Sensei’s Poker Dojo

But you probably already knew that. As of this afternoon I’m 0-4 in tournaments, and haven’t even made a dinner break yet. I played really well in the 5k PLO before getting it in with top set and losing a 67:33 against an overpair and weak flush draw. I played well in the 2500 2-7 tripledraw as well, but just ran consistently bad. I never made a 7 while my opponents turned over wheel after wheel. It was especially frustrating because I had really high hopes going into that event. It was probably my best shot at a bracelet too (not that I really care about winning a bracelet any more than winning lots of $$$).

Today I played the 5k 6max NLHE, and built my stack up a little in the first few levels with some well-timed aggression. Level 3 was cruel to me though, as I made a few second best hands to lose close to half of my chips before losing it all in a stupid cooler spot. I was BB with like 11k at 100/200. The SB opened to 650 and I called with 87cc. The flop was 775hhd, he bet 800 or something and I raised to 2k, which he called. The turn was the ace of hearts and he led into me for 1650 or some such amount. I was pretty confident that he would have just shipped the flop with a flush draw given stack sizes, and there was enough money in the pot that I wanted to protect it against whatever kind of draws he might have, so I just shipped my last 8k and change, and he super-snapcalled and flipped AA. I failed to spike my one-outer and that was the end of another frustrating tournament.

So I’m down to the main event now.¹ I assume I’ll probably make it to day 3 before busting on the bubble or something, but I guess there’s a chance that I’ll have a good run of it. It is the softest tournament of the year, after all. But before that I’m headed up to Seattle to play at Potlatch, one of the greatest ultimate tournaments ever. An excellent way to spend a few days before the main event.

1. If ever there was a tournament to save my rungood for! [↩]

A few years ago, Jay (Krantz) and myself began working with an aspiring director and poker player (Ryan Firpo) to produce a documentary film about online poker professionals. Our budget was modest by most film standards, but large enough to shoot the film professionally, in high definition, and in a few different locations (Vegas, San Francisco, Madison WI). It took us much longer than expected to finish the film, and it went through a number of changes in style, but it is finally complete! You can view it here. Let me know what you think!

Originally our intention was to produce a more general film, featuring a number of online players, but once we realized how interesting Greg’s (Captain Zeebo) story was, we decided to focus the effort on him in particular, and to hopefully produce a series of short films about other players in the future. Our grand scheme is to raise funds for a full-length feature doc that we can release to the general public, perhaps earning some gold as well as showing the uninformed public what the real deal with online poker is. Worst case scenario, we’ve put together a pretty cool little film and had some fun doing it!

I flew in early on Monday, went straight to the Rio and played the $2500 NLHE 6max event. My table draw wasn’t that great, the only real fish busted pretty quickly to another player and we were left with 4 dudes who seemed like internet pros, one Men the Master, and one non-terrible amateur (on my left). I picked up a few strong hands but didn’t win much with them, and my stack dwindled to short by the first break. Somewhat early in the 3rd level (75/150) I was down to 2300 or something and stuck the rest in with AT and ran into Men’s AK. Meh. I went over to the Amazon room and played some cash games, winning about half of my buyin back in a nice soft 5/10 PLO game. WiltOnTilt came and picked me up and we rolled back to the house. Its a pretty nice place, though a bit far away. The pool is sweet and theres a big grill out there, so I expect plenty of grillin and chillin!

Tuesday I spent most of the day playing cash games at the Rio, mostly 25-25-50 PLO. My first session varied between a juiced up gamble-game and a nittier one, depending on whether or not Devilfish was in the game. I went and ate at naked fish with my friend Jordan (24offsuit) and watched the end of game 3 (go Magic!) and headed back to the Rio to get back to work. I ended up in a few of the worst games ever, which basically consisted of a who’s who of online 25-50+ PLO regulars (Eric Liu, applsgirl, Harrington25, Rollover2k, colson10, and several others who I didn’t know but who were obviously young pros) waiting to get into the main game. Eventually the game broke because a few people left and the rest didn’t want to play against each other anymore. I got into the main game later, but it wasn’t really as great as I had hoped, so I didn’t play too much longer. I ran pretty bad, too, hardly dragging any significantly large pots all day. So it goes.

Today I ended up going back to the Rio and getting into a 10/25 NL game which proved to be much softer than the 25-25-50 PLO, and booked a decent win. I played a few sick hands:

With a straddle on the button, I limped 53cc UTG. CO, a super-LAG middle-aged dude wearing sunglasses and playing basically just with a stack of bills, raised to $125 (curiously small, especially in a straddle pot. Maybe he didn’t realize there was a straddle.) The button called and I called as well. The flop was 984ccx, and I donked out $300. CO called, indicating that he didn’t have much of a hand, and the button folded. The turn was an offsuit 2, giving me the sweet backdoor OESD, and I decided to check. He quickly bet out $800 in bills and I thought for a while before calling, deciding that my implied odds were pretty good and that I could find a fancy way to win the pot if needed. River paired the 8 and I tanked, playing with chips and pulling out my wad of bills before checking. He counted out $2200 and I placed a little stack of chips on top of my 5k bundle, raising to $6000. He snapfolded and I obviously tossed my hand face up on the pile of money that now belonged to me. The old dudes at the table proceeded to praise my ridiculously awesome play for a few orbits, while simultaneously needling the CO about how he would have won the pot with any two cards if he had just checked it down. Obviously the CO was the type of dude who was very prone to tilting after a pot like that, so the next orbit basically consisted of every pot being a raised pot between myself and him. Good times.

The next huge pot was between a young Finnish guy and myself; I opened UTG to $100 with 75ss, and he 3bet me from the BB to $375. We were both very deep, almost 15k effective, so of course I called. The flop was 875 with a club draw. He bet out $450, I raised to $1250, and he 3bet me to $3250. At this point I decided that I was pretty much going to go with it, barring a bad turn card, because he was Finnish and it would require a pretty sick cooler for him to have a better hand on this board. So I called, and the turn was an offsuit Q (a fine card for me). He bet out $4000, and I tanked a little while before announcing all in for another $6950. Once he also tanked, I knew my hand was good (unless he had exactly 87 and was thinking about it). He asked me where I was from, to which I responded “America”, getting a laugh from the rest of the table, and eventually he called it off. He informed me that I was ahead once he knew my hand, but we ran it twice since it was a massive pot and I knew he had outs. The first river was an ace and the second was a 9, and his AQo chopped the pot with me. A long run for a short slide. Would have been nice to win a 29k pot as a 4:1 favorite, but at least I didn’t lose it!

I’ll probably not be playing any events over the next few days as none of them appeal to me that much, but hopefully I’ll grind more cash games and win many gold pieces!