I promise this trip report involves actual poker hands, a number of which I think I played badly. I seem to be more inspired to take notes on the hands I lose than the ones I win. I just finished reading Benton Blakeman’s really impressive run through of all the hands he played in the Main Event and I am vowing to track every hand on my next poker trip. So many people text at the table that it’s pretty easy to record hands discretely.

This poker trip was special and different for me from any other, and I’m just enough of an over-sharer to tell you why. I’d been trying to eat better and work out for about a year. I’d dropped about 10 pounds, but wasn’t totally satisfied with that rate of progress. It was April 10, 2013, and I was out to dinner with my wife and kids. While trying to decide what to order and talking about our planned June-July 2013 grown-ups-only trip to Las Vegas, I was inspired to ask my wife a question: how much would I have to weigh when we left for our trip on June 21 for her to buy me into a $1.5k WSOP bracelet event?

She thought about it for a minute and said, “You’d have to weigh 200 pounds or less.” At that point I clocked in at 232 pounds. It seemed like it would be a real stretch, but definitely not contrary to the laws of physics or otherwise impossible. What better motivation for a poker player? I’ve played plenty of $1/$2 cash games and was comfortable playing $125 tournaments. While $1.5k was out of my comfort zone, if it felt like someone else was paying for it (although really, how is it really someone else paying for it if your wife is buying it?), I wouldn’t feel too much “oh I can’t afford this” pressure.

Well, long story short, 10 weeks of waking up at 5:00 every morning to run or bike ride; tracking calories on MyFitnessPal; eating chicken, chicken and more chicken; and avoiding bread, rice, and sugar like they were a pack of crazy ex-girlfriends, I hit 199.8 lbs on June 19, 2013. Two days to spare! We celebrated by going to Olive Garden where I promptly put about three pounds back on. But that didn’t matter, I had my Willie Wonka golden ticket to the WSOP.

In the days leading up to my “main” event, I played a lot of cash $1/$2 at the Mirage. We were staying at TI, but I prefer $1/$2 to the $1/$3 at TI, and it seems much easier to find a game and a seat at Mirage. Here are a couple of the hands I took notes on:

I had 59o on the button. In past trips this is a hand I would have folded even from the button. But when pretty much every player at the table limped in by the time it got to me, I decided to toss in my two dollars on the button. I hadn’t been at the table very long and didn’t have any firm impressions of the table yet. As you might expect, the SB and the BB both came along for the ride. Six of us saw the flop with a whopping $18 in the pot.

The flop came a friendly k95 rainbow. It checked around to the villain in the hj who bet $20. I raised to $50, thinking he had a king and could call with it. Everyone else folded. The villain thought about it for a minute and then folded, saying he had a kicker problem.

Later that same session, Villain limped in middle position. I was on the button again, and with no other limpers, I decided to raise to $7 with my 79hh. The SB folded and the BB called. When it got to Villain 1, he reraised to $20 with about $300 behind. I had about $250 behind and decided to call with position. The BB called too.

The flop was 3h6hjs, giving me a flush draw but not much else. Villain bet $50 into the $61 pot. I called. The BB went all in for about $100 and Villain called. At that point I decided that I didn’t want to play for my entire stack on a non-nut flush draw. I’d love to tell you how this played out, but my notes on the hand stopped there. From a decision-making perspective, I don’t know that it matters. I just figured that with both of them so eager to get their money in, I was certainly behind one if not both of them, and with my 9 high flush draw, could have easily been drawing dead.

The next day at the Mirage brought another interesting hand. Villain limped with 300 behind from UTG. I had $150 behind and raised to $7 with j10o. No one else wanted to play, but Villain called.

The flop was 9 x x, and Villain checked. I bet $20 and Villain called.

The turn was a Q, giving me the open-ended straight draw, and there was no flush possibility on the board. Villain bet $30 into the $57 pot. At this point I thought I had a shot at taking it away if he was bluffing or getting good implied odds if I hit my straight. So I called.

The river was a very nice 8, giving me the nuts. Villain bet $50 into the $107 pot, and I went all in for my last $93 or so dollars, and Villain folded. This was a nice result, but looking back on the hand, given his willingness to call preflop and then bet three streets thereafter, he showed an awful lot of strength. I’m only getting the nuts on the river less than 10% of the time, the dumb end of the straight another 10% or so. If I hadn’t had the straight on the river I don’t think I could have called the last bet or reraised all in. I think I just got lucky in this hand.

