissed off as hell and wanted to confirm with him that my fold was OK.

The conversation went like this:

Me: “Hey, what would you do in this hand. So a guy limps in EP, another guy limps in MP, the BTN…”

Him: “Call river.”

Me: “DOH!”

***End Random Strategy Aside***

So I called here and he had AK. Oh well, whatever.

Hand 7: I pick up J8d in the big blind. UTG raises 3x, LP calls, SB, calls, I call. Flop is 732r with one diamond. I ponder leading and triple barreling my bucket load of backdoors and overcards but then decide I’d rather simmer on the QQ hand more. I check/fold.

Hand 8: I pick up 68o in the small blind. Steaming 3-bettor from hand 3 is the only limper, I complete, and the big blind checks. The pot is 300 and the flop comes down T97r. We check to the limper who bets 500. I check-raise to 1650, the big blind folds, steamy limper shoves all-in. I call the extra 9700 or so and he shows TT. The turn and river come deuces and he barely covers me so I’m out.

Cool chickens.

So I go home and resign myself to donking off more money on the virtual felt. Luckily the poker gods finally felt sorry for me and l managed to turn in a 19K day :)! Weeeeeeeeeeee!

PCA, New York, Exchange, Cambridge and more!

Well, exams are over!!! That’s a big relief. I did my usual Red Bull-driven cram and think I did pretty well all things considered. In two days I have a summer internship interview for the NSW Law Reform Commission. If I get that I’ll be working December and February and travelling to the Bahamas and New York in January. If I don’t get it I’ll be playing APPT Sydney in December and hopefully will be going to Japan in February. Either way I’m hitting up PCA and NY!

For PCA I decided to do the full package, extended nights and all, so I’ll be there from the 4th to the 15th and then I’ll be in New York from the 15th to 24th. I can’t wait for both! I’ve never been to New York and since everyone says how incredible it is I’ve been itching to go for ages. And this will be my second (and probably last) time at PCA so I’m definitely looking forward to that and I know it’ll be a blast.

I’ll also find out about my exchange in January. I applied to the law exchange earlier in the year but didn’t get that because my law marks aren’t good enough. I then applied through the general university-wide exchange program which counts all your marks and my commerce marks are pretty killer so I’m pretty confident of being able to get that. My preferences (in order) are Lund and Uppsala in Sweden (maybe I can find and learn from Isildur?) and Toronto and Ottawa in Canada. I’m really hoping to end up at Lund but will be happy with any of the other destinations too.

Finally, I received this e-mail the other day about this opportunity at Cambridge. Basically I can do one of my law units next year over at Cambridge instead of here in Sydney. The way it works is that I do one less subject here next semester and then I travel over there to do an entire subject in one (very intensive) week! I did a day-trip to Cambridge last time I was in London and the university really caught my imagination. It has cobbled streets, luscious lawns and sandstone buildings, and as a university town it has this really unique ambiance about it. I remember thinking how amazing it’d be to be able to study at a place like that and now I have the chance! Now obviously one week isn’t much compared to the real thing, but it’s the best chance I’ve got so I think I’ll have to take it.

The only problem is…it coincides with the WSOP Main Event. Oh well, I wasn’t sure I was going back anyway since I was probably going to travel around Europe if I got into exchange. I also figure that I can go back to the WSOP later in life, but I’ll never be able to do this again.

Whatever happens, a pretty exciting year coming up for me I think. Can’t wait!

My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 8 (Photo Blog!)

Thursday July 9 – Mirage Pool, Grand Canyon, New York New York, Bellagio Fountains, Rhumbar


Mirage Pool

Thursday began with a trip to the pool. Unlike the Bellagio, the Mirage pool was absolutely awesome – it was packed to the rafters, it had a fun, laid-back atmosphere, and the females there were both over 10 and under 40. I saw a few college kids with a cabana trying to look suave for the girls, but they all had Bud Lights in their hand which is a pretty funny sight coming from Australia (no one drinks light beer here). I did give them credit for their cabana’s location though and decided to book one myself for Sunday – I assumed I’d be out of the tournament by then.

