If you go back far enough, I've prolly been in all of them.

Stud forum is a treasure. As a guy who's played stud for ~50 years, some of the work the people on this forum have done and are willing to share freely is astonishing.

STUPID IDIOTS!

Well, yeah. I tried to say it nicer, though.

who visits draw games?

^^ Drawers gotta draw

Draw Forum could be the new Stud Forum. OMW

=)

This is kinda sweet

Thank you!!!


So, sorry, I wasn't really around this week, and I don't want to rush/half-ass any part of this, but here I am again:

Dinner is always a struggle at the WSOP. Typically (?), 12pm tournies, of which I've played one, give you a 90-minute dinner break. That's plenty of time to go to one of the Rio's restaurants, sit down, have dinner, relax, and come back. Historically, 5pm tournies have had a 60-minute dinner break, which is really pushing it. The two main actual restaurants close to the poker area are Buzio's (seafood) and All-American Bar & Grill, which is exactly what it sounds like and has pretty good meat. However, AAB&G is typically excruciatingly slow during the busy periods to the point where you might be a favorite to make dinner in under an hour if you've called ahead for a seat, and order everything when the server gives you the menus. However, this year, Day 1 of the 5pms have had a 30-minute "dinner" break, intending to get players out before 3am, but c'mon, 30 minutes for dinner is absurd. Typically all dinner breaks on day 2 are 60-minutes.

There's this other crap-ass restaurant, the amazon cafe, which is one of the standard Denny's-type places that all casinos have if you want something pretty cheep. This is actually much closer to the poker area, but, it sucks. So I always try to get some actual food on dinner breaks, though the poker kitchen has markedly improved over the last few years (burritos ftw!).

So during day 2 of the 8/bament, I call ahead to Buzio's and get a table for 4. Only Ceegee and Mustafabet come, and Ceegee after much arguing about that we should go to the amazon cafe instead. He's 100% right that that maximizes the chance we'll eat a full meal on time, but, I hate that place, and Buzio's is typically pretty quick if you had called ahead. I'd rather eat like a crab cake or pasta or something than a burger or chicken fingers from the amazon cafe. I would just go to the Whopper Bar at that point I guess. Obviously the Indian restaurant is completely off limits.

So we get to Buzio's and sit down after 5-10 minutes even though I called ahead and order stuff right away. On the way in, we see one of the Russian guys my table sitting down with his wife and daughter. About 40 minutes to go at this point, ez game. Then, they come back to ceegee after a bit, and say something ridiculous like they're out of chicken. wtf? So he orders something else, but I don't think they'd put any of our stuff in in the meantime even though we indicated we were in a big hurry. Well, ~20 minutes go by with no sign of our food or waitnress, and we're getting increasingly antsy.

Finally we get the manager over and she doesn't really know what's going on, and we're kind pissed. Eventually our food is ready but we don't have time to eat, so we get the bill and have to have our food boxed up. On the way out w/ our boxes, I see the Russian guy still having dinner and doubt he's going to leave anytime soon. We get back to the amazon room w/ like 5 minutes to go, scarf down the food at our tables, and start playing again.

Luckily, at my table, there were like 3 people who showed up late. At this point, I went on a super nice rush, stealing a lot of pots w/ people not there to contest them, which is awesome! Obviously in any tournament, you have to run well at some point, well, this is where I ran well. After I chipped up w/ the absentees (Russian guy came back at least 20 minutes late, I think), there were like 3 hands where I had buried KK and it stood up for the whole pot.

I eventually got moved to a table with PearlJammer and I dunno some other people probably, while Ceegee was at the table w/ Phil Laak. Phil of course is very entertaining, and he was talking with ceegee about coaching and videos since he had been reading 8/b books the whole tournament while trying to qualify for the Annie Duke whatever league. He was also talking about the Feng Shui of chip stacking. There seemed to be a lot of laughter and stuff at the table behind me, which was way more fun than the table I was at. PearlJammer insulted me at me during an FTOPSament one time, so he's on my **** list.

One massive, massive hand was jammed early and gave me a flush on 6th street vs. something like xx7AQK and xx8738, though he may have caught the door pair earlier. 8738 checks, 7AQK checks, i bet, 8738 raises to iso the low draw, he calls two cold, I 3-bet, and 8738 four-bets, and I explode b/c I'm seriously concerned he's full given how passive people play and don't jam people in. I tank and call instead of capping, and then the river goes check/check to me. I'm entirely confused, and am concerned about getting c/red by a full house, or, if he did have just a low made and a pair of 8s, he will call and the 7AQK that didn't make his 7 low will fold. So I don't see any value in betting and flip up my flush.