I made another bad play later than same session that cost me. A super tight player made a raise to $20 preflop from middle position. I called with QQ in the big blind. It’s just the two of us as the flop comes 10 x x. He had $210 behind and I had him covered. I open-shoved my queens and Mr. Super Tight calls quickly flipping over AA. My note to myself at the time was: what the hell did you think he would call with that didn’t have you beat? Given how tight this player was, and after watching him for a few hours I knew he was squeaking, he wasn’t opening that big that early without AK, KK, QQ, JJ, or 1010. Maybe you could throw AQ suited in there to make me feel better. Of those hands, I’m only ahead of AK, AQ and JJ after the flop, and of those hands, the only one I could see possibly calling with worse would be JJ. So I bet my entire stack when I’d only get called by better.

I guess I do think I was bound to lose a bunch of money on this hand no matter what. But if I’d led out for $20 on the flop, or let him make a $20-40 bet, that money would have been in the pot. After that who knows what would have happened. I’d like to think I could have folded my overpair against this particular player if he’d kept betting big after the flop.

Even worse about my bet is that if he had been holding AK, AQ or JJ, going all in on the flop probably would have led to him folding. Checking to him would have let him c-bet those hands. A donk bet into him for ½ to the whole pot would have let him call with worse, and I would have been ahead of all those hands. So my play guaranteed I would win a relatively small pot if I was ahead but would lose a big one if I was behind. Not a recipe for success.

This next hand was one I thought about for quite awhile. It’s the Mirage cash game again, I believe the following day. I had right around $200 and raised to $7 UTG with KJd. There were two callers, the button and the BB.

The flop came KJ9 rainbow. I bet $15 into the $23 pot. The button calls. I hadn’t been playing with her too long, but had seen her playing at another table in the Mirage the night before. I remembered her because she was wearing a poker shirt the night before that said “This is my poker face” and thought it was kinda funny. I took away from the shirt and seeing her playing twice in two days that she had played at least some poker and wasn’t just someone’s significant other taking a stab at the table.

I wasn’t in total love with my two pair on such a straighty board, especially when she called my flop bet. The turn was a 7, putting yet another potential straight out there. At the time I think I justified another bet by telling myself I still had outs to a straight myself and maybe she was drawing too. So I bet another $30 into the $53 pot and again she called.

The river was a 2, and with no flushes out there, it was really all about the straight. The reptilian part of my brain really liked having two pair and said “bet” even while the rational, thinking part of my brain was yelling “abort, abort!” I’m sure you can guess what part won: I bet $50 into the $103 pot and the button shoved with her last $92, making it $42 more to me.

At this point, I’m talking to her out loud and myself telling her it really feels like I’ve been dumping chips into someone holding Q10. If I didn’t know it on the turn, I certainly should have read her all-in at that point as the nuts. My two pair are a bluff catcher at best. Even that’s no reason to call against this player who just didn’t seem the type to be calling calling calling and then going all in on the river. In any event, I convince myself I am “priced in,” which I guess I am after my series of terrible turn and river bets. I call, she says “You were right,” and turns over the Q10 for the flopped straight. I think there were two points in the hand where I should have decided discretion was the better part of valor and bailed: on the turn when she’d not only called my flop bet but yet another straightening card had come, or less ideally but still better than what I did, check folding or bet folding the river, which would have saved me some considerable cash.

I rebought and plowed ahead. Not too long later, I was in the cutoff with two limpers in front of me. I saw 55 and limped along. The button checked. The flop came A53 rainbow.

Villain in mp with a huge pile of chips bets $10. I call. The turn is a 7. Villain moves all in and has my $200 or so covered. I call. Villain turns over 48 for the gutshot straight draw but nothing else. You could color me pretty surprised at that point, I thought I’d see at least A – x from him. Sadly for me, with both of us all in he hit his gutshot with a 6 on the river for the straight. At least this time I could tell myself I got my money in good.

All told, I lost $500 by the time that session was over, not a great result. About half was avoidable, but the other half was just a bad beat.

The next morning I decided to try the Wynn Friday morning tournament with the $10k guarantee as a warmup for my Saturday WSOP event. While it’s a $200 buy in for 12,000 chips, they let you buy another 10,000 chips at the end of the rebuy period for $100, so effectively it’s a $300 tourny unless you’ve chipped up a lot early on.

