TomBraband
Closing in on house/ week of online
I'm making a drive to vegas this morning for my first walk through of the new house I'm purchasing! Very exciting time. I just submitted my tax information for 2010 to my CPA and once thats completed I should, in all likelihood, be the owner of a new 3 bedroom house in anthem highlands, henderson, Nevada!
I put my nose to the grindstone a little bit this week and played a full week of online tournaments. Tuesday night I got home late from a round of golf and played the late night schedule and ended up with an 8th place finish in the late 109 6max on full tilt and a win int he 23k KO on for 5700 and change. Wednesday was the 100r multi entry ftops, I entered all 4 times, got coolered in 3 of them and then took a bad beat when neverscaredB 4b/called a8 against my QQ at 80/160 for a 20k pot bvb, what can you do. I did play extrememly well in the stars 100r 6max and grinded a short stack a long time before getting 3 handed with mig.com and G0lfa. It was an epic, back and forth battle. We played 3 handed for well over an hour, I ended up losing 3 all ins against g0lfa, my 99<22, KJ<a5 and a7<a9 that cost me the win. I was disappointed to only come away with a 3rd and 17k but I'm very happy with my play. Thursday I took 2nd in the stars 30r for a couple thousand but felt like I played well again all day.
I got to golf Pelican Hill in Newport Beach with friends Matt Amen and Mike Benvenuti, awesome, awesome course. Benvo and I played a heads up team match vs Matt and his cousin and they both played well and we did not and ended up getting crushed in the match but I still had a lot of fun. The scenery is unbelievable there.
I'm going to be playing a couple tourneys at LAPC this week once I return from vegas starting with the 1500 on wednesay I believe. Ready to ship a nice live score, I feel like I'm playing really well as of late!
-TT
Packers Superbowl Champs!
Congratulations to all of my friends back in wisconsin and congratulations to any packer fans!!
Back when the packers won the superbowl in 1997, I really didn't realize the magnitude of how big of a deal it was that our team won it all. Now that I fully realize the impact, it doesn't even seem real haha. I'm amazed that the packers fought through as much adversity this season to claim the Lombardi trophy. 15 players on IR including a starting safety, starting middle linebacker, starting defensive tackle, starting cornerback, starting running back, and both starting tight ends. It was hard in the middle of the season to get through with all those injuries but the coaching staff did a pretty tremendous job with scheming and having the right players to back up. And those players sure did step up. They were nearly eliminated from the playoffs all together with 2 games left in the regular season. I even thought they were at one point after the dumbfounding loss to detroit.
It's great to see Aaron Rogers bring home the title to title town and erase any doubt about him not filling brett favres shoes. He deserves it. Whether you're a loyal brett favre fan or a brett favre hater, its still good to see success back in green bay without him. He played incredibly well in the playoffs and his play warranted his superbowl MVP.
Had my horse bob2bob visit this week and we got in 4 rounds of golf. The first day he got beginners luck and somehow beat me, i did play awful tho and shot 102. I played better the rest of the week and finished with a 92, 95 and 90. I'm on the cusp of shooting under 90, i can feel it. My putting failed me a bit this week, otherwise I could have shot a lot lower and my rounds at the range are starting to get really good.
Pokerwise, not too much to report. I have a lot of big tourneys on the schedule in the next month. Between all the big ftops events online coming up, LAPC is going on. I plan to play a bunch of those events including the 5k and the 10k main event. Right after is a 5k napt event at the bike in LA and the bay 101 main in northern california.
-TT
Superbowl week, Biloxi
I took a little trip to Biloxi, mississippi last week for the wpt event there and a little mini vacation for apple's birthday. Biloxi and the south in general is a pretty interesting place for someone like me who doesn't get down there a whole lot. As one of our cab drivers said, "you're from orange county, california? And you're on vacation in Biloxi, Mississippi?? How in the world did you pick this place?" I guess it was pretty random had you not known there was a wpt event there. It was a fun trip, a bunch of my friends were there including basebaldy, ryan welch, justin young, shannon shorr, mike benvenuti and joe cheong and some of their significant others.
The main event went pretty smooth all of day one, probably becuase I was watching the packers/bears nfc championship game on the big screens they had there for a majority of the day. I was really stoked to see the packers play well and win! I can't wait to host a superbowl party this week at my apartment in huntington. Go pack go! I chipped up to about 55k in the tournament towards the end of day one before the following hand came up: I had recently been moved to a table with a couple online players who I didn't recognize and a bunch of older gentlemen. I did recognize an online guy known as Golfa at my table, who seemed to be pretty tilted and playing pretty spewy and aggressive when I got there, so I tried to stay out of pots with him when I could. One of the older guys on my right, i believe his last name was keller - his first name is escaping me - limped in early position, another guy limped, i limped for 300 with 75o, and another guy limped. the flop came 872 rainbow, everyone checked and the turn was a 5. The original limper bet 2200 into 2500 or so, i called, and everyone else folded. The river was a 5 giving me 5s full. He bet 4400 into about 7k. I raised to 11k and he moved all in pretty quickly. I kinda threw up in my mouth a little bit and considered folding for several minutes but eventually decided to call because with the little information I had I thought he was the type of player that could have been over playing a straight or bottom set, which i beat. He ended up having 77 for an ugly cooler and I was eliminated with 2 hands left in the day.