I scoop the entire pot, because the guy was jamming with 888 and a low draw. no made hand at all. The 7AQK goes berserk, even though he was a really bad player, too. I was just stunned, and then was livid that I missed some value there. I was seriously more angry after I scooped what had to be the largest pot so far in the tournament b/c I thought I didn't play the hand right. Obviously online the 8738 would just be jamming a low and if there were 5 bets to play, I could easily cap it.

I tell the hand to Ceegee on break and I think I caught him off guard w/ how agitated I was and he, thankfully, calmed me down, but also told me I played it right except for he would be the river when checked to. w/e, that wasn't the part I was concerned with… I guess I only missed .68bb of equity given the hands were what they were; I have no idea why I was so mad but I really wanted to read people extremely well in this tournament and thought I had failed at it…

We finally get down to 3 tables, and ceegee and I get drawn together, Erik Siedel is to my left, I think Ali Eslami was to my right, and Chris Tryba was across the table. I continue winning a bunch of pots and am trolling ceegee hardcore, not because I want to troll ceegee, but because I want to troll the whole table, and doing it to the guy I know makes me not look like a jackass since hey, friends give each other **** all the time, while everyone can obviously hear and is going on tilt as a result of it.

At a certain point, I have more chips than I know what to do with, more chips than I've ever had on a table at any point in my poker career. I ask wtf I should do with them and the fen shui stuff comes up again and ceegee tells me to add a swimming pool to my castle. Unfortunately, I get colored up a few times since I have way too many chips to put into a bag, I guess [(THINLY?) VEILED BRAG!].

http://twitpic.com/5e926l

One awesome hand has me opening 9A9 utg into a bunch of paint and two aces. None of the paint is playing w/ the aces behind and me opening a 9 anyway, I presume. Chris Tyba 3bets me w/ one of the As, and I happily call. He ended up starting with 66A, and his board came down 66A6Kxx. Mine comes down 9A93Q9x and he's like pissed I somehow sucked out on him after I started w/ the best hand and we both hit a 2-outer.

I lose a few hands and then win a few more, and end the day as chip leader w/ $695k (avg. stack is $280k) with 18 left. There's a big discussion near the end of the night about playing down to the money regardless, but floor says that they can't do that. I told the PLO hand-for-hand extension I described here earlier, but I was told they couldn't do that, either, not sure why since it already happened. Quite a few people were pissed, I think, that we didn't cash on Day 2. Whatever, we bag up.

So time to get in the Elantra w/ ceegee, stop by Carl's Jr., and call my wife to tell her to fly out out to Vegas since I'm chip leader going into day 3 of the $10kament.

damn, if the 2nd half of Day 2 was that ^^ long, how long is Day 3 gonna be???

I guess you don't like indian food? I thought Gaylords was just fine.

why on earth would I like a cuisine that includes no beef?

If you don't like Indian food, your doing it wrong but even I draw the line at eating in a restaurant called Gaylords.

As a poker player, you should know the answer to this: balance your range.

balancing your range doesn't mean you should spew!

yeah, I get it. you have a typical midwesterner's limited palate.

He crushes sonic.

Well bowled.

bowled?

ha, which 2p2 do you think this was?

Code Red, Live Wire, Baja Blast

Triple Range Mergin imo

omg Baja Blast is INCREDIBLE. i wish I didn't have to go to Taco Bell to get it, b/c I don't eat at Taco Bell anymore... live wire was disgusting, though.

Well, let's find out:

So since I'm chip leader going into day 3, I call my wife and tell her so, I'm driving back to ceegee's, and to look at flights to Vegas that day. Apparently Delta flights didn't come up same-day on Kayak (we have lots of Delta miles b/c of the Northwest merger, since they're basically the only airline that flies to SUX and PIR...), and there was a $1k nonstop out of BWI, but **** that... I called Delta up and managed to ship a flight out of DCA, the best airport in the world, for only 32.5k miles (standard is 25k). My opportunity cost of Delta miles is 1.4 cents/mile, so a $464 same-day ticket across the country is pretty fantastic. She's super excited, obviously, and her flight would leave at 1pm and get in to LAS at 6pm.

