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Well, my streak of cashing in $1,500 NLHE WSOP events has ended at three. I took top pair against a set twice on these short chips, and that was just too much for me to fade. I almost made a great comeback after the first set encounter, though. UTG+2 opened for 350, and with 375 in my stack I JUST CALLED with Ah7h. The blinds called as well, and we all saw a flop of ThTd6d. It checked around. The turn brought the 9h and the big blind bet 900. I, of course, called for my last 25 and the others folded. The big blind said, “I didn’t even notice that,” and rolled over 52o! Good things can happen when you save your last chip.

Here’s another hand from today that’s indicative of the quality of these fields. An early player raises to 150, a MP player calls, the button calls, and both blinds call. 750 in the pot. The flop comes T65 rainbow. Checks to the MP player, who bets 150. The button folds, both blinds call, the original raiser folds. The turn brings a nine. The small blind leads out for 500 into the 1200 pot. The big blind folds, MP calls. The river brings a four. MP checks out of turn. The small blind bets 1500, and MP calls. The small blind has 78 for the nuts…MP HAS A SET OF NINES! So to recap, MP 1) made a bet of 20% of the pot with 99 on a flop of T65, 2) hit a set on the turn, and just called a bet of less than half the pot, 3) checked out of turn on the river because he was so mortified that he might not have a good hand. Granted, this particular time, if MP had played the hand better he would’ve gone broke, but the point remains that people in these small WSOP NLHE events have no idea what they’re doing.

I’m not sure if I’ll play anything between now and the Main Event (in which I start on Sunday). Maybe a Bellagio or Venetian event or something…

Well, I think I certainly did have an edge in this thing, at least, so I like my decision to play in this $3k buy-in event. Unfortunately I never won a pot, and got my 35 blinds in the middle in level three with KcJc on a board of AcQc5d. My opponent had a set of fives, and I busted when the board came 7h, 7c.

Tomorrow, a $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em event (the last one of the Series), and I’m definitely registered in time for this one. Wish me luck.

The Limit Hold ‘Em Shootout had to feature the softest field of any tournament I’ve played in many years. The Limit play was so bad, it was astounding. I’m pretty sure anyone who could beat a $3-$6 game would’ve had an edge on this field. I got my starting stack of 4,500 up to about 17,000 (out of the roughly 40,000 in play at my table) at my peak, and got three-handed against two very loose opponents. Unfortunately, you have to showdown hands against loose players, and every hand I showed down against them turned out to be a loser. Oh well. If only they could spread they tournament every day, many of us could get rich.

On Day Nine of my trip, I’d intended to play another $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament and go for my fourth straight cash in such an event. So after busting from the Shootout, I got in line to register for the next day’s NLHE event. I got to the counter and asked to buy in and the guy said, “no problem.” Then he tried to enter me in the computer, and it wouldn’t let him. The tournament had sold out. The guy in front of me in line got a seat. Instead of playing the tournament, I spent Day Nine playing golf, and it was awesome.

Tomorrow I’ll be playing the $3,000 No Limit Hold ‘Em Triple Chance. This is one my biggest gambles, as I’m not sure what kind of field they’ll get. There’s a chance it could be tough. I’m not in this for my ego, and I try to avoid tough fields whenever possible. But I’m hoping the weekend warriors will be out in full force and that $3k will seem just small enough to entice a few of the people who missed out on today’s $1,500 event to give it a shot. Wish me luck.

Well, I made a solid run at it, but I eventually petered out in twelfth place. I’d been looking forward to this event quite a bit, and I really thought it would be my third WSOP final table, but alas, I came just short.

On the bright side, I’m now up five figures for the trip, and have cashed in seven of the nineteen events I played in the last two WSOP. Here’s hoping for another one in tomorrow’s Limit Hold ‘Em shootout–another event which should suit my game very well.

I mostly took it easy on days three and four of my trip, though I did manage to dust off some chips in a juicy $100-$200 Limit Hold ‘Em cash game. Day five brought about the $2,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em event, the tournament I’d probably been looking most forward to out of all the tournaments on my schedule.

I bluffed off 4,000 from my 7,500 starting stack pretty early on, and got down to 2,000. Then I turned the nuts, got it all-in and doubled up. I proceeded to run my chips up to about 10k, then took a wicked bad beat and lost a few coin flips and was down to 1,600 again. I went all-in and got called three more times, won them all, and then won a huge pot with pocket kings and by the dinner break I had 24k. Shortly after dinner I got it all-in with KK against AA, spiked a king, and then pretty soon I was up to 70k. Unfortunately I lost a 60k pot with a set of queens with fifteen minutes to go in the day, and I ended up at 36,600, about sixty percent of average going into Day Two. 67 or so remain, 54 get paid (527 started). I’d like to have more chips, but I had so many lives today that I can’t really complain. And the structure is fast enough that I’ll have some early opportunities to make a run tomorrow. Here’s hoping I can run my chips up to a stack worth of a final table.

