CARDRUNNERS

I busted the WCOOP ME, but won a couple satelites after my rant blog post, so I wasn't down too much off of satelites. I also made a small profit off of buying pieces of people, but was still down a decent amount on the day. I made one big bluff the 3rd hand of the tourney to get to like 14k, then lost AQ to 88 on a Q76A8 board to bust at 100/200.

I then continued working on learning my horse game and read some more of Stox's limit book(which is phenomenal). I was pretty confident going into the tournament but ended up with a relatively tough table. I had Thomas Bihl(last years winner) to my left, Ivey 3 to my left, 1 young Kid who I would guess was the 2nd best at the table behind Ivey, Mike Binger and the other guys at the table all knew the games. People at other tables had never played 4 of the 5 games, but I didn't run as good as them. I was surprised at how much tougher it is to remember all the dead cards live but think I did ok at that. I'm used to just looking at the screen and instantly be able to sort them low to high, here my eyes were going back and forth repeatedly. I played very few interesting hands throughout the day but I'll try remembering a few.

Early on I expected live limit to be not that far different from the games described in Stox's book, but I was way off, I probably should have opened way lighter since no one 3bets. Early on, I open KK UTG+1, button(Bruce Yamron, a 60 year old watch dealer who was trying to sell Phil Ivey a 6 figure watch) calls.

Flop: 763r, I bet, he raises, I 3bet, he 4bets, I call

Turn: 5, check, bet, I call

River: 3, check, bet, I call and lose to 44, I honestly think that I should probably fold the turn in retrospect, but oh well.

I was down to like 8k in the 2nd level(150/300 ) before scooping a monster stud8 pot. Stud8 is by far my weakest game(actually I'm real bad at stud too) but just undervalued a hand, got squeezed for lots of bets and then got there.

2 limps from high cards, I limp 52(3) with an ace and one low card still to act, they both call, ivey checks a 2 after bringing in

I pick up an A, ivey picks up an 8, and one guy picks up a 7 to go with his K, I bet, only the 28 and K7 call

5th: I get a 9, ivey gets a 4, other guy gets a 9, I bet, ivey calls, other guy raises, I call, ivey 3bets, other guy 4bets, I call, ivey 5bets(cap), I call, other guy calls

6th: I get a 4 and lead, they both call(ivey bricks, other guy picks up a 3flush)

7th: I bet, ivey calls, other guy raises, I 3bet, they both call and I scoop(30BB pots are sweet)

I continue blinding down then at 400/800 I open (99)9 in earlyish with a bunch of high cards behind, Thomas Bihl 3bets a K, watch dealer coldcalls a Q(1 Q dead), I call

4th: I get a J, K gets a 4, Q gets a K, checked to the K4 who bets, KQ raises, I call, K4 folds

5th: I get a K, KQ gets a J, KQJ bets, I raise, he 3bets, I call and call down to loose to rolled up Q's

At the last break, I felt extremely baller. I was watching a chinese poker game between Matusow, Helmuth and Doyle Brunson to see if theres any value in these games and in the 2 hands I saw, one of them misplayed so I should probably spend some time learning to play chinese and then get in these games. Anyways, while railing this I was probably like the 10th biggest name poker player railing and some guy came up and asked if I was Mike McDonald and asked if he could take his picture with me. He wasn't your standard guy wearing a WSOP t-shirt trying to get as many pictures with pros as possible, but it actually felt pretty decent to be asked to have my picture taken with someone when I was like the least big name player in sight. 

Anyways, I then got down to like 1550 before they raced off the 25 chips and they forgot to race off my chips and just took them from me instead(wtf???) and then I got it in playing razz and lost. Razz flips are pretty sweet to sweat I must say. Overall, my EV in the tournament was probably better than I would have guessed, but I still think I'm far from being a good HORSE player. Tomorrow is the 10k PLO, so I'll try to win a bunch of 48/52's.

I busted the WCOOP ME, but won a couple satelites after my rant blog post, so I wasn't down too much off of satelites. I also made a small profit off of buying pieces of people, but was still down a decent amount on the day. I made one big bluff the 3rd hand of the tourney to get to like 14k, then lost AQ to 88 on a Q76A8 board to bust at 100/200.

I then continued working on learning my horse game and read some more of Stox's limit book(which is phenomenal). I was pretty confident going into the tournament but ended up with a relatively tough table. I had Thomas Bihl(last years winner) to my left, Ivey 3 to my left, 1 young Kid who I would guess was the 2nd best at the table behind Ivey, Mike Binger and the other guys at the table all knew the games. People at other tables had never played 4 of the 5 games, but I didn't run as good as them. I was surprised at how much tougher it is to remember all the dead cards live but think I did ok at that. I'm used to just looking at the screen and instantly be able to sort them low to high, here my eyes were going back and forth repeatedly. I played very few interesting hands throughout the day but I'll try remembering a few.

Early on I expected live limit to be not that far different from the games described in Stox's book, but I was way off, I probably should have opened way lighter since no one 3bets. Early on, I open KK UTG+1, button(Bruce Yamron, a 60 year old watch dealer who was trying to sell Phil Ivey a 6 figure watch) calls.

Flop: 763r, I bet, he raises, I 3bet, he 4bets, I call

Turn: 5, check, bet, I call

River: 3, check, bet, I call and lose to 44, I honestly think that I should probably fold the turn in retrospect, but oh well.

I was down to like 8k in the 2nd level(150/300 ) before scooping a monster stud8 pot. Stud8 is by far my weakest game(actually I'm real bad at stud too) but just undervalued a hand, got squeezed for lots of bets and then got there.

