I enjoy making use of the '1-click shopping' arrangement on Amazon.com. I heard they even tried to patent that function, which I find kinda funny.
Anyhow, I just got done reading Kitchen Confidential. It's part-memoir and part reflection on the restaurant industry. The author is Anthony Bourdain, whose show on The Travel Channel is currently my favorite show, so I bought the book wanting to know about his culinary background (since the popularity from the book is what's largely responsible for his TV show). One thing I know for sure is I'd never cut it in the culinary industry, the pain in my feet after standing for 12 hours at a time would drive me insane. However the read did give me a greater appreciation for fine dining (something poker players probably indulge more on than their similar-aged friends) and a better idea of how kitchens work.
I think my next read is going to be The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis, who is famous for "Moneyball" and 'The Blind Side". Lewis was on The Daily Show recently and talked about his book and the markets, and the extensive poker analogies in the interview were interesting to me, in the sense that the author clearly understood the concept of applied risk whereas Jon Stewart (god bless him cuz I love him) was making references to the craps table
Anyhow the book is largely based on 12 or so investors, examples being Andy Beal and David Einhorn, who shorted the market during the 3-4 year stretch where companies were constantly making bad "bets" on the lending and real estate markets. Most poker players know about Andy Beal (of Beal Bank) from the book "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King", some people in poker may know Einhorn from his run during the main event that Jamie Gold won (Einhorn donated all winnings to charity). Their names obviously are more popular in the investing circles, I'd imagine.
But anyhow, like the book "Fooled by Randomness" I'm always intrigued at financial thinkers who know and understand applied risk like pro poker player's do, and I also enjoy seeing the traditional guard of non-rational thinkers get crushed. Lewis, a former bond salesman with Salomon Brothers, is definitely keen on exploring the subject with some of his prior works covering the evolution of statistical analysis with football and baseball. So, I may read those books afterwards if I happen to like this one.
Poker-wise is going meh, I've gotten into some good games but just haven't been running well. While I've successfully been avoiding tournaments, I've been mixing up my cashgame play just to keep my workethic going, and along the way I found a very soft 20/40 mixed game on Stars this evening but lost a 3k pot versus the table fish flopping the nut straight and getting checkraised huge, so I opted to go call/call/raise or call/shove hinging on the board texture, the turn paired the top card so I called turn and jammed river for $200 more and lost to a full house (top and bottom pair on the flop). Was pretty meh considering I was crushing in all of the other games, that's one negative part about 8game; you can be running really well in the minbet games and it can be countered by 1 coinflip in PLO or NLHE cooler.
After that debacle, plus the fishy leaving, I went down to my standard 10/20 8game mix and added in a bunch of 100NL fullring tables and found a very pleasant atmosphere in this grind. Will have to make sure to do it again more sometime soon, as it provides a good balance of poker that requires thinking and notetaking (the 1 table of mix) while getting in a bunch of easy volume (the tons of tables of smallstakes fullring).
Lastly, I'm trying to get a mixed game started at my local cardroom, though the timing sucks since the only day I'd want to do it is Saturday and March Madness just started. Guess that'll have to wait, so in the meantime I'm just gonna keep grinding and watching lots of videos. As for making videos, I had one made a couple days ago but didn't think it was worth putting on the site. Tomorrow I'm gonna try and make a microstakes mixed game video while watching March Madness and hopefully it'll be well received. I'll admit to being a miserable LHE player (watching videos to work on that, might get coaching) but I think I play all the other 7 games competently enough to win up to midstakes level.
Just checked my HEM and realized I've only played 50k hands of cash this year. I've put a ton of hours into poker on the year, but it's been all over the place (live tournaments, live cash, online tournaments). All in all I've broken even, tho I'd be up a lot more if I didnt play online MTTs this year, thats all I'll say (stuck like 25k fml). I was due to stop running like the sun in online mtts anyhow.
