mystpoker.com: July 2008

mystpoker.com



Saturday, July 26, 2008

Long Time No Blog

It's been a while since my last update, where do I begin? I guess I'll try to recap most of the WSOP. I know I said I planned on playing in at least 10 events this year, but that didn't happen. I ended up playing in 4 events, and cashing in a whopping zero of them. I played the $1500 H.O.R.S.E., $1500 PLO, $1500 Limit Shootout, and of course the $10,000 Main Event.

I also played a couple of tourneys at other casinos, and did well in one of them. I was chip leader in one of the $500 Venetian Deep Stack tourneys with 45 people left out of 500. Then I went on to lose two huge pots to 98 suited to blow out and cash for a measly $951.

In the Main Event, I played on Day 1b and I was actually chip leader a couple of times late in the day. I finished the day with $86,725. On Day 2 I got off to an amazing start and quickly found myself at $170,000 and top 5 in chips. At $300/$600 blinds, UTG made it $1600, one caller, and I called another $1000 in the BB with 87. The flop came Q54r. I checked, UTG bet $3000, other player folded. UTG had another $90,000 behind and he was the type of player to never fold a hand like AA or even AQ. I called for the gutter, and the turn was a 6, giving my the nut straight! I check, he bets $6000, I think and make it $25,000 and he insta-calls. I'm laughing in my head, his chips are already in my stack and he's drawing dead for sure. River pairs the 6, which I didn't mind because now it's even easier for him to call with an overpair. I bet $50,000 to make it look like a bluff, and he insta-pushes for $16,000 more. I almost puked on the table. I obv can never fold here, I called and he flipped over 44, for the rivered boat. Not that I want my opponents to play good, but he almost has to pray I have a straight on the turn, because otherwise he has 1 out!

After that I tilted off some of my stack, and then check-raised Tony Hachem all-in on a 643 flop with 85, and he called with QQ and I missed. I had raised in the cutoff and he 3-bet me from the button and I called. After the flop, I was hoping he had AK or AQ but even if he called I was drawing live.

I would have probably folded pre if I wasn't steaming, especially against a decent player like Tony. I used to always laugh at people like Hellmuth when they leave the table to walk off a bad beat or any big loss for that matter. In my head I used to say "why would you walk away, what if you get Aces?" Now I'm thinking a walk would have definitely helped me out, after the big hand I still had an average stack and lots of play. You live and you learn.


I played a bunch of cash games, mostly $25/$50 PLO with a $100 straddle on the button at the Rio. The game was always very soft. The very first hand I stacked an older guy on the flop for like 200 BBs when he was already drawing dead. I think the funniest part of my trip was the fact that I spent almost a month and a half in Vegas, and I never once played NL Hold'em until the Main Event!

For my whole trip I stayed at the Venetian. It's my favourite hotel in Vegas, but that's probably because of Tao. We'd go down to the pool or Tao Beach in the morning for some swimming and tanning in the average 112 degree heat. Then we'd go back to the hotel to have lunch and hang out. Then head to Tao to have the best sushi in the world for dinner. After that, we'd try to get into Tao's nightclub. We got in a few times, but most of the time we had trouble and didn't feel like waiting in line for 2 hours minimum. One time I was with my friend and my cousin and we wanted to skip the line so I talked to the doorman to see what it was going to take. He seemed pretty anal so I figured it was going to take a lot. We offered him $100 a head to go in. He didn't even look at me! I'm like "wow, this guy's serious". Then I told him we also wanted to buy a bottle ($450 for the cheapest bottle). He goes, "oh, you want a table?" In my head I'm like, "sweet, we're in". I tell him, "yeah we want a table." He goes "ok, it's minimum 2 bottles per table". I say, "come on man we're 3 guys and we already had a bunch of drinks in your restaurant". He replies, "ok if you only want 1 bottle, you have to buy a minimum $700 bottle." My casino host couldn't do anything either since the Tao isn't owned by the Venetian. Needless to say, we went elsewhere. I guess we should make reservations next time, considering it's the most profitable restaurant/nightclub in the whole world. :P Last year the Tao itself made more money than the whole Tropicana Casino and Hotel Resort! Crazy.

We saw a bunch of shows, Le RĂªve at the Wynn beats all of the Cirque du Soleil shows, that was pretty amazing. Shopped a bunch, checked out the grand opening of Christian Audigier's Nightclub at Treasure Island, that was cool, lots of celebs. In other parts of Vegas I ran into Lil Jon, Randy Jackson, Armin van Buuren, Paris Hilton, Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell, Ray Romano.

I'm still looking for a condo on the strip. Right now Planet Hollywood, MGM, and CityCentre are my options. CityCentre is my favourite, but the prices are ridic. It's awesome because it's next door to the Bellagio. It will be nice to spend the 3 or 4 winter months in Vegas and the month for the WSOP every year. The other months I'd rent it out. It's nice because the top half of the building is condos, and the bottom half is hotel. So you have access to room service, housekeeping, concierge, valet, pool, fitness, spa etc even though you own your condo. When you're not there, the hotel will rent your room out for you, and they take a cut and give you the rest. The hotel changes the sheets and cleans up of course.



After rereading the last few paragraphs I sound like Phil Hellmuth lol. But whatever it was an awesome trip! A bunch of people have messaged me asking what the big news was that I mentioned previously. Sorry for the delay, but I had to talk to a few people about what I can and can't say at the moment, my next update will almost surely reveal it.

Thanks for reading!