2 limps from high cards, I limp 52(3) with an ace and one low card still to act, they both call, ivey checks a 2 after bringing in

I pick up an A, ivey picks up an 8, and one guy picks up a 7 to go with his K, I bet, only the 28 and K7 call

5th: I get a 9, ivey gets a 4, other guy gets a 9, I bet, ivey calls, other guy raises, I call, ivey 3bets, other guy 4bets, I call, ivey 5bets(cap), I call, other guy calls

6th: I get a 4 and lead, they both call(ivey bricks, other guy picks up a 3flush)

7th: I bet, ivey calls, other guy raises, I 3bet, they both call and I scoop(30BB pots are sweet)

I continue blinding down then at 400/800 I open (99)9 in earlyish with a bunch of high cards behind, Thomas Bihl 3bets a K, watch dealer coldcalls a Q(1 Q dead), I call

4th: I get a J, K gets a 4, Q gets a K, checked to the K4 who bets, KQ raises, I call, K4 folds

5th: I get a K, KQ gets a J, KQJ bets, I raise, he 3bets, I call and call down to loose to rolled up Q's

At the last break, I felt extremely baller. I was watching a chinese poker game between Matusow, Helmuth and Doyle Brunson to see if theres any value in these games and in the 2 hands I saw, one of them misplayed so I should probably spend some time learning to play chinese and then get in these games. Anyways, while railing this I was probably like the 10th biggest name poker player railing and some guy came up and asked if I was Mike McDonald and asked if he could take his picture with me. He wasn't your standard guy wearing a WSOP t-shirt trying to get as many pictures with pros as possible, but it actually felt pretty decent to be asked to have my picture taken with someone when I was like the least big name player in sight. 

Anyways, I then got down to like 1550 before they raced off the 25 chips and they forgot to race off my chips and just took them from me instead(wtf???) and then I got it in playing razz and lost. Razz flips are pretty sweet to sweat I must say. Overall, my EV in the tournament was probably better than I would have guessed, but I still think I'm far from being a good HORSE player. Tomorrow is the 10k PLO, so I'll try to win a bunch of 48/52's.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time reading Stox's LHE book, and played online. I won a WCOOP seat, but between satelites, the 500r, 1k PLO, 300r etc etc, I was still down 23k on the day. It wasn't an overly eventful day, and I spent a lot of the day wishing I was practicing horse more since I was looking forward to the 10k horse and 5k horse quite a bit.

Today, I played the 10k WCOOP in Boosted J's hotel room. Hes a good mixed game player, so I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to have someone to run hands by.  I played the 1k LHE, 2k sat to the London high roller and the 10k Horse. I was seated at boosted's table in the 2k and we were concerned about me asking him about hands in the horse since he could see my cards in the sat. Fortunately we came 14th and 16th and were both out before the 10k, so that wasn't a real concern. I was pretty happy with the LHE, I think my preflop game improved a ton after reading Stox's book and I got a lot better at adapting my ranges to various players. I had a fairly soft table for most of the tournament and ended up getting a little unlucky and busting without getting overly far.

The HORSE tournament was nowhere near as difficult as I would have expected. I guess maybe I shouldn't be trashtalking considering I was never about 1.2x starting stack but there were a bunch of players who were very mediocre at my tables. I had 4 stars pros at my first table, and not all of them played fantastically. The structure was really mediocre, and everyone was shortstacked pretty quickly. I didn't win many pots after the first hour, had really marginal hands and really marginal spots. I was pretty happy with how I played, but things just didn't really work out for me.

I've heard the 5k HORSE at WSOPE is supposed to be a much tougher field, but I don't mind giving up some poker EV for sponsorship EV, so I think I'll still play it. If I get deep in tomorrows WCOOP ME I won't be able to play the HORSE but that wouldn't be the biggest problem in the world.

Also, I'm trying to buy up W$ for EPT London and the EPT London high roller event, if anyone is looking to sell, shoot me a PM

I ended up busting like 60th in that WCOOP event, and the next day I had a few other close calls but no decent scores. I took yesterday off and spent the day reading Sklansky on Razz (to prepare for the 10k WCOOP horse and 5k WSOPE horse), and then went to annette_15's birthday party. It was pretty similar to most poker functions and we ended up leaving early to go back and get some sleep before the WSOPE event.

I don't know what it is, but I was really excited to play this, I usually only get excited as I get deep in tournaments, even when I had 5x starting going into day 2 of the 20k in  Macau I wasn't very excited, but going into WSOPE, I'm really looking forward to making a deep run. Anyways, after all my excitement about the event, I didn't make first break. I had Kings Jacks and eights which was some pretty solid cardracking for 2 hours of play, but didn't win any of the pots, then finally busted with Aces. I also am a live fish and made a mistake early on that led to one complicated hand.

Blinds are 25/50 and HJ makes it 150, I put a 500 chip on top of my SB intending to reraise to 525 with JhJd, the other guy goes to call fairly quickly and the dealer rules it as just a call preflop. The flop comes QT8ss, I check planning to barrel almost all turns and rivers just since I think he'll put me on AK and hero call really light(he was like a 25 year old asian guy). He checks behind,  turn: 8, I bet 250, he makes it 750, I call planning to basically call all rivers.

I run good instead and the river comes and ace, I check, he bets 750 again, and my head kind of asplodes a bit, I guess that saved me money, I would have folded AK on the river, and would have called AK on lots of raggy rivers. If he had air, I suck, but I think he has like KJ or a boat a ton of the time.

Anyways, after getting it in with aces against top pair and a flush draw, I'm back to grinding WCOOPs, I have a pretty gambly table in the 500r, lets hope I can run good