To LA and back

I made a trip down to the Commerce Casino and the LA Poker Classic on Monday. I immediately learned lesson #1 of the trip. Don't play immediately after driving from Las Vegas to LA. I don't know if it was because I hadn't released any of my pent up 3:30 hour drive energy, but I played the first $335 tournament like most of the other Commerce players with a dream. Starting with 3000 chips doesn't give much time to get it going. I played a hand with JJ where there were 3 callers, so I called from late position and the button came in. We went 5 handed to 8 7 6 two club flop. 3 players check to me and I bet 300 into 500. The button who had been playing pretty tight thinks for a second and makes it 1250. With only 2500 in my stack, I either play for it all or fold. I regret not playing for it all here since in a tournament like this, especially since I eventually called this guys all in later in the tournament with an impatient 77 vs his 99. Chalk up tourney number 1 to some bad decisions.

Tourney #2 was the 1k the next day. With 260 players, I got knocked out around 69th place on the second hand back from dinner break. I raised the button and was reraised by an internet regular and good player. I decided to go all in with my A9 suited here despite a tiny instinct to keep grinding. My entire tournament was a grind of small ball and dead cards. He showed AK, game over.

I picked up my game for the $500 shootout as I have total confidence in winning a one table tournament. I drew a great table where the talented and unpredictable Chino Rheem only made it through about 2 hands. Other than him, I only recognized one other solid internet player, but pretty much avoided confrontation with him despite getting it in AK vs AQ and splitting the pot early on. Despite not participating in probably 95% of hands for the first few hours, I managed to get all the money in KT vs JT 3 handed for a chance to go heads up with an older, southern gentlemen who was aggressive, but who I believe I had a very solid read on. Several times, I made laydowns to him and was shown the best hand. KT vs JT happened and the 789 flop sent me out in 3rd.

I only played one satellite to the main event and made a 3 bet with 22 to a late position aggressive player raise. Unfortunately, the BB overshoved with 99. The pot odds were close to 4.2 to 1. Since even the worst case scenario of an overpair is 4 to 1, I made the call and missed after the 3 4 6 flop. This hand did bother me a little bit because I wasn't really prepared to call the stack behind me and would have elected to fold had I been paying a little closer attention to stack sizes. My style has always been to understand the math of the game and how the constant mathematical dynamics are changing. Stack sizes and paying attention to how they are changing, what odds you may be getting in certain situations, what stack sizes are going to force you call, what positions you are putting other stacks in based on your stack size, and many other factors go into a hand. It may just be the result of the hand and me not getting a chance to play for over $1 million in one of the best tournaments of the year, but I'm a little bitter.

I'm trying to close out February and finish strong with a good weekend showing. I'm looking forward to Saturday and Sunday and lots of tournaments. Regardless, it has been a fairly slow month with 1 tournament win in the $55 on Pokerstars. With an FTOPS all month and not much success, that won't often make for a winner. I've had worse months though and by no means is it over. We still have two big days ahead.

In the Zone, Pump Up Blog

First off, I'm not going to complain about anything.

I'm only going to get in the zone. This is the Pump Up Blog.

Tomorrow starts my second trip around at the LA Poker Classic. Basically, I drove 280 miles from Las Vegas to LA where I am going to play at the Commerce Casino. I was just looking at the remaining tournaments in the LA Poker Classic I will be playing this week. Tomorrow is a $335 NL Hold em tournament. The chips looks short and the structure looks good. Basically, it's going to strategically mean that you may get involved in several large pots early. I'm planning to just feel out the table pretty quickly. I expect it to be extremely weak tomorrow. It's President's Day and Americans and foreigners alike will spend those paper rectangles with President's pictures on the front them. Some have Franklin. Some have Washington. Some have paper ones printed with a top hat guy with a cane. They will likely be heading to the Commerce to play the great American past time poker. I have confidence tomorrow. I have been making deep runs, but have not been closing. I've been losing key pots deep and sometimes having bad days; however, I'm due. I've worked hard. I've studied the game. I've played thousands of hours over the last year alone. If I'm going to reach my potential in this game, it's going to come soon.

I've had a few live tournament finishes that were noteworthy. The most disappointing of those came in the $500 event at the Borgata. With $80,000 on the line, I played great poker when it counted, but got my money in with AA vs KJ after a JT8 flop for approximately 2nd-3rd place. The turn was a J and I was sent home with not even a five figure cash and lots of disappointment. The next tournament disappointment was the Belligio tournament last April. A 6th place finish in my biggest live final table was largely a lack of me never playing a hand. When I folded AQ off suit on the first hand of the final table, I think it may have been my only chance to alter the tournament. I folded to an early raiser with AQ off from the button. I had 90k chips with 3k/6k blinds at the start. You can read about that here I didn't realize we still had 2 minutes of time left in the 2/4k round. This makes kind of an interesting debate. In knowing that my stack is going to move from a range of over 20 big blinds (bb) to maybe 10bb if I call and lose the hand, do I play tighter or looser here. I say tighter, and I did fold. It was a pretty tough decision for my first hand at a final table with 6 figures to the winner. You can't help but wonder what might have flopped, or what would have happened if I just shoved. I heard he had 88.

The past is the past. I've had several big wins online over the past year, but I want success in live tournaments. I want people to know that I can look them in the eye and still beat them. This is the pump up blog. I'm pumping myself up for tomorrow and the rest of this week. It starts tomorrow.