My Day Two of the $1,500 NLHE lasted about an hour and a half. Enough time for me to run up my chips to 80k, get knocked back down to 50k before hitting the money, and then losing a 130k pot once in the money to go broke in 250th place for a minimum cash. Sigh.

I then played the Mixed Event, even though I never got a chance to brush up on the games. I think it was a good investment, as the stories I heard from the play on a lot of tables were pretty incredible. No open-raising, checking in triple draw when you’re several cards ahead, etc. Unfortunately, my table draw was miserable, featuring Daniel Negreanu and several other highly competent players. I played OK for the most part, although I made a bad mistake in Stud/8 a few hands before I busted. I folded AK-high on the river against an opponent who had a likely low (turned out he had a low and AJ-high, so my fold cost me half the pot). This is a standard call, and I just acted too quickly after my opponent bet. Still, if I’d been playing a bunch of mixed games leading up to this event, I probably wouldn’t have made that mistake. Ditto if I hadn’t been on hour 18 of poker in the last two days. Oh well, these things happen. I’m taking tomorrow and Tuesday off from WSOP events (though I may play a tournament at Bellagio) to recharge for the Mixed Hold ‘Em on Wednesday.

In my last two $1,500 WSOP NLHE events of 2008, I finished 30th and 6th out of approximately 2700. I figured I’d try again this year, and lo and behold I made another Day Two. Again we got about 2700 people. 260 get paid, and there are about 330 or so left. I have 45,700, which is slightly more than average. I had it up to 79k, but then I got 30k in with AhQh on a board Th3d2h and lost to JTo. Still, it was a successful day overall, as I have average chips for when we hit the money. This is all you can ever ask for on a Day One. I’m going to try to have a better day tomorrow.

Last Friday, I got married. I spent my one-week anniversary playing the $2,000 Limit Hold ‘Em event at the World Series of Poker. (In case you missed my updates today, know that you can follow me throughout the WSOP via twitter.)

Everything was fine for the first half hour. I had two pocket pairs and flopped sets with both of them. I said to myself that if I kept up that rate, I would win multiple bracelets this year. I then proceeded to lose every hand. Every 50-50 showdown went the other way, every 75-25 showdown went the other way, every time anything could go wrong it did, and I was out in Level Four. That’s extremely early for me in a Limit event. But better that than playing for a million hours and bubbling.

There was at least one completely crazy dude at my table. The last hand before the first break, he cold-called a raise preflop, and then started putting in action on a flop of A88. He ended up showing down 83o for the win. Turned out, that was nothing. He called on the river, got shown a full house, and then tabled jack-high, just to show us I guess. He called a bet on the flop, then bet the turn when he got checked to, and folded face-up to the check-raise. This time he showed something like 52 on a board of KJ74. Against me, however, he just called the flop on the turn with top pair-king kicker. Then, after winning a pot with 43o by pairing the four against a bunch of action, he got up and walked away from the table just in time to miss his blinds. I’ve seen players who seem to be calling, betting, folding, and raising at random. This guy was not only doing that, but also turning over his cards at random, and getting up from the table at random. I seriously think he was on something.

Anyway, after busting I logged some hours in the $10-$20 No Limit cash games at Bellagio. I did this not just to brush up on my NL game before the upcoming tournaments, but also to get myself used to Pacific Time, playing long days, and focusing for longer stretches. I played fine for the most part today, but I didn’t have the sharpness I had by the end of last year’s WSOP, when I was probably playing the best poker of my life. I’d like to get back to that by Main Event time.

Tomorrow: $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em

You may have noticed that the World Series of Poker has started. You may or may not have noticed that I am not there. Let me explain. I’m getting married next weekend, and since I really can only do about half a WSOP without getting burnout anyway, I decided to only play the second half of the WSOP this year. Rest assured, once I’m there I’ll be updating routinely in this space, as well as (God help us all) twittering updates as I play.

In the meantime, when I’m not doing wedding prep I’ve been trying to brush up on some of the games I don’t know as well. If I can manage to get up to speed on those games before I get to Vegas, then here is my likely schedule of events (subject to change, of course):

6/19: $2,000 Limit Hold ‘Em - Event 38
6/20: $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em - Event 39
6/21: $2,500 Mixed Games - Event 42
6/22: $2,500 Razz - Event 44
6/24: $2,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em - Event 47
6/25: $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha 8/b - Event 48
6/26: $1,500 Limit Hold ‘Em Shootout - Event 50
6/27: $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em - Event 51
6/28: $3,000 Triple Chance No Limit Hold ‘Em (whatever that means) - Event 52
6/29: $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em - Event 54
$10,000 No Limit Hold ‘Em Main Event - 57

If I’m running good I may also throw in the $5,000 6-max NLHE event, but I expect that to be a very tough field, and will probably skip it.  And of course, making a few Day Twos would cut down on the schedule somewhat. Just think, I could go 0-for-11 and still be $10,000 ahead of everyone who played Event 2 and didn’t cash!

Good luck to everyone already at the WSOP. Try to still have some money left when I get out there…