Here are some photos of the pool. One was taken by a crazy hot girl so if by any chance you remember taking the first picture below, send me an e-mail!

Cabana Shopping

After our swim we went back to our rooms to get ready for our helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon. Whilst everyone was showering I tried to book the cabana but found out that they were booked out for the entire weekend. Lame! So I gave the MGM Grand a call since I had heard good things about their Wet Republic Sunday pool party. Fortunately they had cabanas free and I decided to splash out and order the $1500 minimum spend one – it was the day of my 22nd birthday after all! We also tried to book a table at XS for Saturday night. Unfortunately that was also booked out so I decided to draw up a list of clubs that I wanted to go to. Pete, my self-appointed agent, said he’d call them up the next day.

Grand Canyon!

After a room service brunch (I had the Japanese breakfast) we all met up in the lobby and waited for our limo to pick us up. We ended up sharing it with two other Australians who were staying at Paris and listened on as our chauffeur described the impending experience as better than anything we could possibly imagine – jeez, don’t raise our expectations much!

This was my first time in a helicopter so I was pretty excited. I shot-gunned the front seat and revelled in the sound of my own voice as I talked on the in-flight microphone. The flight itself lasts about 40 minutes and they record the trip for you (including your reactions and conversation) so that you can watch it back later.

When you begin your ascent over the final mountain before the Grand Canyon appears they play the soundtrack from Indiana Jones. With the spirit of adventure inside you, you then land inside the Grand Canyon to take some more photos and have a champagne picnic.

On the way back you fly right over the Strip and get to see all the hotels (and their pools!) from above.

New York New York

Once we returned to the Mirage we got changed and started walking towards New York New York.

This plan was quickly abandoned however as it was too hot and we were too tired. Taxis from Caesar’s next door were in order.

The inside of New York New York is surprisingly dark and dingy; I’ve never actually been to New York but I expect that, with the odd ‘32nd street’ street sign, the odd 10 metre tall painting of the Chrysler Building on the wall, and the odd diner specialising in burger and chips, it’s meant to be reminiscent of being in the Big Apple.

We started with the rollercoaster which, unlike the one at Sahara, is big and complete with loops and corkscrews. I had a pretty scary moment where I realised that my hands would probably be cut off if I didn’t put them back down ASAP after a big descent – where were the warnings damn it!

We then went downstairs to the food area and got burgers and chips for dinner. I ordered last and had to wait a good 20 minutes longer than anyone else – I wasn’t very impressed at all as everyone else was eating ice cream by the time I got mine! So much for fast food!

Bellagio Fountains

After dinner we made our way back to the Mirage, with the intention of stopping by at the Bellagio to watch the fountain shows. It’s funny; we never actually bothered to watch the fountains while we were staying at the Bellagio, so now we had to plan a trip back there just for it!

We ended up watching two displays and they were both pretty decent. I preferred “All That Jazz” since the music and fountains actually worked well together.

Rhumbar

After a big day out, the only logical way to end the night was to unwind with a few cocktails back at Rhumbar at the Mirage. Highlight of the night had to be seeing this old guy who was at least 60 fully getting into it with this woman in the corner (she looked about 30). Ah, only in Vegas...

Oh, the cocktails were cool too!

Dumb Blackjack Dealer

Back at the Mirage, Fraser and I decided to log some blackjack hands before going to sleep. We had this female dealer who, upon finding out that I was here for the WSOP Main Event, asked whether I’d qualified online. I told her that in fact I had just bought straight in and she was shocked. Not shocked that I could afford it though, but shocked that I was silly enough to do so!

“If you’re not good enough to qualify, you won’t be good enough to play the real thing here.”
Um...ok.

I tried to explain how this wasn’t true and how in fact I didn’t even try to qualify but she just looked at me with this “poor kid, just doesn’t know what he’s doing” expression. Oh well.

