NAPT LA Day 4

Well, came into the day 13th in chips with 19 left, with 538k which was about half of average.  Had all shortish stacks at my first table and was able to steal the blinds quite a bit.  People were busting quickly and within a half hour or so I got it in against a guy with about 300k chips with a9 vs his 78 and won that hand to bust him and move up to about 900k chips, and that put us at 16 people left, so we broke down to two 8-handed tables.  My new table was much more aggressive and I wasn't getting much for hands so I just had to fold for a while while a few people busted and I moved up the pay scale.  Finally at blinds 15k-30k, I have about 650k left in the big blind, it's folded to the small blind who makes it like 70k to go and I look down at A5s and shove and he snap calls, never a good sign obviously.  He flips over AK and I miss and bust in 12th place for $37k, just missing the televised final table.

About a half hour after I bust, the guy running the 5k bounty shootout calls me and tells me I'm now first alternate in case someone doesn't show up, and since some people weren't prepaid that I had a decent shot of getting a seat in it.  So at that point I was already headed to the Crystal Casino where the bounty shootout was being held because I had to get a refund of my buyin.  At this point it's like 4:30 and he tells me they should know by 6 whether I have a seat or not.  Long story short, my wife and I waited til after 7 before everyone finally showed up, so I got shut out.  Would have been a nice one to get in because it's pretty much guaranteed TV time.  The guy was really nice about it though and promised me that I could have a spot in the PCA bounty shootout in January, and also gave me a comped limo ride back to my hotel.

NAPT LA Day 3

Interesting day to say the least.  Started the day with about 400k in chips and held steady for the first couple levels, but then lost a couple hands to bring me down to 140k at 5k/10k blinds.  Shoved a few hands then finally got called on one of them when I had AK and my opponent had JJ, and I hit an ace on the flop to double up.  About one orbit later I pick up A9 in the cutoff and raise to 22k, the button makes it about 60k, the small blind was sitting out because he had a one round penalty and I had stolen the last hand when it was the sitout guy's big blind.  So anyway the current big blind folds and I decide to ship for about 370k thinking that the button could be 3-betting me kind of light here since the small blind is sitting out.  Unfortunately he wasn't and he called with TT.  Flop came all low cards and so did the turn, but an ace on the river and I double up to about 725k.

The next couple levels I chipped up pretty good without really playing a big pot and got to just over 1 million chips at one point.  Then I lost a decent sized pot with AK vs QQ and after that for the whole last level I was completely card dead and just had to keep folding.  Anyway, I ended the day at 538k which is about half the average stack, and I'm 13th in chips with 19 people left.  We restart at 1pm Pacific time tomorrow and go until the final table of 8 people is left.

NAPT Day 2

Holy rollercoaster day.  Got down to around 30k chips in the first hour or so at a really tough table, and then our table broke.  At the new table I turned 30k into 280k in a matter of about a half hour, then bluffed off half my stack to get down to around 110k.  Then I ran like god the last couple hours and finished the day with 407k, which puts me at about 1.5x average with about 80 people left.  We restart at 1PM Pacific time.

Not many interesting hands that I can remember, just a lot of standard preflop spots.  The hand where I bluffed half my stack off, was probably a pretty dumb play.  I knew a guy had a big pair on a dry board and tried to get him off of it since we were both pretty deep but then I gave up on the river.  It was most likely a good decision because I later saw him make some pretty loose calldowns in later hands.

Only other interesting hand was on the exact bubble with 105 spots left and 104 being paid.  My stack was about 220k at 2500/5000 blinds, folded to small blind who probably had about 300k to start the hand.  He makes it 12k to go which is a really small raise and I call in the big blind with 98o.  Flop comes QJ3 and he bets about 15k and I call, both trying to hit the gutshot and hoping I can take it away from him on the turn if he checks to me.  Turn comes a ten giving me a straight.  He checks and I bet 30k and he calls pretty quickly.  River is a blank and he checks again, and I fire 80k and he tanks for probably 3 minutes or so before finally calling.  Probably a good thing I hit because I was planning on firing the turn and possibly the river even if I missed.

We play down to 24 players tomorrow.  I'm signed up for the 5k bounty shootout tournament on Tuesday but obviously I'll unregister if I make it through tomorrow.

