Just got back from New Orleans. The WSOP circuit event was held there last week. Overall, the trip was good. The first night we ate at K-Pauls which is Paul Prudhomme's restaurant. It was spectacular. I had this flounder that was breaded and lightly fried served with a brie sauce that was excellent, but the side dish was more spectacular. It was a pork sausage that had gouda cheese baked into it but not in little chunks, rather it was evenly distributed throughout. Sick tomato based sauce too that was perfect for dipping. Then we went out and got blasted even though it was a slow night in New Orleans. Highlights of that include having Ben "Donkeyk1ng" deciding he's going to go wandering off on his own. Not wanting to leave a brother behind, at 2 AM I got concerned and decided to find him. After a little detective work, he could only tell me what he saw around him, but had no clue where he was, I crossed the river and found him at a locals diner. The St. Charles Cafe happens to have sick good cheesesteaks. So I picked one up to go (great idea to eat a calorie bomb before bed) and Ben and I headed back. Both my suitemates on this trip Ben and Jon were very cool, so I ran good there. Plenty of debauchery and good times to be had when not grinding the poker.
As far as the poker itself went, it was pretty terrible. I ran super bad and didn't cash. Live, I got off to a good start then I sat in a 5/10 PLO game that played like 5/10/20 and couldn't catch a damn thing. Ridic bad beats occurred and the Bud Light call station two to my right just never had anything when I was in a hand with him. Played a few smaller buyin tourns including the PLO with rebuys and couldn't get traction, plus it felt like there was more pressure to play hands early as there was a table where a player got 40 rebuys so the average chip stack there was like 4x that of other tables. I think that could be a big edge for a competent player in PLO as their equity will be cash like but everyone else will have much worse pot odds, so they should be able to fold draws and weak made hands which brings them closer to realizing their true equity. Realizing true equity seems to be very important in PLO.
I played the 5k NLHE ME. I had a real tight table draw, but they were terrible postflop. One interesting hand: I had KhTh in MP and EP opens real small to like 450 at 100/200/25 and I flat. Flop 2h3h6h and he bets like 650, I jack to 3k, he checks his cards and then flats in short order. Turn is the 5h. Check/check. River is the 5s. He block bets for 3k. I have like 18k left. This is really opponent specific, but he was a young guy, clearly on the tournament circuit, but really liked to fold. Also, I didn't think he would be on a very high level of poker thought. Also, what bluffs could I possibly have in my range. Of legit hands, I would have to be turning made hands into bluffs. The only made hands I have to bluff with are flushes and busted two pair (not many combos of that). Anyways, versus this opp I think raising to 12k, folding to a shove is good. He tanks and shows AhAx and folds saying he's beat 95% of the time. Clearly there are opps who will snap with the Ah there, but I knew he wasn't one of them.
Got moved to a table of monkeys. The king monkey, a smaller asian dude nicknamed "B" got moved to my table. I was down to 38k at this point from a high of like 60k. "B" had 80k in chips and was rocking every piece of Ed Hardy gear he could fit onto his modest frame. He instantly started min raising every hand he thought he could get away with at 200/400/50 blinds. I get the button and instantly think I have a feel for how this unknown will play. He min r from edge of MP to 800 and I 3ball with AcTs to 3k. The flop is T96 dd, he checks and I consider checking back but vs him I decided to press the action and bet 4.5k here thinking he could easily small c/r bluff with total air or a bare gutter. He flats and the turn is a 5 bringing two hearts. He insta open shoves... Pot is about 16k and the shove is for like 31k effective. I just instantly put him on draw that got improved on the turn. Say, 9x with hearts or rando 5x diamonds (his perceived pf range was very wide). The thing is, even with my read given how soft the tournament was, I should fold here and not try to outplay him here pushing thin edges. Anyways, I put the 31k in the middle and he flips the Jd8d for the monkey world draw and hits a J ball on the river, so gg me. Walk to Gordon Biersch, meet Shannon Shorr and commence the drinking.