PokerWorks

A blog of sorts, a story to be told, the true depth of poker is about to unfold:

Sorry it’s been so long guys, there’s been a lot going on lately and it doesn’t really help that sometimes I just get lazy. When we left off I busted out of the $1500 event at the WSOP. After this me and my friend from home decided to play some drunken poker in a cash game at the Venetian. I had one very interesting hand where I defended my big blind w T-Js, and proceeded to turn the nut straight and get all my money in against another player. In cash game fashion we didn’t turn over our hands until the river was dealt, which could have been a disaster for me as it paired the board.

After the river I glanced at my opponent before turning over my hand and asked, “Do you have a boat?”

He thought for a second and then said no, so I was like alright I guess I win, ship the money.

Then he added, “Oh… but I do have quads.”

Nice slowroll douchebag. Not long after this the game ended when my inebriated friend decided to spill his entire drink on the table while celebrating after he won a pot. That was a pretty clear sign that it was time to leave.

The next day I played the 3x chance event, which was pretty interesting because you had the option of either getting all your chips at once or using them as 2 additional rebuys if you want to just gamble with a smaller starting stack. As usual there were some great players at my table, and also some complete monkeys. I opted to take all my chips at once, which I do in any tournament that allows rebuys, because this way if I have a chance to double I will have a very nice sized stack instead of just the normal starting stack. Anyways, I played well for the most part and got pretty unlucky to miss a lot of flops when the blinds started getting bigger.

It was quite a treat when the one and only Kathy Liebert moved to my table later on in the day, as she is not annoying whatsoever and quite easy on the eyes as well. I was able to keep my stack at a respectable amount through restealing, especially when I made Liebert tank fold A-Q to me. After that I moved to another table where Jeff Lisandro had been pillaging stacks through what was explained by other tablemates as “suckout after suckout.” 

I got my short stack in a few times, but never got the call I wanted, as I was ready to gamble to get a decent sized stack for day 2 or just go home. That was until it folded around to me in the small blind at 400-800 blinds, and I had a stack of around 8800 chips. I peeked down at the sailboats (4-4), and had an easy decision to ship my chips in against the big blind as any pair is usually good in a blind vs. blind situation. The big blind appeared to be Scandinavian, and for that reason I was expecting a pretty loose call perhaps even by a hand I had dominated. Being that as it may, I was still quite surprised when he put the chips in for a call after a little bit of thinking and then proudly showed his K-6o. The flop was all clubs, and for a second I thought it was over as I initially thought he had K-6cc, but in fact he only had the K of clubs so I still had a chance. The turn was a blank, but the river was a K. How could he not win after making such a stellar call?

After losing yet another race at the Rio, I decided it was time to take a break from poker before the 5k 6-max event. I went out to the ghetto ass lanes of the Gold Coast casino for some hardcore bowling and prop betting with friends, including Dan “Wretchy” Martin who had brought his own bowling ball and shoes. The first game went pretty horrible, but I started to get into the groove near the end. After the game Dan gave me a handicap of 40 pins, and for each pin that I beat him by I got a dollar. We were also placing some ridiculous bets on picking up spares, which I ended up winning a few of. I also managed to pick up a turkey (3 strikes in a row) when given 3-1 odds by two different people. After almost tying Wretchy the second game, and completely owning him in the third where I bowled the best game of my life, a 170, I ended the night up much more from prop betting then I was from poker so far on the trip.  Unfortunately that trend continued throughout the trip, which you will see in the next installment.

Part I