NAPT Day 1

Sorry I didn't update this last night, I was really tired when I got in and went straight to bed.

So anyway, my table draw sucked all day.  It was mostly young internet kids, and a few older guys who may have been slightly tight but definitely weren't going to be giving away chips.  So I was just patient most of the day, waiting for good spots and hoping to make day 2 with a decent stack.

Only played a couple really big hands all day:

Level 1, 50/100:  I'm in the cutoff with about the 30k starting stack.  Guy 3 to my right opens for 300, guy on my direct right 3bets to maybe 800 or something, I 4bet to 2200 with QQ, everyone folds except the 3 bettor.  flop comes 559 rainbow, he checks, I bet about 3k, he calls.  Turn is another 5, he checks and I check.  I just didn't feel I was getting 3 streets of value very often but it's possible I could have I guess, and if I'm only getting 2 streets of value it's probably better to wait until the river, and I also think there's at least some chance he's playing AA or KK like this, so I'm trying not to go broke if this is the case.  So anyway I forget what river was but it was a low card for sure, he checks, I bet 6500, he thinks for a while and finally calls, and my QQ is good.

Level 8, 400/800/100:  I have about 50k chips at this time  The guy 3 off the button opens for 1600 and he had been super aggro all day and already showed a couple of 3 barrel bluffs and a hand where he 4bet 26hh in mid position after utg opened and utg+1 3bet, so needless to say he wasn't playing scared.  He had probably about 100k chips at this time.  It gets folded to me in the small blind with a9cc and I flat call, big blind folds.  Flop comes 865 with 2 diamonds and a club.  I check, he bets 2200, I call.  I feel like I have the best hand here a lot plus I have a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw, but also I don't really want to build a big pot against a guy who could be pushing all sorts of draws here, like any 7 or a diamond draw, or even a gutshot that's worse than mine.  Anyway, Turn comes an offsuit 3, I check, he bets 4800.  At this point I'm basically deciding whether I want to call 2 more streets with ace high which isn't a very fun thing to do on this type of board usually, but I figured he had a lot of hands he'd bet 2 more streets with that I'm in great shape against (hands like anything with a 4 7 or 9 in it where the other card isn't paired, also diamond draws).  So after a little hesitation I call.  River comes an offsuit 5 for a final board of 86535.  I check and he bets 9800 and I call pretty quickly because I already was pretty sure I was calling the river and every draw missed on the river.  He turns over T7o and I have to look for a few seconds to make sure he doesn't have anything, then I turn my hand over and take the pot, putting me up to about 70k.

One more hand right before the end of the night, I was still around 70k on the button, blinds 500/1k.  Guy 3 off the button raises to 2300, next guy calls, next guy 3bets to like 7k and has about 140k behind.  I look down to see KK and 4bet it small to something like 15k, hoping to induce something.  It gets folded around to the 3 bettor who thinks for at least 3 minutes before folding.  Would have been nice to get that one all in but oh well.

Other than those hands, most of the hands I played were standard open and cbet the flop, or just normal kind of 3bet or 4bet situations preflop which really aren't all that interesting.

Ended the day with 79,700 which should be a little above average going into day 2, which starts tomorrow.

NAPT Los Angeles

Well I'm heading out to NAPT Los Angeles tomorrow.  I'll be playing at least the 5k main event and the 5k bounty event.  Hopefully those are the only 2 that I play but if I bust early I'll probably play a few more of the side events.  I'll put progress updates on my blog as usual.  If any of you guys are going to be out there feel free to say hi.  :)

Hosting Two VIP 1-table sit-n-goes

Hey everyone I'll be hosting two 1-table VIP SNG's this Saturday at 3pm and 4pm EST, the tourney ID's are 327126808 & 327127624.  Hurry and sign up because they are maxed at 10 people per SNG and will surely fill up quickly!

Double Eliteness

So I made it to 2 million VPP for the year yesterday.  I guess it's kind of nice to reach that milestone, but more importantly I had a nice winning day at the tables after running so badly during WCOOP and taking some time off the last few weeks.