I played the 2500 heads up event the next day. I had a really good time and a good showing. I got a bye the first round because they decided to reopen registration at the time it was supposed to start because they originally were going to cap the event at 32 players but only 16 registered and they didnt want to have an extra round when a few stragglers came in so they capped it at 16. A few complaints later, they reopened it for 4 other players and people to late register from busting the main. Of course, no one else registered, so 8 of the 12 matches were byes and we had to sit at the table for a full hour collecting the blinds from the other player while the dealer dealt out every hand. It was pretty annoying the way they set it up. I finally did get to play my 2nd round against a real person. I drew Jordan Morgan. We didn't play very many hands, he ended up 5 shoving 99 into my aces about 15 or 20 min into the match. That crippled him pretty bad and he busted a few hands later. I then drew mike sexton in the 3rd round. We played about a 3 hour match that saw both of us on the short stacks at different times during the match. I had a really tight image against him for awhile and eventually used it to my advantage by making some big, well timed bluffs to overcome him. In the semi finals I drew my good friend Justin Young. We were in the money and the format was changed to best of 3. We persuaded the floormen to change our levels from 30 min to 15 min to speed things up a bit since it was almost midnight by that time and we still had to play the finals. We had some fun hands, I ended up hitting a bunch of flops and made a few good bluffs and tricky lines to take two straight, enjoyable matches from him. I then drew Darren Elias in the finals. I've respected his game for quite some time and I wasn't intimidated to play him, but I was going to try to be on my A game and concentrate 100%. Unfortunately, it didn't work out like that. I lost the first match on the very first hand when i check/shoved 2nd pair on the river after leading, calling a raise on the flop and calling a turn bet when the flush got there. He eventually called with a straight, so ill give him credit for a good call. I played extrememly well in the 2nd match and was outleveling him most of that match, as well as picking up some good starting hands and won that match. Our rubber match didn't last very long, as we were both getting tired and more and more aggressive I think based on the fact that we wanted to get it over with. Patience was thin for both I feel like, but he ended up getting the best of me. He called a 3bet in position with 87, called a flop bet on a 98x and then bet/called a shove on the turn J and held against my straight draw. He played really well so I'll give him a lot of credit.
I caught the tail end of the double guarantees week saturday and sunday this week and didn't have much luck, despite finishing around 100th place in 5 seperate majors which were 140k+ for first on sunday. Pretty disappointing to lose so many key pots deep. I'm back in huntington for a week or so now while I finish out the approval process on my house in vegas. I'm going to be playing at commerce as much as possible for the LAPC including the main event.
-TT
Relocation/ online updates
I had a really nice christmas vacation this year. It gets tougher and tougher each year to travel and see the family but it was really nice to see everyone. I booked a last minute flight from orange county to milwaukee right before christmas, spent a few days with my mom and then drove 8 hours to western iowa with my dad and stepmom to see my dad's side for some good meals and fun nights just relaxing and conversing. It was a little bit of a different dynmaic this year because my cousins Sam and Joy have married in the last year and brought their spouses + Sam's baby and Joy's huge dog. It's nice to see their significant others be able to come into our family and feel like they are part our family so quickly. I got to spend new years eve up at my alum UW-oshkosh for some quality drinks with some quality college friends.
I've been back for a few weeks now and have been back on the online poker grind. I've had several 10-18 finishes in sunday majors recently which is getting a little bit frustrating but I know I am playing well, getting the money in ahead, just not making the big hold when I need to. I did win the 100r 6max on wednesday this past week which was my first time ever winning the stars 100r in my career, as hard as that is to believe. That tournament has been a huge monkey on my back for the last 4 years and I'm happy to say its finally off.
I didn't make the trip to the bahamas this year because all of my attempts to win packages fell short, the Atlantis wanted to tag me for over 3k to book the week, and I was in the process of closing on a house in las vegas. I did end up purchasing a home barring the approval process. I just need to get my taxes and paperwork in this week in order to complete that and hopefuly move in by the end of february or after LAPC. I will be going to Biloxi, Mississippi this year for the 10k on the january 23rd which I am really excited about. Ive never been there and I will have some friends there also. I'm praying that the tournament room has televisions inside it because my green bay packers play the chicao bears in the nfc championship to go to the superbowl on the same day!! go pack go!!!
