Trip Report: Event 4 at the WSOP day 1.

[goofball]

April and June were both looking like down months, I’d had bigger plans for the WSOP in March but April and June had me discouraged. I’d been doing ok in the 20/40 at Rio the last few times though so I figure I’ll stop by the Rio and play a satellite and see if I can get in cheap. The line for the STTs was as usual stupidly long and the 20/40 looked nitty so I decided to just buy in.

Day 1

Tournament starts at noon. I wake up, roll over, look at clock and see that it’s 12:40. Crap. I roll out of bed, don’t shower, don’t eat, throw some clothes on, grab my ipod and head off to the Rio at about 95 MPH. I find my seat right on the rail, count out my now T1375 stack or something, and notice that no one seems to care at all that I’m late. Also my ipod was battery was dead. I'm off to a killer start. We’re just starting to play 50/100 and the first hand I look down at A7s on the button. The CO opens, I 3bet, blinds fold. Flop A84, CO bets, I raise, he calls. Turn brick, he check calls, river brick, he checks I check, he rolls over 76s and I’m already back above 1500. The next pot I remember of significance I get super lucky and suck out like a fish. I blame it on having to wake up and rush but I might just be a donkey. LMP player opens, I 3bet with 99, he calls. Flop AQT, he checks, I bet, he calls. Turn is an 8, he checks, I make the worst bet in the history of poker and he calls. I think after that bet I had about 450 left and we were playing 150/300. Of course the river was a 9 and he check called again with AK (I’m not the only one playing bad so there) and of course was pissed at me (this was the first of my 3 rivered sets in the tournament). I think around this point there was some pot with AA vs. KT vs. something on a AJx Q x board where the KT guy called 3 before the flop and 3 on the flop or something, it was pretty awesome.

I piddled around for a while, stole/won a few pots, and then got into a fun easy hand with the fish calling station at the table. He open limps on the button, we’re playing 150/300 I think, SB calls, I check in the BB with J7. Flop 742, I check raise button, SB folds, he calls. Turn K, I bet he calls, river Q I bet he tanks and whines. He looks at me, looks at his cards like he hates them, and looks at me some more. The whole time I’m laughing inside, he of course calls, and mucks his 87s face up saying “I knew it was something like that.” Some of the guys at my table were playing so so so tight. Folding QQ to a CO open/button 3bet, folding AKs to my open in MP, ai yi yi. We had a resident poker expert of course who was always making the worst call ever or the biggest laydown ever or the craziest hand ever. Apparently nothing exciting had even taken place for him in any game ever.

I did nothing for a while except steal blinds whatever until one of my toughest hands of the tournament came along playing 300/600. I was up to 6700 and opened UTG with QQ, new to the table asian guy 3bet, I 4bet, he called. Flop was Q83 I bet he raised I 3bet he called. Turn brick, I bet, he called. River A, I bet he raised. I wanted to run out of the room and cry which probably would have been better then calling because he of course had the AA. Down to around 2300 I see QJs next in the BB and call a CO open. Flop was Jxx I check raised, he called. Turn x, I bet he called, river K, I puked but had to bet my last 500, he called and my hand was good (first of 5 times I was all in during the tournament). Next time I’m in the CO I have 77 and raise, the button 3bets and I call. The button had been playing tight but had started to get annoyed and had been talking about all my LP raising. I call his 3bet and check raise a flop of 994, he calls. Turn is a 2 I bet and he calls. Now, sometimes in live poker things just occur to you at random points in the hand. The way he called the turn I knew my hand was no good and was absolutely check folding the river until I saw that it was a 7 and now I beat AA. Ha. Basically back to where I was before the QQ disaster.

Soon our table breaks and I take my 7k or so to a new table. On my old table I was near the chip lead but the new one has a couple of 20k stacks, luckily for me though I’m awesome at poker. I was at the table for about an orbit and a half before it broke but in that time I won 3 large pots just when we moved up to playing 800/1600. I had KQ vs. something on a KQx x K board, KQ vs. Q2 on a Qxx x x board, and QQ vs. 99 on a T84 7 3 board. They all paid off for about 5 big bets and I was quickly looking at about 16k. My next table was not as friendly though.