So what have I been up to since WCOOP ended?  Well the day after it ended, Deb (the wife) and I went up to a cabin in northern Arizona where it was beautiful, and more importantly relaxing.  It definitely felt good to get away from things for a few days as playing 10+ hours of poker every day for 3 weeks straight can really wear on you.  We didn't really do a whole lot except visit the Grand Canyon one day, which reminds me, for some reason we visited the Grand Canyon about 5 different times when I was a kid and while it's pretty cool and amazing, it's really one of those things you see and just say "yep, it's a big hole in the ground", and no matter how many perspectives you see it from or how many times you go visit it, it's still a just big hole in the ground.  This scene from National Lampoon's Vacation pretty much sums it up for me. Sorry it's in German, I couldn't find an English version, but what they say doesn't really matter for the scene anyway.  If anyone can find an English version of that clip I'll switch it out.  Hah, anyway, sorry for that tangent.

The next week Deb and I went to Ohio for a few days to visit her family and go to an Ohio State football game. It's really hard for me to root for Ohio State because I'm a big ASU fan and have been since I can remember, and really before I met my wife there were 3 football teams I disliked, Ohio St, USC, and Arizona, probably in that order.  The biggest reason an ASU fan has to hate Ohio St is because in 1997 we had our one and only realistic chance at a national championship in the history of our school, and they beat us in the last minute of the game in heartbreaking fashion to ruin our chance.  It almost feels like I'm worshiping a false god or something when I root for them now (if I actually believed in such things).  I mean saying I root for them isn't really accurate but I guess I don't hate them as much as I used to.  Marrying a Buckeye fan has a way of easing that and I now realize they aren't all evil demonic creatures.  Besides, by marriage law I think I'm required to root for her team, unless they're playing my team.

And yes before anyone comments on it, I do realize that all this "hating" teams is really dumb and illogical, but that's how sports is.

So besides that, we've been looking for a new house in the same area.  We probably won't move more than like 5-10 miles away but we just want to upgrade our house in preparation for the baby coming, and with the housing market crashing there are some great deals on really nice houses out there.  It's quite frustrating because we really want to find that perfect house and we've been looking for a little while now and found a few that we like, but there's always something little things (or big things on some of them) about every house that we don't like.  There's some chance we'll build but I'd rather avoid that if we can find something we like that's already built, because building, while kind of fun at exciting at times, can be really stressful and time consuming, and would be kind of hard to fit into the schedule with a newborn at home.

I don't think I announced it yet on here, but we found out a few weeks ago that the baby is a boy and he's due February 9th.  We're pretty excited about it.  I'm still a little nervous just because it's a big change but I think it'll be a good change overall.  I just hope I have a quiet baby.  :)

On the poker agenda, I have NAPT Los Angeles coming up in a few weeks, and PCA in Bahamas in January.  Other than that I'll probably play some or all of the RCOOP events which take place during Thanksgiving week.  It's an interesting concept in that each region of the world has it's own tournament series.  I just enjoy these tournament series because I get to bring out my competitive side.  When I'm playing sit-n-goes throughout the year it's nice to make money at them but it's hard to be competitive about it because there's not really a sense of exhilaration in grinding out money.  I mean I like money as much as the next person and it's always fun to win more, but it's not really a competitive thing.  There's just no feeling like winning a big tournament, not that I'd know really since I've never won anything that I'd consider "big", but I hear it's a nice feeling.  :)  I just could never play them all year though because it's so emotionally draining to play them since you're never really happy unless you win the tournament, so except for a few days a year you're going to end up being frustrated.  Besides you have to commit a lot of time to seriously play tournaments all year.  Like if I want to play for only an hour or 2, that's easy to do because most of the games I play last 15 minutes at the most and they go whenever people sign up, so it's easy to start and quit when I want to.  While with tournaments you have to wait until the time the scheduled tournaments start and you really never know how long you're going to be playing so it's hard to play on days where you actually want to do anything besides play poker.  Also the monetary swings in tournaments are brutal because most of your money comes from making the final 3 spots in a tourney, and with fields of hundreds or thousands of people it's really easy to go long lengths of time without making money.  So that's why I just play a few tournament series a year, and just go all out during those, then I get it out of my system and I think tournaments are silly until the next tournament series starts, then by that time I'm ready to do it all over again.

Oh and speaking of tournament series, I got my SCOOP Player of the Year trophy in the mail the other day, I'll post a picture of it in my next blog entry.  I'd do it now but my wife's asleep and she's the camera person in the family.