At least a student of mine crushed a sunday major today so it's good to know that if I'm running like AIDS, the wealth is getting distributed to those who I share my intricate ninja knowledge with
Mentally I'm in a total rut. All of my successes at cashgames and live tournaments are overshadowed by the online MTT runbad. Since I'm done with live tournaments until WSOP, I'm gonna throw online MTTs aside and focus fully on cashgames to get some level of confidence back . Confidence is DEFINITELY the thing I've been lacking a lot in the last 6 months. Since my earnings have been so sporadic due to how I've handled my profession, money won (generally a random 40k tournament score) doesnt feel like money earned. I want to crush some cashgames for a few months straight and know that the money I won was in fact money deserved, as flawed a mental state as that is. Thats the one crap part about poker as a living, no guaranteed paychecks! hehe
I realize I'm kinda beating a dead horse with the topic, but related to the subject is the Brunson 10. Part of the reason I gave the live/online mtt grind a serious try was the chance at being sponsored by Doyle's Room, because I have a history with the company (wore Doyles Room patch on day 6 of ME on ESPN) and I felt like I had a decent enough track record in live and online mtts (+$1mil earnings, deep in last 2 WSOP MEs, a WSOP FT).
I figured if I ran hot live to start the year I'd have a decent shot. My 2nd place finish at Viejas for 35k isnt even published on Cardplayer/Bluff/HendonMob (argh). My 3rd in the 1kr PLO at Commerce helps, but idk. It's very hard to stack my resume against someone like Steve Gross and be even considered in the same league.
At this point, with the remaining live MTTs being overseas/east coast/Vegas, and online MTTs driving me insane, I've sorta given up the mtt grind chasing the Doyle's dream. The travel costs and buyins are too expensive for my bankroll considerations, even when selling action.
Maybe I'll get lucky and Doyle's won't pick any more people until the WSOP. I'll be playing all the non NL tournaments and will have a far better chance of winning a bracelet than a ton of the pocketfives all-stars, in my opinion.
Anyways, back to basics. I'm thinking:
life basics
wakeup at 9am
breakfast at 930
workout at 11am (gonna use this guide)
chug a muscle milk
play poker from ~1pm to 4 or 5pm, starting at SSNL
crush some chipotle/pho/subway/etc
poker basics
cashout down to 10k on stars and ftp
play 200NL, no more than 4 tables 6max, gameselect/take notes, make videos
move up to 2/4 once I have 40k online, move up to 5/10 when I have 100k online
play the best I possibly can, dont ever tilt (this is huge, I tilt a little too much these days and dont recognize it)
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I fully intend on making bounties ensuring this activity is constant until the WSOP, because right now my habits are haphazard. Don't know how to carry them out just yet, as I'm taking a break from poker for the next couple of days, but when I come back it will be with the intentions of carrying this particular plan out. Bounties worked really well in December, and once I put them aside during PCA I think all my daily habits just went to hell. I haven't gained any weight since the beginning of the year, but I feel a crapload fatter/lazier/more "live pro-esque", lol.
Anyhow, gonna peruse the SSNL forums, pass out, and start the "life basics" bit tomorrow morning.
Well that was pretty gay, I hate busting on day1. Stacks were a little shallower to start compared to LAPC, and the levels 30 minutes shorter, but the blinds progressed slower which makes for awesome play on the later days, when the levels would be 2 hours and the tables would be 6max. Too bad I didnt make it past the first day!
Fortunately this go round I actually wrote down summaries of my hands on my phone, so I can write an adequate trip report.
My starting table was one of the softest in the room, just me, a bunch of fish, and a couple young competent players to my right, one who I discovered through a friend was "GnightMoon" online. Our "Bounty" (5k worth, 1 per table) was Scotty Nguyen, a beat in itself because Scotty is prob one of the best bounties and was only busting on day1 if he ran bad. Scotty just nits it up and 5xs his nitty range and somehow gets people to come along, and 3bets in good spots. Obviously terrible for me when hes a bounty compared to the other goofballs allowed to be bounties.
Then the 2 empty chairs given to later registrations end up getting filled by Faraz Jaka and Steve O'Dwyer. Faraz is one of the laggiest online MTT regs around and has had success live, Steve is the nut solid live/online player. Sucks having both of them there compared to most of the idiots in the room.
Anyhow, onto the hands. Start with 20k at 25/50.