Table of fun breaks and I get moved, one to my left is an extremely aggressive player with a big stack (he features in too many pots where I fold) and 2 to my left is Phil Ivey barf. I managed to break even at the table though. I had Ks9s in the SB openraised, agro BB 3bets, I call. Flop 9 high 2 diamonds I check raise, he calls. Turn 8d I bet he calls, river 4d or something. I check, he checks, my hand is good. My first hand against Phil Ivey I opened in LP with QT, he 3bet in the SB, I thought about 4betting but didn’t. Flop Axx and I turbo mucked. I was down to around 11k and picked up KK, flopped top set, turned top full and got back to around 18k for the next table.

I can only remember two real hands I played at this next table, but losing them both at stakes of 8/16 and 1k/2k was enough to knock me all the way down to around 4k. First one the star of the K9s hand opened, I 3bet in the sb with 55, he called. Flop was KK4 I bet he raised. Hmm. I thought about 3betting but didn’t think that would accomplish a lot since if he was bluffing he was capable of 4bet bluffing, and obviously he’s 4betting a K. I called. Turn was an 8, I checked, he bet, I called. River was an 8 :-\. The other hand I opened on the button with AJ and got two callers. Flop was QJx, only the BB check called. I checked behind on the turn and called his bet on the river T. He showed 98o for the win. I’m still debating on that turn check behind. I’d seen him bluff check raise in a couple of spots but not that frequently, basically at a frequency nearing correct. Since calling down a turn check raise would have cost me all but about T500 and folding the best hand to one would be even worse and since I figured he’d bet a J on the river or even a smaller pair if he hit that I was probably ok to check behind. Obviously though I need to work more on my betting when my opponent is about to hit his ignorant end of the gutshot. That pot put me down around 4k, I stole maybe once more then I had to pay the blinds and eked into the money and day 2 with T6500 which seems like just about a proper bankroll to play 1500/3000 we were starting on day 2.

Overall I felt like I played very well on day one. I was in a couple of spots where it was close and I might have made the slightly wrong decision and only two biggish mistakes. First was checking behind with the KQ top pair hand on the river for reasons that I’ll never know, and second was the 99 bet on the turn early on. I had some other probably small mistakes though. I thought about 4betting Phil Ivey preflop with the QT KittyKat and Pokerbob know I’ve 4bet much lighter then that. I probably should have given more thought to check calling the A river in the QQ hand because what does he have after the preflop/flop action? I’m still not sure about the best way to play those stupid 55 against the aggressive guy that bugged me.

I was pretty pumped regardless of my stack to have made it both into the money and to day 2 in my first WSOP event. It was about 2AM and a 2+2 mix game was just starting at the Wynn so I headed over still not nearly sleepy. It had about as much action as a typical 4/8 mix game on crack and in the 90 or so minutes I was there doughhater won about 100 bets. In the game I met deathdonkey, Joe Tall, entity, Josh, and mikel, all very nice folks. They were impressed at how good I play to beat out 1000 people so far plus I played an expert stud 8 pot. I’d build a huge pot without a real plan on 6th, I bet 6th with Ace high but 4 to a flush and some high cards showing, got calls from bugstud, mikel, and someone else, Kevin check raised with what looked like a low so of course the play was for me to 3bet. I did, they all got out of the way while I laughed silently. I made a pair of tens on the river, Kevin checked, I checked, he said no pair and I took the whole pot with my rivered pair of tens but I think my AKJT high would have been good enough.

I went home pretty relaxed about the whole thing. Day 2 was basically a freeroll for me. I was already in the money and I had 2 big bets, there was no way for anyone to screw that up!

Next time on exciting day 2 I keep getting all my money in the pot when my opponent is drawing dead.

[Dominic]

looking forward to it

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
They were impressed at how good I play to beat out 1000 people so far plus I played an expert stud 8 pot. I’d build a huge pot without a real plan on 6th, I bet 6th with Ace high but 4 to a flush and some high cards showing, got calls from bugstud, mikel, and someone else, Kevin check raised with what looked like a low so of course the play was for me to 3bet. I did, they all got out of the way while I laughed silently. I made a pair of tens on the river, Kevin checked, I checked, he said no pair and I took the whole pot with my rivered pair of tens but I think my AKJT high would have been good enough.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was really drunk but remember ths hand. If I recall correctly, I said, "that is the best Stud8 hand I've ever seen played and I play a LOT of stud8." Great meeting you!