7/8 to 7/14

First off let me say this one is pretty long and I am sorry about that. It could have been a lot longer but I just referenced part of it to keep it as short as possible. Well this is Vegas week so hopefully it is a profitable one. Saturday I played sparingly since I am leaving for Vegas tomorrow and wanted to spend time with the family since I am hoping to be gone a few days. I did play about 150 hands at 2/4 and 2 free tournaments on Stars. I went out early in both but did get my money in ahead. Seems like I am doing that a lot lately but getting a bad result. That will turn though. At right about this time last year I was running about the same. Getting money in with AK vs. AQ or JJ vs. 1010 and getting outdrawn. Don’t even bring up any pair vs. AK. That did turn and I went on a major heater for the rest of the year. Hopefully that will be the case again this year. Sunday was a travel day. Luckily, from the time I leave my house in Amarillo to the time I walk into my hotel is only about 3 hours since we have a great direct flight from here. The first place I headed was over to the Rio to try 1 satellite and then buyin if I didn’t make it. I was chipping up decent when we were 5 handed and I was in the SB with K7os. I completed it and the flop came AA7. Good flop for me but I check and it gets 2 more checks. Turn is a 4. I bet out 250 into a 300 pot. BB fold and the other guy thinks a bit then minimum raises. I was fairly certain from his play he didn’t have an A so after about a minute I moved in for 600 more which would have put him very short. He didn’t insta call so I knew I had him beat and then started hoping for a call. I finally got my wish and he did call with K10os. I was very happy only needing to dodge a 10 before doubling up into the chip lead until that cruel 10 nailed the river. I didn’t hit the poker room to play the cash tables until about 10:00 Sunday night as I wanted to let the game loosen up a bit before I started. My original plan was to hit the Mirage but I saw they had 2 10/20 games going at The Orleans so I decided to stay there and play as long as I could since I didn’t have to worry about getting back to my hotel. I drank more cups of coffee than I care to think about trying to liven up but the time difference got me and I could only make 1:30. I ran into the horrible play that I had expected and was able to walk out with a nice profit of $302. One very big hand occurred when we were on a Kill pot and I was in mid position with KK. The kill was only a ½ kill so we were playing 15/30 this round. There were 2 limpers and then I reraise to 30. BB and both limpers call so we went 4 to the flop. The flop was Q high and an early limper bet and was called and then I raised. The turn was meaningless and it went check/check and then I bet out. 1 caller and the other folded so 2 went to the river. The river was another meaningless card and I bet and was called. I’m sure he had a Q but no idea what the other card was. The pot was well over $300 so that got me off to a decent start to the night. I didn’t get to play as long as I wanted but did win at a nice rate. Monday was the day. I had a great time at breakfast. I sat next to Carol (dci), Dean, Deans Dad, and Mike (A buddy of sickcoyotes). I really enjoyed the conversation and of course meeting the rest of the folks. I head in and get seated at my table and knew noone so that was good. I had talked to Brad (sickcoyote) a bit before the tournament and thought early I didn’t want to splash around and was pretty much only going to play AA, KK, QQ and AK. Boy this would come back to haunt me. I caught AK about 25 hands in and popped it up from mid position. Flop is all rags so I bet out. Button calls so I am a little concerned now. The turn brings a very nice K so I check hoping for a check raise. He checked and the river brought another K. I bet out 400 into a 500 pot and he folded. I caught 77 in the big blind and checked my option on a 4 way flop that checked down the whole way and my 77 held up surprisingly. I had managed to move up a bit from our starting stack to about 1875 in chips and I didn’t see another hand until QQ from mid/late position. I raised to 150 and the button reraised to 500. First big decision of the day. I thought for about 1 minute before finally deciding to make the call. I truly almost folded but the button had reraise early raisers at least 6-8 times so I couldn’t give him a ton of credit. I was tempted to reraise allin but wanted to see no big cards on the flop first so I went with the call. Now the other times he reraised when the flop came all rags he had checked and then folded if they bet out. Now after blinding down a bit from my high in chips I was about 1600 exactly before this hand began. Now with the blinds and an early limper the pot was 1125 total and I had 1100 left. I thought a bet of 500 would show weakness so I moved in and he called instantly. As we were counting out the chips I asked if he finally had gotten AA and he said yes. Surprisingly we had the exact same number of chips and I got no help and was sent packing. And that is my first experience in the WSOP. It was a couple of minutes before the first break and I had played 3 hands. Won 2 of them and went home on the 3rd. I was definitely disappointed but was still very excited to have gotten the experience. But the rollercoaster of a day on Monday was getting ready to kick into high gear. After calling my wife and dad to let them know I was no longer around in the tournament I felt exhausted. I went back to my room and crashed for about an hour and a half. I decided I needed a good dinner so I went down to The Orleans seafood buffet and ate a ton of shrimp and crab legs and was ready to win it all back. I finished dinner about 6:45 and took a casual walk over to the poker room to see if they still had their nightly tournament. As it turns out they were having their Poker Open going on and were running second chance tournaments every night at 7:00. I ran up to the room quickly and got paid about 2 minutes before it started. It was $120 buyin with a $100 rebuy that almost everyone uses immediately. I want go into a long narrative on the event but you can check the Boasts and Brags section on www.pokeranalysis.com and check out the post titled “Razrback Gets A Second Chance” and read about. Obviously 7.5 hours after it started I was the winner. I collected $4,000 and after tipping the dealers $100 I showed a profit of $3,680. I was very excited and tired. I called my wife, 5:00am in Amarillo, and told her and got a very very groggy “good job” as she was hanging up and going back to sleep. I then headed straight to bed for a very short night of sleep. Tuesday morning I was heading back to Amarillo so not much playing then. I went downstairs and had about an hour to kill so I jumped in on a 4/8 limit game and broke exactly even for the hour and was then off to the airport to get home. Overall I had a great time and did better poker wise than I had hoped. I spent $125 on my 1 satellite, $1,000 on the WSOP and $220 on the Second Chance tournament. After all tips and entry fees I walked away ahead $2,857 on the trip. I would definitely call that a success. 3 days still to go in the week so maybe this was the week to get me back on track. Wednesday night I was tired and played 0 hands of poker. We’ll call it a break even day. Thursday night was a very nice night. Not a lot of playing but all went to plan. I played a little NL .5/1 blinds and won almost $60 over just a few hands. I then proceeded to win 4 of 5 $20 heads up matches. Ironically the only match I lost the guy had to sit out about 5 minutes for something so I figured in the interest of good sportsmanship I would sit out until he got back or 10 minutes. I had him down pretty low but he doubled up and the busted me a little later. Oh well. The 2/4 tables treated me good also. I only got in about 200 hands and left up right at $100 for the night. It looks like my heater in Vegas continued a little longer. Overall on the night I was up a little over $200 so definitely can’t complain. Hopefully this is just the start of things to come. There isn’t a lot to Friday. I mostly played cash games and ended the night on a down note but slightly up. When I sat down I started off real well but gradually over the next 400 hands I bled off most of the profits when I had a couple of beats and a couple of second best hands. It was a great week overall. I managed to play in the WSOP and win my first live tournament for my largest cash. I was able to clear $2,400 in profits on the week but if I was able to stay away from the BlackJack tables the profits would have been a lot nicer since all gambling gets counted together. Good luck.