1) AKo in SB. EP player limps, Fish makes it 100 in greens. This fish is like 80/30, bluffing and betting a ton through 2 orbits. very clear he will either bust early or be near the chiplead after a few hours. Faraz makes it 475 next to act, I think his range is really wide here as he's isoing the fish. Folds to me in the SB with AKo, I flat. I dislike 3betting oop 400bb deep with this hand for obvious reasons. Gets back to the fish who makes it 2k more (!) and Faraz flats. Now I just fold. Flop T85, bet/call. Turn 7, bet/shove/call. QQ for fish and KK for Faraz. Fish gets crippled, Faraz has lots of gold. Doublesuck when the fish loses and one of the better lags wins.
2) Someone limps, Faraz minraises to 100, folds to me in BB and I call J4dd, limper overcalls. Flop J94ss. I donkbet, limper calls, Faraz calls. Turn 6s, I bet 2/3 pot intending on folding to a raise, limper calls Faraz folds. River 2, I bet 1/3 pot and get snapped off, and he mucks when I show.
3) Raise AQ, fish from hand1 defends. Flop ATx, he checkscalls halfpot. Turn x, he checkcalls halfpot. River x, he checkcalls 1/3 pot leaving himself 1200. and he mucks. on the internet this is an ez shove, but live where ppl dont want to herocall their stack off in such a manner, leaving them chips is a better option imo.
4) Raise JTo in MP, both blinds call. QJJ, check to me I bet halfpot, fish in SB calls. This fish is a bad lag who looks like Clarrisa's dad from "Clarissa Explains it All". Plays NLHE like bad Commerce asians play limit holdem, firing bets way too fast and playing really faceup. Turn J for quads, check/pot/call. River 9, check/pot/call/muck. ez game.
5) Raise JTo in MP, 2 callers including fish from J4dd hand. Flop K95r, checks to me I bet halfpot, fish calls other guy folds. Turn Q giving me the nuts, I bet 2k (near the pot) and fish calls. River blank for K9xQx, I bet 8500 into ~6k, Villain snapcalls and frustratingly shows AK when I show. LOL live.
6) Overlimp JTo (see a running theme on JT?). Flop T83ss, Clarissa's dad the early limper bets 1200 into 4 people. I flat, new old guy overcalls. Turn J giving me top 2, new guy donks ~4k into the 2 of us. Clarrissas dad folds, I call. River low bringing in bdoor 3flush. new guy bets 6k, I sighcall, get shown 97 for turned str8. Maybe I can profitably bluffshove the river? I only considered it afterwards. I hate folding 2 pairs, f me.
7b) Gnightmoon opens to 900 at 150/300, I flat AKo. Older guy shoves allin for ~1650 in the SB, BB overcalls like a champ, Gnightmoon tanks a little and flicks in the call, and I shove ~23k to iso. Everyone folds, and the shortstack older guy has 44, I brick, he quadruples.
8) Clarissas dad is in a constant state of laggro-tilt @ this point, he makes it 1400 at 200/400 in MP and gets flatted on the button by a younger strong player (GnightMoon). I have 23k or so and pick up black KK in the BB and squeeze to 5300. Smaller would work better online, but I knew Clarissas dad wasnt folding ATo so fuck it, why not. Clarissas dad snaps it, and GnightMoon goes deep into the tank before overcalling, weighing his range towards AQ/JJ'esque hands imo that considered backraising. Flop AT6dd, I check, Clarrissas dad instabets 10k into the two of us, Gnightmoon folds and I fold. Gnightmoon claimed JJ.
9) Very next hand a new older guy, presumably a nit, makes it 1600 at 2/4 and folds to me OTB with AKcc. I have ~18k (45 bbs) so I elect to flat over the 3bet/get it in, because the guy looks like he'll fold everything I dominate, flat AKo, and if I get it in he has like QQ+ always. So there's more value in seeing a flop I think, especially if I incorporate some random floats every now and then. Flop Q93hhh, we both check. Turn blank, check check. River blank, check check. 7x7h is good. Blargh.
10) Have JJ with 40bbs in SB, Faraz opens to 1200 in MP, his stats must be like 40/30 w/ a 3bet of 15%. Scotty Nguyen flats, Gnightmoon flats, and I shove my 16k. I dont really have a 3bet/folding range, so I like shoving a little bit better than a smallish 3bet especially when I have a hand like JJ thats slightly vulnerable, idk. Everyone folds.
