Well its been one helluva rollercoaster this week for me at the Rio. After coming just shy of the money in last week's $1500 Omaha hi-lo, I finally popped my WSOP cash cherry by finishing 26th in the $2000 Omaha hi-lo! Which of course was followed by a spectacular bustout in record time in the $3000 HORSE tourney....ah, poker gods, why are you so fickle?
First to the good stuff: Omaha, baby! Just like in the first tourney i played, i quickly established myself as the chip leader at my table on day 1 and remained there for a good 6 hours, just cleaning up on the inexperience of most of the competition. To be honest, I was really surprised by how weak the field here was; most of the 5/10 games online are harder to crack than this WSOP field of Omaha hopefuls.
But of course in typical fashion i ended up in serious trouble at the end of day 1, plummeting to 2100 chips by the last level of the day after spending the whole day flirting with the 10k mark. I basically doubled up every single shortstack at the table in one amazing hand after another where no matter how dominating a hand i got all their money in against, they always managed to draw out. But i held on and, with barely 20 minute to go in day 1, finally had a few solid hands actually hold up (imagine that) and rode the express elevator up to 19k in chips (chip average under 13k) to end the day.
Day 2 was even more of a whirlwind. Barely an hour into the action, i had taken my 19k stack and upgraded all the way to over 48k!! it was truly amazing, and despite obviously going on a rush of strong cards, most of the $$$ came not from having such great hands, but the incredibly soft field that insisted on paying me off with severely marginal holdings nearly every time. My day 2 table was even looser than day 1...pretty sick. But of course playing such loose players meant that eventually they'd draw out and draw out they did, knocking me back to 30k and then i went card dead for the rest of the day....
Even though my 30k was pretty far ahead of chip average, without playing many hands i didn't accumulate much the rest of the day & eventually the field caught up and passed me. And of course the loose donkeys who had so generously built me up finally busted (for the most part) and were replaced by better and better players. By the time the money bubble burst, there was hardly a loose chip on the table & i was stuck nursing the same 19k stack i had come into the day with.
I gotta say, despite not really being able to take much credit for getting paid off so many times earlier in the tourney, i'm really proud of how i played my short stack late in day 2. For about 4 hours i somehow managed to squeeze every last drop of +EV out of my ridiculously short stack, refusing to bust and picking the perfect spots to jump in and stay alive amidst the very solid remaining players in the field. I used every trick in the book to maneuver myself from 60th place all the way down to 3 tables, busting in 26th only after i got my money all in 2 spectacular hands in a row where i was such a sick monster favorite to scoop & ended up getting quartered/scooped myself. I'm not one for bad beat stories but check out these last 2 hands & you'll know why i was so disappointed to go out in such a dirty fashion after playing so well for so long:
Riding 21k in 2k/4k blinds, i raised an UTG caller to 8k with AA35 double suited (hearts/diamonds) and got a late position caller & the original UTG player as well. 3 way action saw the flop: 26Q, 2 diamonds. UTG player bet, i raised, late position folded, and UTG reraised so i could go all in heads up. He flips up A346 rainbow, so my aces are already gin & he'll need to a pull a miracle here just to avoid getting quartered for half the low -- not to mention my sick AA high with nut flush draw and gutshot straight draw. Well of course he rivers the miracle 5 to give him the straight, no diamonds hit for my flush, and suddenly I'M the one quartered all the fuck the way down to 9k.
The next hand is even sicker. Now i'm UTG and i pop it up to 8k with AKQ4, and get all in vs the BB (the former UTG caller who just quartered me). He flips up A58K an i flop an incredible 944!!!! it looks like a virtual lock for a double up until he goes perfect perfect 3-4 to make the wheel with his A5, cracking my flopped set and sending me to the rail. A really, really dirty end to an incredible battle. And did i mention the dude who sucked out in both hands went on to win the bracelet?!? Nice guy, good player, but god damn, man!
So.....i took a day off, did some yoga, and got ready for the $3000 HORSE yesterday. Well, lets just say that I didn't think it was even POSSIBLE to bust out of a limit event before the first break...but now i know differently. Remember all the big hands i told you i got paid off on in Omaha? Well, i swear to god i had no less than a dozen big hands in HORSE & i lost EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Not only that, but in the split games i didn't even pull off one chop -- got scooped every time. I'm talking aces and kings cracked in holdem, strong highs/lows in Omaha cracked by nut/nut, 6 lows in razz cracked by the wheel, top pairs/flushes/straights in stud cracked by boats & bigger flushes/straights....the list goes on and on. In fact, in the hour and 48 minutes it took to play my 6k stack down to 0, i only won a single pot for about 2 bets. Never won another pot the whole time, not even the blinds. Absolutely horrifying.
So, the lesson this week is: poker giveth, and poker taketh away. Needless to say, my next event isn't til Saturday's $1500 so i got the hell outta vegas for 48 hours. Yup, that's right, i came all the way back to LA just to sit in this coffeeshop and write this blog. Then i'm gonna turn around tomorrow and go back. Gotta stay spontaneous, baby!
What's up, bitches! Long time no post... been traveling a bit -- to Oklahoma, of all places -- and back working for All In Magazine, this time as their new blackjack editor. Instead of a half poker/half blackjack mag, its back to all poker...with a cool little blackjack 'corner' of 10-12 pages a month. Featured each month is my 'Head Games with Hollywood Dave' article, as well as 2-3 other pieces by a rotating gang of other blackjack authors. Chekkit chekkit out! And be sure to sign up for the $5,000 freeroll All In is offering June 12th to celebrate the launching of their new website!