After a small loss I went to bed, ready to make some waves in the Main Event the next day!

My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 7

Wednesday July 8 – Main Event Day 2

Introduction

So I entered Day 2 with 32800 in chips, a mere 2800 chips more than I had started with on Day 1. Despite this, when I found my table, I discovered a rather remarkable fact: I was 4th in chips! Not only that, I was barely behind the chipleader on our table – he only had about 40,000! Our table was also right in the back corner of the room, causing one of the players to remark “this is where they leave the shortstacks to die…”

Having shortstacks at your table is actually a good thing in tournaments, and this was to be the first in a series of fortuitous table draws for myself. Indeed my luck throughout the tournament came not in the form of sucking out left, right and centre or winning every flip I came across – rather, it was getting incredibly good table draws throughout the tournament and never running into any big cooler situations.

Anyway, I had gone into Day 2 fully expecting this to be my last day, not only because of my underwhelming chipstack but because roughly half the field is eliminated by the end of Day 2. So my goal was basically to get through to Day 3 and anything beyond that would be a bonus.

Online Player Guns for Me

The day started slowly and I basically maintained parity for the first few levels by frequently 3-betting the initial chipleader, a young and aggressive player two to my right (let’s call him X). Another young player to my direct right (let’s call him Y) caught onto this and when I 3-bet him for the second time in late position he quickly jammed it in on me. I quickly folded, X said “nice one, he’s been 3-betting a lot” and I bent down to pick up a bottle of water. Upon my eyes returning to table level I saw that Y had proudly shown the 3c to the table, quite chuffed with his bluff it seemed.

This I think is where online players go wrong. I have very limited live experience, but it seems that almost every time I do play live, there’s at least one online player at the table who thinks there’s a mini-tournament for best and most aggressive online player at the table. I don’t mind his shove, but showing it is really dumb. If he didn’t show, I would have had to give him credit for a hand and respect his plays in future until shown otherwise, but now I basically know he’s one of the above types of players.

So a few orbits later Y opens the button and I 3-bet out of position for the first time all day – with QQ from the small blind. He thinks for a bit and calls. I’m pretty ecstatic because I just know that this guy doesn’t realise my out of position 3-betting range is infinitely tighter than my in position one. I may be short relative to the average stack, but I still had plenty of big blinds such that 3-betting out of position could get me into some really sticky situations. Anyway the flop comes down 234r and I bet pretty big for value, about 3/4 pot since nothing folds this flop except whiffed JTs type hands. He calls and the turn comes a 6, completing the straight and bringing a backdoor flush. I don’t think I can bet two streets now and get called by worse so I check to him. He quickly bets about 6000, essentially putting me to a decision for my tournament as I only have about 22000 left and there’s still one more street to play. A few things go through my head. First, he’s basically polarised his range to a 5 or nothing, and although he’s probably wanting to outplay me at all costs, I don’t think that even he can play so fundamentally incorrectly that he’d have many 5s in his range after calling a 3-bet with relatively shallow stacks. So I basically decide that I’m going with the hand then and there. The second thing that goes through my head though is unexpected: “Man, I’m going to look like the quintessential donk who can’t fold an overpair if I’m wrong here and stack off on a four-straight board. And man, this is the Main Event… I don’t want to be eliminated!” Before these thoughts can overcome me too much though, I stick the rest of my money in. In actuality, the best line is probably check-call turn and check-call river (although it’s definitely close with QQ compared to say AA where c/c twice is clearly best) but in the heat of the moment I made a mistake and shoved it all-in.

After I say “all-in” I await the snap-call and when I don’t hear it within 3 seconds I’m basically doing fist-pumps in my head and rolling around in ecstasy. Haha, got you! Then he keeps thinking for a good minute and I’m starting to worry. It doesn’t seem like a Hollywood anymore; am I actually trying to bluff him off a set? I think he would call a set pretty quickly if he does have one since I can’t have many 5s in my range either.