Lose some random small pots like minraise/folding QT otb with 30bbs, defending a button minraise with 97o in the BB against GNightmoon and c/f, etc and so on
11) Folds to gnightmoon in the CO and he limps, BTN folds and I find 55 in the SB. I jam 12k (about 24 bbs), Thayer Rasmussen reshoves in the BB (he was new to table), Gnightmoon folds and Thayer shows AK. Board comes ATxxx and I bust. GG!
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My current attitude towards live MTTs is a bit pessimistic. I told myself at the beginning of the year I'd grind a lot more live in the hopes of getting on TV again, getting deep in something, making money and/or player of the year points.
I went deep a couple of times, have profited overall, but the amount I've profited (like 10k or so after selling action) doesnt come close to a standard grind of 2/4 NL. I can make 10k a month easily grinding 1/2 fulltime, and all of this live mtt grinding probably equates to a month of days invested in playing time.
Considering hotel costs, lack of healthy living, the constant full ring grind, I dunno... like I said, I'm really pessimistic. It's easy to grind 10ks and prelims when you're beating up on 10/20+, but as a midstakes player I think I'm gonna hold off on the live MTTs that arent WSOP.
Of course, I had all of this figured out a year or so ago, but I figured I'd try it out for myself and make sure that my premonitions were in fact rational.
Soo, heading back into SD tomorrow. Gonna do nothing but grind small/midstakes NL and midstakes 8game. Will focus less on live MTTs unless I can get some kind of favorable backing...
One day I'll be like Bond18 and carry detailed notes so I can type out awesome trip reports. This tournament is not one of those trip reports.
I played some interesting hands of poker, I was never all-in and called until my bustout hand (jammed 28bbs over a guy who was opening too much LP v EP with AQ, he had QQ), and while I think I played just about every pot perfectly I still have an empty feeling in my stomach coming out of it because I had a really gay hand against David Singer where I think I should have pulled the trigger but didnt. Thead here --> linky.
I wish I had a better read on Singer because all I had going for me was his prior hand against Ike, plus his overall looseness, and beyond that I didn't have a consistent read that wacky line = full of crap. And given gameflow it seemed less likely he'd go wacky 5 hands after the Ike hand. But maybe I'm wrong and maybe I should have shoved, either way this particular bustout feels a little more sour than prior 10k bustouts since I hate it when I neglect to pull the trigger and later wonder WHAT IF I EMPTIED THE CLIP. I usually empty the clip, so neglecting my trigger finger depresses me afterwards.
Anyhow I'm stuck in LA until Monday, and the internet quality at my newest hotel is proving to not be much better than the Commerce. I might tough it out and play some Sundays, my hope is that I can get together with some people and watch the USA v Canada hockey game in a sports bar somewhere.
All in all the week ended up going very nicely for me, largely due to one good 40/80 mix session and one very lucky asian kid from Nebraska. I'll take it, but I'll be very happy to get the hell out of here
Commerce has killed my work ethic with regard to posting in the SSNL forums, I'll make sure to get back on the horse once I'm back in San Diego. Will probably crank out some more videos aswell.
Hey guys, been here for 5 days now and am already feeling pretty dirty, loool.
Let's see, where to start.
First, Commerce is not a pretty part of LA. Thus myself and yellowsub have found ourselves not leaving the hotel pretty much ever, save last night where we ate at Matsuhisa (sushi joint in beverly hills) with some friends. The internet is terrible, but the beds are super comfy and the room service is faster than any other hotel (albeit they stop serving at 2am, boo).
Commerce, poker-wise, is gigantic. They have a gigantic room for highstakes action (100+ tables), a separate room for smaller stakes action (even bigger, maybe 150+ tables), and a section for table games. There's no slots or craps. I felt pretty lost/n00b at the beginning when trying to find games and player boards, because it's just an ocean of games available, kinda like WSOP but just cashgames. All the tournament action is in a big room up a fancy flight of spiral stairs.
Much as I'd like to be a live pro, I'm not. I think I've geniunely given up on live deepstack NL cash. The environment usually isnt too friendly, so much tanking and showboating, less hands per hour, and I find myself making more mistakes than I'd be comfortable with for some stupid reason (like not barreling AKo on KJ9dd, turn 4d... because I dont want to get checkraised? uhhhh... crap im bad). So I just don't really have any confidence at bigbet.