We couldn’t have been more than a few hands into the tournament, at 100/50 blinds, when I find AQ of spades in the small blind. Four players limp, I complete and then the BB makes it 400. I’m the only caller.

The flop comes Ad Qd x. We both check and the turn is the beautiful A of clubs for a turned full-house. I check figuring another A might be just the card he thought he was looking for, and sure enough the BB bets 1300. I reraise to 2600. He goes all-in. I double check my hand like a donkey to make sure it hasn’t changed and that it really is the nuts. Sure enough I still have aces full. I call and he turns over AK off with no flush draw. Tells me he thought I was on the flush draw when I reraised him to 2600.

Not too much later with blinds at 200/100, I have a 20k stack on the button and see UTG+1 raise to 375. He’s been super aggressive and his stack has gone up and down, and at this point he has about 8,000. He gets two callers and I decide to call too with As7s.

The flop came a gorgeous 77djd, although I wasn’t thrilled with the two diamonds. UTG+1 bets 750, V2 folds and V3 calls. At this point, I would be OK with picking up a 15 BB pot and I want to give the wrong price to any diamond draws. I push all-in for my whole 20k stack. Villain number 3 folds. UTG+1 tanks forever and finally calls with 88, one which is the 8 of diamonds. When I flip my hand over he goes crazy, tells me I played the hand terribly, and that he thought I was on the diamond draw. I’m thinking to myself, “I got you to put all your chips in with second pair against my trips, and all you’ve got is a two outer and a runner runner flush draw, so I think I did something right.” I still do.

Unfortunately, the runout is indeed a diamond on the turn and another on the river, giving him the 4 diamonds on the board backdoor flush. Fortunately, that just took me back to a starting stack of 12k. I was pretty happy with how I played for most of the rest of the tournament, and came into the final table with about 15 big blinds.

The final table is probably where I made what felt like was a very costly avoidable mistake, and the only real mistake I made that day. We’re at the final table, only a few hands in. I’m in the cutoff. UTG raises 3x. A player who’d just lost most of his chips the hand before pushed all in for a little more than the amount of the BB, less than 3 BB total. It folds around to me with 88 and I push all in for my 15 BB. Everyone folds around to the UTG who happily calls with AA. I don’t remember what junk the 3 BB player had, but it was junk and I had that beat. Couldn’t overcome AA and went out in 9th place with Mr. 3 BB getting 10th. Ninth was a $359 payout on a $300 investment. If I find my fold button there because of ICM, the fact that early position raises are often strong, and the fact that 88 is a good but not amazing hand, with the fact that I still had some time to wait for a better spot, I think I cost myself at least a few hundred dollars in expected prize money. Moving up to say 5th place, or to a five or six way chop, could have easily pushed my payout above $1,000. Not a mistake I’ll let myself make again.

WSOP Event #53 - $1.5k NLH

The big reward for all my weight loss came on June 29th, WSOP Event #53, my first WSOP bracelet event. I felt like my poker was getting better over the week in Vegas, and other than my final table chip spew, I’d felt really good about my play the day before. We ended up with over 2,800 entries for this tournament.

I was one of the first players to sit at my table. As other players joined, I was trying to covertly see their names on the registration slips as they handed them to the dealer. I’d then do a quick google/Global Poker Index search to see if anything came up. I caught the name of a somewhat older player, wearing Italian PokerStars patches, Salvatore Bonavena. I looked him up and saw he was ranked in the top 100 players in the world (at that time). Later I saw he cashed in 152nd in this event. Didn’t see any other names that I could find much on.

Early in the first few levels, I watched an interesting hand that I folded out of with rags. At 50/25 blinds, an older tight player calls the hijack’s raise to 225 from the BB. The flop is rags with two clubs. Check check. Turn is the Kc, putting three clubs on the board. Bb checks again and the hijack bets 200 into the 550 pot. The BB responds by putting out a 100 chip and a 500 chip. The dealer announces (properly) that this is a raise. BB says, “Oh, I didn’t mean to raise, that’s just a call. Dealer says it stands as raise to 600 chips and Mr. Old Tight shows us his “I just drank sour milk face.” HJ re-raises to 2400. BB snap pushes all-in. HJ snap calls. BB turns over A8 clubs for the nut flush to beat the Qx clubs of the HJ. BB smiles like the fox that robbed the hen house as he pulls in his chips. Anyone believe for a minute that he “didn’t mean” to raise on the turn?