Anyway eventually he calls and shows KTs…for the turned backdoor flush. Right…

So I’m a 75% favourite to double up to 60,000 and be above average for the first time in the tournament. I’m also genuinely all-in for the first time – 25% of the time I’m going to be out of there! Oh man, the excitement, the pressure…

Fortunately it bricks a J or something and I’m going great guns all of a sudden! Woo!

My opponent was left crippled with about 10 big blinds and busted soon after. I think his undoing was partly the “must be best online player at table and outplay everyone” syndrome that I was talking about before and partly the fact that he butchered that hand pretty badly. Preflop is meh but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. The flop float though I think is atrocious since I can’t think of a worse flop to float on. All of my hands have some interest in this flop, whether I have an overpair, 67s or AK. As I said, only a hand like JTs truly whiffs this flop. In regards to his turn play, I really don’t like his bet once he turns the backdoor flush draw. As I said in my first video, this is a great spot to check it back and realise your equity, and if you would win with a bet on the turn you’re going to win with a bet on the river anyway (unless I river something). The downside of what happens if you bet the turn is pretty big and is what happened here – you get check-raised all-in and have to give up your equity or you have to call off your entire stack on a draw in really ugly fashion. It’s also a spot where doesn’t really know what his equity is so he can’t call it off very comfortably – he could have as much as 15 outs if I have 99 with no heart, or as little as 8 outs if I have AA with a heart. It’s just a really gross spot, and if I was a spaz I could even be shoving here with like AK, and then he’d calling it off behind even though I’m bluffing and in a situation where he could almost certainly win the pot if he checks it back and I brick the river with AK and he stabs.

Weird Line with a Set

Anyway that was actually the only really big hand of the day. The only other interesting one where I wasn’t sure what to do went down as follows. Player X had been doing pretty well and had about 60K as did I. He raised preflop and I called in position with 99. The flop came JT9cc. He bet 3200 into 8200 and my standard here I guess is to raise. I thought about it though and decided that 150 big blinds deep I couldn’t ever really get all-in on this flop and be in great shape. I’d basically be hoping that he was bad enough to stack off JT on that board and even then he still has 4 outs. It’s also awkward because if I raise to 9K, I’m effectively shoving since I can’t fold to any further flop action. He thus has the luxury of essentially knowing that I’ve bet 60K, despite having only bet 3K himself, and he can put in his last 57K only when he feels comfortable. Surely, that is only with a range that has 99 beat? So I decided there was more value to be had by playing a smaller pot and milking his one pair hands which would fold to a flop raise.

The turn came a brick, an offsuit 5, and he checked. Here I made a really unusual play. It’s a board where once he checks he can never be stronger than one pair. In that case he can’t ever call turn AND river unless he improves on the river. This means you can only usually get one more street of value, but usually you want to go for that value on the turn since you can get calls from like 98h or KJ on the turn which may have a great deal of trouble paying you off on various rivers. I decided though to check it back and go for value on the river because I hated the idea of getting check-raised on this board. It wouldn’t happen very often, but when it did it would almost always mean a straight and I’d have to fold my set, a hand that could’ve filled up on the river and won a nice pot, especially since my set is so disguised as he probably would think that I’d raise a set on that wet a flop. I think AA would be an easy bet/fold, but here I hated the idea of bet/folding 99, so I checked. The river was ugly, an offsuit Q, making the final board JT95Q with a whiffed flush draw.

He checked to me and I had to decide whether I could value bet. I had planned to over-bet the river if it bricked since it should look very suspicious to him as all the draws missed and any hand worthy of overbetting the river for value on my part would surely bet the turn. On this river though I could hardly over-bet and expect to be called by worse. I decided that he rarely had a better hand since he would bet any straight on the river since I’ve shown so much weakness and am likely snap-checking this river back. Thus I bet like 3200 into 14600 in the hopes of getting called by a hand like two pair. He grimaced and eventually called. I flipped over my set and he showed A8 to take the pot. Ugh…

End of Day 2 Baby!