Fortunately theres minbet, and it's comforting to know that if there ever came a point where I lost the ability to win at online poker, or computers were banned, I'd have a home at the 20/40 limit cashgames. Guaranteed 3 droolers per table every session I've logged, very friendly environment, more hands per hour, more confidence in my game (hit pair = BET). One could definitely make a solid living just following the tournament trail and playing the live limit games the local casino provides.
I was really hoping there would be some soft mixed games or draw games that would fit my fancy at commerce (what with commerce being heavily degen and asian) but most all of the mixed games have been 200/400 or higher, and the rare 60/120 games I've seen have been filled with competent-looking foes. So that's been a letdown =( I was really hoping to play some 30/60 deuce or badeucy. I guess I'll just have to get to the point where next year I'm comfy playing 200/400.
All in all I've prob played only 10 hours of live cash and dropped maybe 1k, pretty bleh.
That said I've been putting a ton of hours into live donkaments, with some success. I finished 3rd in the $1kr 6m PLO (once again boosting my PLO 6m donkament resume) albeit only 40 runners so not that much profit. Bricked everything else which means a small profit overall on account of selling action.
My super-army for Sunday proved very profitable, albeit not in the way I expected. One of the friends I was buying action from said he was playing a live $350 tournament in Iowa (WSOP Circuit) the Saturday before, and would I like to buy action on that aswell? Sure, I said. He ended up chopping for 28k, ship 9k to me! Huzzah! I knew buying lotto tickets on friends in tournaments would eventually make me money.
So between the action buying, the PLO donkament mini-score, and some profitable 8game shottaking, I'm having a pretty good week here at Commerce. That said I certainly would like to get back to SD as soon as possible, since it's pretty clear I'm not a live grinder and the idea of grinding internet poker in between sessions of Anthony Bourdain and Call of Duty (with eating Pho and Chipotle mixed in) is very appealing.
Stagnant. Looks like it'll take 2 weeks or so to repair, total, or whatever. Adjustors being busy and having to revisit makes the process take forever. Looks like I'm gonna have to extend my rent-a-car for LAPC.
Internet pokers update:
Played MTTs the whole weekend, lost a little money. Highlight was 15th in the FTP 150r and a final table in a PLO 30r, plus a ton of mincashes. A very frustrating weekend, to say the least, and I think my mental state sucked (no other explanation when you wish death on the entire playing field). Gonna focus on cashgames and sunday majors like I said I would at the beginning of the year, I hate sidetracking.
The Stars Sunday Million next week is guaranteeing a $4million prizepool and $1mil to first, which is basically unheard of in terms of size. Guaranteeing 20,000 runners on a $200 tournament provides a massive +ev tournament opportunity, so I'm making the best of it by staking as many friends as possible (hence the blog title). This will definitely be the most exciting Sunday in recent memory, imagine the sweat for a million dollars on a $200 investment! it's borderline WSOP Main Event-level excitement, right there. In the meantime I'm gonna try and get a wireless card for LA so I can grind Sundays in the hotel and not be paranoid about their sketchy internet safety.
Life update:
Nothing much going, the place is at least clean due to having to show it off for the landlord to potential buyers, beyond that I'm still being a hermit. Carrotsnake is out in LA for the weekend with his girlfriend which has provided me ample opportunity to get stuff done. For some reason I am 100% more motivated to do stuff when I'm living by myself, and when I live with others I turn into a lazy bum. Does this happen with anyone else?
I know that once I'm done with Vegas this summer I'll have a bunch of living options. I might get a place by myself in San Diego, and I might share a house in Thailand. The spectrum is pretty damn wide, but one thing I do know is that I'm a quirky bastard and it's time to do laundry. Peace!
According to program, the ceremony was to climax with the Olympic cauldron being lit jointly by four Canadian sports heroes -- all-time hockey great Wayne Gretzky, skier Nancy Greene, speedskater Katrina LeMay Doan and basketball All-Star Steve Nash.
Does anyone else find this offputting? I cant recall an olympics in recent memory where the identity wasnt a secret.
