Few Vegas Stories
On the night me and my backer decided to part ways I was naturally pretty down and upset because we’re really good friends and we were arguing. A buddy of mine suggests we go to Bellagio and play some blackjack and have a few beers. We get to Bellagio and go and meet Luke Schwartz who’s in Bobby’s room and Luke suggests we go and throw some Dice/Craps. It’s good morale, Luke being Luke is leading morale, chatting with the croupiers and bringing good morale to the table. We dust a bit though and Luke was playing like $500/1000 mix and said he needs to go back to the game. Our friend Chinese Allen comes downstairs and me, him and my buddy go off to play blackjack, we all run really good and I win like $14k from a $500 buy in; lol sick spin.
After the black Allen bids us farewell and me and my buddy go to grab food. We start chatting to these Scottish girls who become a lot more interested when my friend spills a bunch of flags across the counter and we start chatting to them for ages, like an hour+. Eventually we say we’ll go to a pool party with them (we didn’t and never intended to LOL) and we head our separate ways. As we’re leaving the casino security shouts over and asks me if im (insert my name here). I tell them yes what’s up, sort of weirdly nervous. They ask me to come with them to some security room and it turns out I’d left my backpack with like $35k in it my the blackjack table. They somehow when to the poker room with my players card that was in my bag and asked if anyone knew me and someone said they saw me playing BJ and gave a character description and they’ve seen me leaving. Pretty much as lucky as it gets! Also I’m a complete moron. In classic nerd fashion I’ve also had a nosebleed whilst collecting the backpack and everyone was kinda looking at me like ‘wtf is wrong with you’, being a spazz is hard
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Big Call leading to inevitable fall in the 25k
I mentioned in the previous blog that I fired the 25k PLO and I made day 2 with good chips and then on day 2 I kind of unravelled and it was a really poor day eventually. My main downfall came in a really big pot with Jason Mercier. Hand in question goes Jason opens HJ and I flat BTN AxJxTc7c. Now first thing I’ll say is that this is probably a little loose to defend and something I don’t usually do, I think this was the first sign of my lack of quality on the day. AJT8 would probably be close. Anyway the BB calls and we go 3 way to a flop on AcJc2x. Pretty good flop, goes check, Jason bets kinda big, I have a very easy call and BB folds. Turn is the Kc so we’re looking at AcJc2xKc.. I expect this to go check a ton but Jason surprises me betting big, it’s a weird spot now where he can have worse flushes for sure, albeit these combos shrink a lot with be block Tc and 7c and of course he can have a ton of Qcxxx stuff and some nut flushes. We’re obviously very high up in range and we go ahead and make the call planning to be basically always call down. River comes Kx and now Mercier bets big again and I eventually call. I chatted to some friends some of who believe that I should fold other who think the call is good. I think it comes down to this, my range in Jason’s eyes should basically be exclusively mid level flushes. I can occasionally have a boat but not a ton, perhaps AKK (a likely 3b candidate pre), I probably am incentivised to fold JJ on the turn due to his large sizings. I don’t think I have a ton of AK either as again this folds turn to the large sizing. So he can bet all his Q high flushes in my opinion liberally but I think Jason’s style is that he’d check this river with Q high flush, my friend Flong agreed with that who said he’d played a lot of PLO vs him in mixed and didn’t see him as a light value bettor and especially not in tournaments. It’s a weird spot and I’m almost exclusively hoping to see AxQcxx and perhaps there aren’t enough combos of this given the ones that make straights on the turn might check a big % and therefore he just randomly has turn bluffs that become boats on the river. This was the case and he had KxQcQxJx for a turn bluff turned river boat. I guess this made a lot of sense and I think perhaps I’ve been too stubborn on the river and made a bad call.