Anyway, I did make it through to the end of the day which I was very pleased about. I basically went nowhere after that big pot though and finished the day with 57600 in chips, quite a bit under the average again. We had another day off the following day, but once Day 3 came I knew I would have to seriously start accumulating some chips. I couldn’t tread water forever…

My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 6 (Pics Galore!)

Tuesday July 7 – Mirage, Venetian, Wynn, Sahara, Stratosphere

Moving to the Mirage

Day 6 was by far my favourite day of the trip.

We started the day by packing up our things and moving to the Mirage. Before we left for Vegas we had debated for hours what two hotels we should stay at. The Bellagio was pretty much always locked in so most of the time we were tossing up between the Mirage and MGM Grand as our second hotel. In the end we went with Mirage, mostly because of its better location, and in hindsight I’m pretty happy with the choice. In some respects I even preferred the Mirage to the Bellagio. It has a much younger crowd, a much more fun and happening pool, and all night room service. Unfortunately it also has a terribly small bathroom (and I mean tiny) and a very dim and dull casino. I didn’t think the latter would bother me too much since I’m not that big on table games, but I found I really did miss the atmosphere at Bellagio. It’s just so alive and it really makes you feel like you’re at the centre of Las Vegas.

Once we found our rooms we had a general look around before going for lunch. Here’s a picture I took of the pool from our window – as you can see it’s pretty damn enticing!

The Venetian and Palazzo

For lunch we had the buffet at Cravings, one of the Mirage restaurants. They had a pretty cool noodle soup kitchen thing going on and awesome guacamole. The crab wasn’t bad either.

Then we headed out to explore the rest of the Strip. Our first port of call was the Venetian, a hotel I was really keen to see and had seriously considered staying at in place of the Bellagio. Here are some pics of our walk to the Venetian.

Once inside we took the escalators up (note the cool fresco thing on the ceiling) and suddenly found ourselves in Venice! Well, not quite. I have to say I was a bit disappointed with it all – it definitely looked a lot better in pictures and videos. When you’re actually inside you don’t get that illusion of space that I was expecting at all – it’s all very small, narrow, fake and quite tacky. I was still glad to see it all, and the novelty of it all was definitely still cool, but I was glad I didn’t end up staying there. Here are some pics of the canals as well as of the ‘town centre’.

The Venetian joins onto the Palazzo and when we crossed the threshold it was like suddenly walking into another universe. Unlike the Venetian, the Palazzo was visually stunning and I actually wish we had a better look around (we basically walked straight to the exit). I took a couple of pictures and I think you’ll agree it looks amazing.

The Wynn and Encore

After leaving the Palazzo we walked down towards the Wynn and Encore. On the way we passed Treasure Island and saw Trump Hotel and some strange UFO-looking building (a shopping complex I think?). I also managed to take this snap of the two Wynn hotels side by side and was especially pleased.

Wynn and Encore are meant to be the two best hotels in Vegas so I was really keen to check them out and I was especially hoping that they wouldn’t be a huge disappointment like the Venetian.

Fortunately, I wasn’t let down – the place is simply sparkling! As soon as you walk in, you immediately think “damn, this is a slick place” – the floors are polished, the gardens are immaculate, the whole layout of the place just oozes class, even the casino slots!

The only problem with the place, as you can see in the photo above, was that it was nigh on completely empty! It was like walking into an empty building, there was no atmosphere at all. I assume that this was because of the recession and the fact that the Wynn hotels are the most expensive on the Strip. During peak times I imagine this place would be just buzzing.

Anyway we decided now was a good time to stop for a drink. There was a bar in the centre but we decided to head downstairs to the outside courtyard. On the way I pointed out to Julian the smoking hot waitresses and the ridiculously short skirts we had just forgone by going downstairs. He was not at all impressed at our decision, but fortunately the ones downstairs didn’t end up being too bad either!