I DONT WANT TO KNOW WHO OR WHAT LIGHTS THE CAULDRON IN ADVANCE.
Just a thought.
For extra reference, some of the opening ceremonies in recent history. None IIRC involved lighters that were known of in advance.
I don't make vids on AP/UB (and neither does anyone else on Leggo) but that hasn't prevented me from playing some tournaments on AP from time to time.
I'm gonna keep a close eye on the developments with this thread, because if AP's new update means screengrabbers and keyloggers to prevent me from using HEM or some other nonsense then I'm obviously cashing out. I'm not allowing keyloggers/screengrabbers from any site, much less the piece of shit that AP/UB is.
Figured I'd spread the word so those of you who do play on AP/UB know what you're getting into with the newest software update.
Had to take the car into a shop from the minor flood damage, and I'm waiting on the insurance adjustor to visit the shop & inspect the damage. I'm not feeling very positive about it, because the guy who runs the shop seems to think the best plan is totalling it (ie figuring out the value of the car and paying me in cash). Evidently *any* history of flood damage diminishes the car's value like crazy. Sadly the car has depreciated like 50% of its value in the 4 years since I've bought it, so I wouldn't be getting back that much. I'm learning firsthand the concept of diminishing value in certain goods.
If the car does end up getting totaled I'll definitely have a lot of options with regard to car shopping if that ends up being the case. The incentive to have a "baller" car isnt the same as it was 3 or 4 years ago, I think I'd be content with a good mid-range car just as much as I would be with a BMW/Audi et all (but if I bink an FTOPS I think I might splurge hehe). Just something that runs well and comes with GPS/Satellite radio would be more than fine with me, and I think you can get that for around 20k. Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but I'm more than prepared.
Lifewise I have been a total hermit without a car. Seems like the car will be in the shop for awhile, so I got the rentacar today just so I can actually go out and do stuff like gym/grocery store. The Super Bowl was an awesome event, and I'm very happy the Saints won. New Orleans was always wayyy more important than Peyton Manning's legacy, in my mind anyhow. I threw down $100 in a friendly Super Bowl squares propbet but never had a chance, fortunately I made $250 in chinese so it was a profitable Sunday (thanks Aaron for the shoutout re: chinese poker iPhone app).
Pokerwise I am winning and playing lotsa hands (like +3k over 10k hands), which is a good turnaround from the prior few months. I think coaching has improved my game tons, at least in terms of making myself more accountable. Imagining myself as my own student is randomly helpful. Viejas definitely has me in better spirits! Been playing a ton of mw2 aswell, and got my 2nd nuke a couple of days ago luckboxing demolition on invasion. I am the king of the nube tube + OMA, bwahaha.
Lastly I uploaded my part 2 vid to Leggo a couple days ago, hopefully it will be on the site within the next 24hours. There were a couple of funny hands to review, that much I can promise.
I thought overall Viejas was an above average tournament venue. The casino seems to be well run, there was a couple of hiccups with the floor but the guy running the show for the final table was knowledgeable which was nice. There was a subway within walking distance for breaks, there weren't really any lines of people to speak of, and it wasn't a far drive from SD. Compared to Rincon, which is a total hellhole service-wise, I was very happy with Viejas Casino.
The sick thing about this tournament (which you must note when I explain the HU) is that the guarantee on this tournament was 100k to first, so they spread out the prizepool accordingly. This meant that second only got 35k, and no chops were allowed, meaning HU was gonna be super sick (just the way I like it!).
There were a couple glaring probs with the way the tournament was run, though; the dumbest thing about this tournament was the chips. The biggest chip in the entire tournament was a purple $2500 chip, so you can understand the mindfuck once it got down to the final table and the blinds were in the 15k/30k range, and all you had were $500 and $2500 chips. HU was so retarded that the dealers insisted on counting the betsizes in turns of the literal amount of chips (eg "small blind 8 purples, big blind 16 purples". Simple bets had to be counted down because a preflop open could be 40 chips. The floor actually had a great solution for the problem, which was to insist that all final-table players use racks for their stacks of chips. So preflop 3bets meant throwing in a rack, which was pretty sick =)
EDIT* - forgot to mention that there were no numbers on the chips either. just the colors. and the chips were same quality as the kinds you buy in vanity chip sets. super easy to counterfeit, scarily so.