While I'm on the internet/phone figuring out this flight, I'm talking to Huang on gchat, and he's also super excited. he also looks at flights to Vegas, but they're all prohibitively expensive out of ORD, like, a grand. I log back onto Delta b/c I'm a baller like that and flights from ORD to LAS are also 32.5k miles. I ask him if he wants me to book him through that & he can pay me for the use of the miles. I believe if you buy people's miles online, they go for 2 cents/mile, so I offer him 1.5. He tanks. Calls GF. Tanks. I'm about to fall over asleep since it's 6am or so, and I need to get up at like 1:30pm or something ridic to be back at the Rio... I finally put the clock on him, and he calls, and I ship him the flight. Finally I can go to sleep. On a couch, mind you.

So 3pm rolls around and we're back at the Rio in the Amazon room in the exact same spots, because they didn't redraw for day 3 since they were going to redraw when we got down to two tables anyway. PearlJammer is first to bust, and then BoostedJ bubbles. We redraw for tables and I'm in the 8 seat, which I hate, because you can't ever see what your card would have been, and Ceegee is in #6. Ted Forrest's chips are in the 1 seat, having cashed without being there. He would fail to show up for another 30-45 minutes, I think, and I can't tell you how many aces he had mucked. It was great, especially since he was on my left! Bill Chen busts relatively quickly after doubling up a couple times; I think most of the busts were at the other table. I think at this point, Ted Forrest is annoyed with how many hands I'm playing.

Unfortunately, Ceegee busted 11th, though, fortunately, it was to me and not someone else. he had AL|4 and I had AQ|A and he missed a million outs on the river for half with a low draw and a pair of fours against my unimproved aces. This was right after Felipe Ramos hit a two outer on the river w/ AA against my QQQ after being a/i on 4th, and I could have even filled. It had been fun sitting right across from each other so we could talk and needle each other / the table, and he was cool enough to stick around and rail me the whole time at the FT, which I really appreciated. I'm over $1mm at this point, and I take the first color up stack of greens to come into play ($25k * 20 = $500k). I proudly put them on top of my chip pile and resolve not to let any of them leave my stack.

We get down to 9 soon after, and the move us over onto the main stage / Thunderdome at almost exactly 6pm. They toss the seat draw cards out and I really really really wanted to draw the 9 seat again, but alas, I get stuck in #8. What starts as my rail grabs spots in the stands directly across from me, and it's Final Table time, except not technically since it's 9 people left still:

Seat Player Chips
1 Ali Eslami 315,000
2 Joe Tehan 475,000
3 Phil Hellmuth 535,000
4 Ted Forrest 680,000
5 Mikhail Savinov 413,000
6 David Benyamine 792,000
7 John Racener 353,000
8 Eric Rodawig 1,400,000
9 Antony Lellouche 158,000

I had been chip leader all day, in fact (and never wasn't!).

Lellouche is obviously the short stack, but it still takes like 75 minutes for him to bust, which was quite a bit, considering it was 25k/50k. I believe the live stream started with the unofficial table of 9, because I was noticed to be looking around a lot, which I was, to see if my wife had arrived. She got there at like 6:45, so 45 minutes after we were moved. I busted Lellouche on a pretty good hand, which I can just paste in from the WSOP updates:

Lellouche: / 6KK
Rodawig: / A98
Forrest: / Q4T

Eric Rodawig's completion was called by Antony Lellouche and Ted Forrest. All three checked fourth street and Lellouche bet his pair of kings on fifth. Forrest folded, Rodawig raised, and the the rest of Lellouche's chips made their way into the pot. He showed 23 under, while Rodawig tabled A4 for a pair of aces.

Sixth street gave both two pair. Rodawig caught the 8 to make aces up. Lellouche was dealt the 3 for kings up.

Rodawig's seventh-street card was the J, giving Lellouche a chance to fill up. However, he flipped over the 5 and is out in ninth place.

And then they broke 20 minutes early before the level's end, and we went to dinner. You better believe it was AAB&G.

Next time i'll make you sleep on the floor [ungrateful] pfft

heh. of all the couches I've slept on, that was my 2nd favorite.

if those girls slept ontop of you then maybe it would have been 1st?

Yes! Every time I try to explain to people that DCA is light-years ahead of the rest of the galaxy, they look at me like I'm batsh*t, and then they start mumbling something about the cheap flights from BWI. Absurd.