Some Main Event hands for y’all to laugh at me over
I think I should probably never bluff ever in Holdem because they’re really, really bad bluffs. This first one is my favourite for what happens at the end of the night. So day 1 of the Main I’ve ran my stack up pretty high and we’re on the last hand of the night and I open JTo in MP and this older guy who seemed to be solid throughout the day and then he seems to be losing his rag a little at the end of the day. HU to A84r and I go ahead and bet range and bet small, all very standard. He calls and I’m planning to give up on most turns. Turn comes Tx and I check and he bets 3k/7k and I check raise (what am I doing?) to 9800 and he tanks for a long time and calls with 15k back and I assume now he has enormous hand. River comes Jx and goes check check and he has AQo and I win with two pair having butchered the hand. Anyway we have to stand around for 15mins waiting for the ‘bagging process’ and this guy starts aggressively laying into me. Not completely physically but verbally and looks like he’s on the border of physically. I’m a bit scared, he’s a huge Texan dude and he starts going on saying ‘you know it’s bad etiquette to push around a under pressure stack when you’ve got a fat stack at the end of the day’. I’m sort of trying to reason with him and explain to him that ‘it’s just poker, it’s nothing personal, I’m just trying to win the hands I’m in etc’. He continues to be aggressive and I’m now trying to get the floor’s attention mainly to protect myself but alas it’s mayhem as they’re trying to bag etc. I turn into the most affable version of myself, crack a few jokes and even offer up a handshake. He calms down eventually and is exasperated and I get it, it sucks he’s played a hand well, been whaled on and bags 20bb rather than say 100bb going into day2 or whatever. Was a funny situation regardless and obviously him trying to bring it down to ethics is completely ridiculous.
Day 2 of the Main. I bagged 157k, which was a big stack and I start day 2 with like 230bb or something. I have a dream opening table and I’m able to chip up to about 220k when we get to the 500/1k level. Sadly our table is one of the first to break and I get moved to a tougher table with some larger stacks. Then the first of 2 complete car crashes happens. MP opens 2.2k and he has me covered and I call 86dd on the button. HU to a Q82r flop with bdfd for me. He bets 2.6k and I call. Turn comes 3x and he bet 7k and I raise to 23k and he calls. River is 2x so Q8232 and he checks and I overbet 65k and he calls with AQo. Laugh away boys, albeit it’s not laughing matter as it’s Main and even early these are big equity decisions.
I’m pretty down after that and feeling bad about myself when the dinner break comes in the nick of time. I go for dinner with a buddy away from the RIO and he calms me down and picks my morale back up. I have a laugh reading my friends messages where everyone is calling me a huge dork and saying that’s one of the worst hand histories they’ve ever read. Hurt but I can understand. I come back after dinner and run my stack back up to 220k again and then this hand happens. I limp a lot UTG (awful, awful strategy) and I limp JTcc UTG, Kristen Bicknell iso’s me to 4.2k and 2 villains call and I call. Flop comes J53r and I check, she bets 7k and this rec thing makes it 16k and I make it 29k. Kristen folds KK (she claims) and villain calls with 30k back. Turn is 2x and I jam and he sighs off AJo and I’ve donated another 80k back or so.
After that I lost heart a bit and lost a few hands and all off a sudden I’m in the danger zone. I have been conversing a ton with my tablemates, generally being funny and friendly and everyone is having a good time. The guy on my left was an absolute sweetheart and although we’d only known each other for a few hours he has a weird vested interest in my wellbeing and kept telling me that he was rooting for me and that he thought I was a great guy. He was really upset at my blowing up with the JTcc and kept asking me why I did it. Anyway I’m down to 25bb and I’m chatting to Kristen telling her stuff like I’m going to go home and drop a toaster in the bath with me. She’s involved in a collusion scandal lately after a 3handed fiasco with her bf recently. She seems like a nice enough person though and she’s like ‘don’t kill youself but if you do give me your chips first’. I inform her that ‘Kristen, be careful, that sounds an awful lot like collusion’, the table laughed a lot and she laughed too, albeit very nervously.
I dig deep and I actually play the shorter stacks quite well as a good friend and pgc guy gave me monker solutions on different stack sizes and positions. I scrap a bunch of shoves through and I get to the end of day 2 with 64k. It was bittersweet cos if I wasn’t donk I’d probably have ended the day with 250k+ and be cruising going into day3 but day3 is the furthest I’ve made it in the Main and that feels really good and 64k albeit short is still 32bb in a tournament with an amazing structure so anything could happen.
Ok guys, feel free to really bash me for those two bluffs, I can take it and nothing will be said that hasn’t been said so far but it’s all a learning process to be honest and I’ll come back a better player from these mistakes. Also I doubt there’s many people who have bluffed off 100k twice on day 2 and still gone on to make day3 so there’s always that.
Thanks for reading and gl to all of y’all still in the Main too, let’s get it.