I made it to the first break without too much in the way of action. That gave me an opportunity to meet up with TeamAVP pro Scott Davies (miamicane). Scott’s got a poker blog in the AVP forums and is one of the most thoughtful poker players you could ever want to meet. We’re both alumni of the UC Davis Law School, but unlike me, Scott decided to become a productive member of society after he graduated.

Anyway, I’ve been a small (very small) backer of Scott’s WSOP packages. He’s a ton of fun to follow on Twitter (@scottdavies) and his blog. It’s even more fun to follow him when, like me, you live in a state where the closest legal poker room is a three hour flight away. I like playing vicariously through Scott. Not only can he play legally, he tends to play just a little better than I do.

Scott and I arranged to meet on the break so I could collect my share of the winnings from Scott’s first WSOP package (yeah us!). Scott proceeded to let me follow him around on break and couldn’t have been more gracious and cordial. He showed me the secret poker pro bathrooms, the best snack deal in Vegas and even let me tell him about my spazz push the day before in the Wynn tournament. He ever so gently agreed with my assessment that I’d donked my chips away. Since Scott went super deep in this WSOP tournament, I guess I don’t have to feel bad that I somehow contaminated him with any donkey germs.

After that first break, a few hands in I find JJ in the cutoff. Blinds are 50/100 and my stack has slipped marginally from 4,500 starting chips to 4,000. I raise to 250. The SB three bets me to 750. I call. I don’t have a super-strong read on the SB, but he definitely is not playing tight, and likes being aggressive. I also thought maybe he was a little tilty as he’d lost a big hand a few minutes earlier.

The flop is 23j rainbow. SB bets 750. I call. Turn is junk. SB checks the turn. I check back. The river is junk. SB checks, and I value bet for 1000 with another 1500 behind. SB folds. I thought he was aggressive and tilty, and might call with an underpair after I’d checked the turn and river. If he was really making a move on me when he three bet, I don’t know that betting at any point would have picked up more chips for me.

My bad beat story is interesting to me (aren’t they all?) because I still go back and forth about how much of it I could have/should have avoided. Remember Mr. Old Tight “I didn’t mean to raise” from the first hand I watched and described? He limped from UTG along with two other players. I find AA in the cut off. I made it 700 to go with blinds at 200/100. Only the Mr. Old Tight UTG calls. Flop is J x x, not a bad flop for me. SB bets into me for 700. I call, wondering if I’ve really been unlucky enough to run into JJ. The turn is a Q. SB bets into met again for 1000. I call, reluctantly. The river is a rag. He bets another 1,500. Calling leaves me with about 2,000 chips and him about 900. I call suspecting strongly I’m beat but unable to lay down the overpair. If he had put me all in, I think I would have laid down. He flips over QJ and takes the pot.

That sure hurt, but I really thought he was the kind of player who could make those bets with AQ or AJ, or even K10. I think my impression was proven correct, as I watched him give away the chips he collected with bad calls holding only top pair, bad kicker, and once with third pair. His first bet into me I had him drawing to six outs, but he got his magic card on the turn. In any event, he didn’t last long and was out before the second break.

I later made a play that I was proud of. After the AA debacle, I got involved in a hand with the Italian Pro. He had not been particularly active at the table, but I’d seen him three bet folks a few times and he did play his hands fairly aggressively. Folks seemed to give his raises a fair bit of respect. He was two players to my right, and the player to my immediate right seemed like he was not willing to do much to defend his blinds. Neither was I for that matter, but I didn’t have much to work with the first two times he open raised from the cutoff or button. He did it again and I found A10 in the big blind. I decided that there was a good enough chance he was making a move, and that he likely perceived me as being pretty tight, so might play a little more cautiously against me if I showed resistance. He raised to 500 on the button and I called. The flop was a Q x x, and he c-bet for 800 as I recall. I figured he would have been c-betting with anything, and that I still had at least a few outs even if disaster had struck and he had a Q. So I called his flop bet as a float.

The turn was another rag, and this time he checked to me. Time to put on our big boy pants and go with my read. I bet 1500 into the pot, leaving myself only about 1000 behind. Don’t know if it made sense, but I thought that bet would look scarier to him than an all in, plus would leave me the option to bet-fold if he pushed on me himself. He thought about it for a bit and then tossed his hand in the muck.