At the door to the courtyard the girl told us that we had to buy at least one drink each. I thought this was probably just standard procedure but everyone else thought that because of our age and our clothes (thongs, t-shirts, shorts etc.) and the way she said it she probably thought we couldn’t afford a drink there and just wanted to take a photo or something. So we decided to show her and have TWO each!

The courtyard was like this little sanctuary and except for the heat you really couldn’t tell you were in Vegas at all. There were no buildings jutting into view, no sounds of cars rushing along the Strip – just a really nice and relaxing environment to chill, put your feet up and have a drink. I don’t remember what I ended up drinking but I remember it was nice and that I had a good time overall.

No Man’s Land and Sahara

After our drinks we headed back onto the Strip and made for our final destination – Stratosphere. Someone suggested that we should probably get a taxi there because it’s quite a long walk but we all laughed it off – “Look how big it is! It can’t be that far away!”

Ugh.

20 minutes later and the Stratosphere is not much bigger than it was when we left Encore. Damn, big things really do confuse your sense of perspective! By now we’re all exhausted, Fraser has a bleeding foot (dangerous, rocky terrain!) and I’m starting to think that we’re not going to make it out alive. Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but for some reason no one ever told me that the space between Encore and Stratosphere is like a super-dodgy, barren wasteland! There are flyers for prostitutes everywhere, dingy looking hotels like Circus Circus, and run-down stores and booths selling everything from fake sunglasses to cheap show tickets to Grand Canyon helicopter tours. We even got to see one of those stereotypical old-style Vegas wedding chapels and there was even a bride and groom leaving from it, both dressed in wedding attire. Julian also took a picture with some girls outside Riviera – I think it made his day.

We also passed Sahara and stopped in for a look. It was host to a giant burrito eating challenge which only like 3 people or so had ever completed. This was the sort of thing that Julian was born to do, but despite our universal encouragement he chickened out, saying that the buffet lunch we had just had would prevent him from reaching his full potential. Anna, Rosie, Pete and I then decided to give the Sahara’s rollercoaster a go. It was a pretty tiny one so we thought it’d just be a bit of harmless fun. Since we wanted to sit at the front we let another group go in before us and watched as the first batch of people left.

My god, it was like the scariest thing I’ve ever seen! The acceleration from the start was incredible – the people got ripped to the back to their seats and their faces opened up in horror. To make matters worse they returned in the space of what seemed like 15 seconds. Since we had seen the rollercoaster from the outside, we knew that for it to return in this short a time it must have gone damn fast. So we’re all scared out of our minds now but have no choice but to take our seats.

In the end, the ride itself was not scary at all. The acceleration at the start didn’t feel different to any other ride, the ride felt like it lasted a good minute or so, and there weren’t any heart-stopping moments at all. But whenever I look back upon this I always remember the horror of seeing the first people leave and return and I can’t help but smile.

The Stratosphere

At about 6PM, we finally reached our destination – the Stratosphere! It was good timing actually because although we hadn’t intended to get here so late it was starting to get dark and that meant the view from the top would be even more of a spectacle. The view did indeed turn out to be amazing, especially with this huge orange moon in the distance, but unfortunately I couldn’t get any really good photos – they were either blurry or didn’t do the view justice. Anyway here are two to give you an idea.

Fraser, Anna and Rosie decided to take to the rides as well (as soon as I saw the Stratosphere rides on YouTube before we left I was like no way in hell am I doing that!). Here’s a photo of one of the rides as well as some videos. The first video I think is pretty funny – Rosie is getting all confident and waving at the camera and then BAM!

Back to the Mirage

At about 10PM we finally caught some taxis and made our way back to the Mirage, just in time for the volcano show! It was a pretty hot show (haha!), although I would’ve liked some lava melting down the side or something. Here’s a sick pic I took of the volcano as well as a busy street shot to give you a general idea of the atmosphere.

For dinner we got Maccas or room service and munched away in our rooms. We even got treated to another volcano show (we realised we could actually see and hear it from our rooms; the latter fact became rather annoying). Eventually at about 1AM we finally retired to bed.

A very productive day I have to say, and a lot of fun!