But back to bizness... Oklahoma bizness, that is. Believe it or not, I've been there twice in the past 4 weeks and have a few more trips planned over the next couple months. Winstar Casino is right over the Texas border in the middle of nowhere -- but due to technicalities of Oklahoma gaming law, is hosting one of the biggest blackjack tournaments I've ever seen: a 2 million dollar guarantee this August, with monthly qualifiers leading up to it. Basically, the 30 finalists will be playing one of the biggest blackjack tournies ever on record, and as you can expect every blackjack pro on the planet is turning out for this thing. Strange to see so many familiar faces in the middle of the Oklahoma tundra...
I gotta admit, I didn't have the greatest desire to travel all the way there -- flying into Dallas and then driving 2 hours north -- but after arriving the first weekend and getting picked up by a sick stretch Sexcalade limo, I was pretty jazzed. The casino may be far from civilization, so they definitely know how to bring the VIPs in -- in style, baby! The first order of business, of course, was stopping to pick up some rum (since you can't buy the hard stuff in Oklahoma for some insaaaaaane reason) which came in handy for a late nite hot tub session. Have rum, will travel...
The tournament itself was organized really well -- top notch production staff filming everything, and very professional dealers and floor staff. After all the flack I'm used to getting by casinos for actually knowing a thing or two about the game, it was nice to actually be treated with some respect by the house. Hey, its not like they have to worry about me raiding their blackjack cash tables -- a per-hand ante kills any realistic edge I could hope to get through card counting. So fuck it, I did what I do best -- crushed the competition in round after round of the blackjack tourney!
That is, until the last hand of the quarterfinal round. What was really tough about the event was the rules variations they used: only starting with 1000 chips (betting with $25 increments), NO surrender OR insurance, NO max bet, and a whopping 2:1 payout on blackjacks. Which means that at the end of the day, the playing field is really leveled so that the average players have a much better chance to take out the pros than normal. No matter how big your lead, all someone has to do is push all in and BAM, back to even. If they don't hit some sick blackjack and go into the stratosphere, that is. Plus, since blackjack is a game where you have to BET your hands before you see your cards, having rules like surrender, insurance, etc are very important because they give pro players additional tools to creatively adjust their bet totals after the fact.
Bottom line is, I was in a decent position to advance out of the quarterfinals (i think like 3 out of 6 advanced off the table) on the final hand, and made a big bet that gave me some excellent highs and lows over the other players. That is, until the dealer gave one all-in player an instant pass to the next round with a 2:1 blackjack, and other players rock-solid 19's and 20's, while i was stuck on a menial soft 14. I tried the hail-mary all-in double down, but it wasn't to be. Needless to say, it was hot tub & rum time for HD and friends!
The next week I was back at Winstar for their sister tournament, a 3 million guarantee poker event, with the same monthly qualifying structure as the blackjack tourney. Again I got fucked in the 11th hour, getting all my chips in deep in the event with AQ spades against A9 clubs....2 spades on the flop giving me around 90% to double up and cruise into the money...until one of the remaining 2 red nines left in the deck came on the river to send me home. Sick sick sick! Got to hang with Annie Duke and Greg Raymer some, which was cool cuz i haven't seen Greg since last year, and even though Annie and I both live here in Hollywood, haven't seen her for awhile either. Funny how we do lunch often enough here in LA but have to meet in Oklahoma to have the time to hang out together! lol
On my way out of Winstar for the 2nd time, got a chance to check out a classic car festival. Pretty amazing how much time and effort goes into making these cars look as amazing as they do. Check out some of the pix below to see what I mean! SO... what else....
Did a charity tourney the other day for Last Chance for Africa at the Hawaiian Gardens casino here in LA with friends Kasey Thompson and Christina Lindley. Christina and I made it down to 3 tables from the original 200+ player pool, but blinds eventually had their way and ate us up. Hung with Kato Kaelin and Daniel Baldwin, and found time for some yummy margaritas, so all in all a perfect summer day in LA!
But now to the big news:
In a couple hours, I'm packing up the BMW, putting the top down, and heading off through the desert for the 2008 WORLD SERIES OF POKER, BABY!!!! This year it really snuck up on me, since I've been focused on other things lately. But at long last the magic time is here, and you can expect regular updates from yours truly from Vegas all summer long. After my sick beats last summer -- I won pretty much every event I played last year EXCEPT for going 0-for-27 at the WSOP -- I'm dramatically cutting the events I play down to around 15-20, targeting more of the mixed events (like Omaha 8/b and HORSE) and avoiding a lot of the smaller no limit crapshoots. I've spent 6 days a week for over 6 months straight playing mixed games online, especially OE/B, so I'm really looking forward to making my mark there this year. Redemption, baby!
So....wish me luck. Or good cards. Or whatever. Lets do this, baby!!!
What's up, bitches! Long time no post... been traveling a bit -- to Oklahoma, of all places -- and back working for All In Magazine, this time as their new blackjack editor. Instead of a half poker/half blackjack mag, its back to all poker...with a cool little blackjack 'corner' of 10-12 pages a month. Featured each month is my 'Head Games with Hollywood Dave' article, as well as 2-3 other pieces by a rotating gang of other blackjack authors. 