At the second break, Scott Davies and I were both sitting on 2,975 chip stacks. He ran his up to a great cash, but I was not able to use my chips so effectively. At 100/200 blinds with a 25 ante, it folds to me and I open shoved my 2k stack with KcQc from the cutoff. The button, verbally expressing his opinion that I had nothing, called. The table big stack in the BB called. Flop came K x x. Then the BB went all in. The button folds showing pocket 5s. Unfortunately, the BB has AKo. No queen or clubs came to rescue me and I was done. I felt like this was a pretty good spot for me given my 10BB stack and position, it just sucks to run into AK. Gotta win some flips to go far in a field of 2,800.

I was sad to be out so relatively early. Scott had promised to show me the secret food truck to the poker stars at the dinner break but I couldn’t last long enough for him to show me. Maybe next year? We’d lost about half the field when I made my exit.

Overall, I felt like I played pretty well in the WSOP and just hit some bad beats. I kept telling myself that I’d already won before I sat down at the table by meeting my weight loss goal and living a healthier life. Sounds like something a loser would say, haha. Being able to virtually watch Scott ride through the field like Ghengis Khan helped salve the pain a little too. Looking back, I thought there probably three players who had a real skill edge over me. There were two who I really thought I could outplay or had figured out. The rest I thought were generally in my ballpark. I didn’t think that was all that different from the skill level I’d seen at the Aria $125 tournaments or the Wynn $300.

After the WSOP, I went back to cash games at the Mirage. I had a great hand early on that made up for some of the pain earlier in the week. I was in the BB and peeked down to see the always welcome KK with $300 in my stack. There were five, count ‘em five, limpers. I raise to $15, which in hindsight was probably too small given the number of limpers. UTG calls and all the others fold. The flop is the very nice K 9 x rainbow. I check the nuts. UTG bets $25. I re-raise to $50. UTG raises all in, I wish I could remember how much, but I sadly left it out of my notes. I of course call. V shows AA. KK holds up. I think that was good for about a $200 pot.

Later that night I had Qs9s in the BB. It limped around and I checked. The flop had two spades. I bet out for $10 and got one caller. The turn was the Js. I bet $25 and villain calls again. The river was a low diamond. I bet $30 and villain raises to $91 all in. Maybe I was overreacting to my KJ two pair debacle earlier in the week. I didn’t have much of a feel for how loose/aggressive this player was. All I could think was what would call me all the way down to the river with, and then re-raise all in? All I could come up with was a K or A high flush that would beat my Q high flush. I folded and told him I thought his flush was better than mine. He seemed genuinely happy I’d folded as he told me he had two pair. It seemed like he was telling the truth, but who knows. Curious what others think about whether this was a good laydown or whether I was overreacting to my bad calls on the river earlier in the week.

I took away two big poker lessons from this trip. First, coming into this trip I’d been reading Jonathon Little’s series of poker tournament books and decided that I had been letting myself blind down too far waiting for good hands in good position. Prior to this trip, I would have let myself blind down all the way to 1BB if “good” cards didn’t come around my way. So I definitely needed to open my range, especially in late position. I think I over-applied his advice, and went to the other extreme of pushing too light, especially over a raise, when I had 10-15 BB. Big difference between opening on the button vs. re-raising on the button. For example, I went out of my last Aria tournament with about 12 BB after the cutoff raised to 3x with less than 20 BB behind, and I pushed all in with A2o. He agonized and called with A8o and took me out. If it had been folded around to me, pushing against the blinds would have been OK, but not over a raise. I keep thinking of the quote Paul Gordon (vookenmeister) retweeted last week from Andrew Borkos: “In every tournament there is a chime that rings when it is no longer ‘too soon to make moves’ It sounds at a frequency only donkeys can hear.” I heard the chime! And it sounded so, so sweet. If only the rest of you could have heard it, you’d understand lol. I hope I never hear it again.
Second lesson, especially for cash games, is I think I’m going to give a little more credit to river re-raises, especially when I hold two pair with a board that could make a high straight. At low limits I’m just not running into a bluff that often.

Overall, I think I finished down for the about $1,000, not counting my wife’s generous WSOP buy-in on my behalf. First losing poker trip I’ve had to Las Vegas, so I suppose I was due. Can’t wait to get back. Thanks for reading, and eat lots of chicken.