As for my day, it was full of ninja'ing. Checking my texts with friends, I only saw a few hands of substance, and my memory is hazy already (especially when betsizes were impossible to remember because of the $2500 chip fiasco). I continue to ninja until there were 7 or so people left, at which point I found 99 OTB in a standard "jam any 2" spot and the middle aged unknown in the SB actually made a really surprising(ly good) call with KQ, but the board ran low and I held. With maybe 5 or so people left I woke up with KK when a tight player reshoved over the bigstacks open with 99 (more on the bigstack later.
With 4 remaining I got in a 3way allin when the BTN jammed 10bbs w/ A8, I iso'd ATo in the SB, and the shortest stack in the BB woke up with AK. I held over the A8 and the AK tripled, so that left me even'ish with the other shortstack while the bigstack had a huge lead.
Only a few hands later, I got AA in the BB and the button made some absurd 6x open and snapped off my shove with JJ. MBN to me me. I got HU with 800k or so versus the 2.4million of Peter "Young MAN" Tran.
Now about this charming fellow: The big stack the entire way was this asian guy named Peter Tran, who was easily top 5 most psychotic I have ever encountered, and he's a very nice guy who calls everyone "YOUNG MANNN".
And it's not exactly psycho in the bad sense, it's just the kind of psycho that I guess you should expect from aggressive players in California casinos. Very often his aggression was unmerited, but in a tournament where everyone was pretty weaktight its not hard to see how he racked up the chiplead Jamie Gold-style and cruised into HU.
He had an actual fortress of chips throughout the entirety of day 2. When everyone had 1 rack worth of chips, he had about 10 racks.
His steal% from any position was about 80, and while he was kinda tame wrt 3betting he was batshit psycho postflop. Multiple times he made bluffraises with zero apparent fold equity on a reshove, only to fold against a reshove.
One example was a hand he played versus a Palomar reg friend of mine named Jake. Jake 3bet oop w/ AA, Tran defended and the flop came some cards. Jake bet, and Tran just took a couple of handful of chips and slung them into the middle. When the dealer confirmed to Jake it was a raise, Jake shoved. It was at this point that the dealer discovered that Tran put in a few bb's less than a raise, so there was a massive floor mindf*ck as to how to treat the situation. Anyhow, Tran had put in like 70% of his stack and folded eventually.
Another time Tran defended an EP raise from a very tight ABC player, and when the flop came 882cc he checkraised the minimum, which was 80% of the guys stack. The guy shoved, and Tran folded.
So it was pretty clear he was ubermonkey with opens (but he usually minraised so that part was pretty profitable) and monkey postflop.
Now I got HU with him, and SECOND HAND of HU I get AA in the BB. I 3bet, he defends with 53o and shoves over my cbet on a JT5hh flop. Street poker! I hold and double, and now cover him barely.
The next 6 or so hands it seems like he's pretty tilted, resulting in him opening every single hand and me folding some buttons. It seems apparant to me that he's going to try and win every single pot, so with 40bb effective I tried to figure out the best plan, which at the time was "minraise every button and play street poker".
So I raise Q5o, Tran defends. Flop Comes 884r, Tran checks and I bet 95. Tran makes it 200. We have about 1.5 million effective, and I can already see the 5bet. It's like the Ivey versus Jackson hand at Aussie Millions, I just had this very solid feeling that the Yeti theorem (everyone is bluffing when multiple bets go in on dry boards) was in effect here and the optimal way to play the hand was give him enough rope and jam on him. I was convinced that if I 3bet and he flatted that I was toasty, but if he reraised it was pretty obvious he had nothing. So I made it 325, he made it 500, and I jammed on him.
I had visions of Ivey versus Jackson. I just knew how sick the play was and it felt PERFECT.
Sadly he had Q8o. CRAP. That left me with 5bbs, and I busted A5s to QJo.
I dont really regret the way I played at all, I think I played about perfect for this tournament. It was very super-turbo esque, but I was able to maneuver with 20bb with a shocking amount of room, because everyone was giving me walks in spots where shoving ATC was 100% standard. Thus I was able to ninja-attack with precision....