-TT
New Years Resolutions
1. make more blog entries - I haven't been keeping up with this and I think I'm definately going to try to do so in 2011. I'm going to make an ambitious goal of once a week for 2011.
2. lower my golf handicap to 12 - It's currently at around 23. I just started taking lessons in the fall and have been playing a couple rounds a week since then. I've already lowered it from a previous number somewhere between 35 and 50 and have made giant leaps toward becoming a legitimate golfer. I will keep my progress posted weekly on how my rounds went and the progress of my game.
3. Work out/Run twice a week - everyone puts this in their new years resolutions, thought i'd throw it in there
4. Tweet more - this kind of ties into the blog entries thing, but if you would like to hear more of my daily updates and personal stuff I'm going to try to stay on top of this once I fix my phone. You can follow me on twitter @titantom32
5. Make one WPT final table and one WSOP final table - I made my first WPT and televised final table back in august at the WPT legends as most of you know. I'm going to make it a strong goal of mine to play my A game in all live events as well as enter more live events this year
-TT
Wcoop final table
I got moved into my new place, a few miles down pacific coast highway in huntington beach. I love it so far, its really nice inside, apple has been doing some very good decorating and I picked out the couch and put together all the furniture. I was grinding the wcoop during the first week after we moved in and then I went to philadelphia for a week to watch the braves and phillies play. I'm a huge braves fanatic for those of you who didn't know already. My braves have been struggling the last couple weeks but they are tied in the wild card with 7 games to go. I was staying at mark herm's place grinding a couple wcoop days there as well. I didn't have much time to just chill out and enjoy the house so it will be nice to do that after the wcoop main tomorrow.
I've played in most of the no limit events minus the 2 days when i went to the braves games this week monday and tuesday and then wednesday when I flew home. Probably the most interesting hand I played all wcoop was first level in one of the 1k events. Against a player named nadalon. I raised QJcc in the sb to 80 at 10/20 and he defended. It came Q85 with one club. I bet 120 and he called. The turn was the Ac, giving me a flush draw, I checked and he bet 360, i called. The river was the 9c giving me the 2nd nut flush with the final board reading Q85A9. JT had rivered straights as well as 67. I checked to him again and he overbet 1300 into a 900 pot. I had to think a little bit about whether I should raise or call. Seeing that 67, JT and lower backdoor flushes had all gotten there and I was only beat by one hand, I decided to raise to 3600. (7500 starting stacks). He tanked for about 30 seconds and then shoved the rest of his stack in!! I went into the tank for a majority of my time bank. The thing about his shove is that he overbet the pot and I still check raised, which means I have to have an asbolutely huge hand. The only thing that he should be shoving is the nuts so I was put in an incredibly difficult spot. Had we really both went backdoor flush, mine to the 2nd nuts and he to the nuts? I ended up calling because I felt pretty pot committed at that point and he showed me a very interesting hand. He was bluffing but he did have the Kc. Which meant he knew that I couldn't have had the nuts. And I probably fold everything but the 2nd nuts if I ever get in that spot. I think if we had 10k or 15k starting stacks I like his shove a lot more but when I had over half my stack in the middle, it was gonna be really tough for me to fold.
I did have a good run in the 500 1r1a event last night. I grinded 16 hours, got fortunate in a few big flips and ended up finishing 4th for 88k. I also won the 50r last friday for another 22k. It's been a really nice heater and something I've looked forward to for a awhile now. Hopefully I can keep it going in the next few months during the winter grind!
-TT
WPT Legends final table experience
My wpt final table ended up being everything I could have hoped for. I had a great experience, and definitely a learning experience.
I started out getting there a few hours early for interviews and makeup. I got asked some pretty difficult and interesting questions in the interview. I think they are gonna show bits and peices of it during the broadcast when it airs in early 2011. They asked me specifially what I thought about each of the players at the final table, including asking me if the eventual champion andrew frankenberger had gotten there through luck or skill. It turned out to be a very complex answer since he was the only amateur poker player at the final table. I think I talked about how he had ran well in some spots but most of his success was due to the fact that he was taking very unorthdodox lines in hands and playing very actively and aggressively so it was very difficult to put him on a hand. As we now know, aggression can win in poker, sometimes even regardless of the level of skill. He would take lines in which most of the other pro's in that tournament hadn't seen before or hadn't been used to dealing with. Sometimes when an amateur like that doesn't necessarily have a rhyme or reason to all the bets that they make, they are difficult to decipher. If they don't know why they are betting, how can you figure out why? I'm not saying andrew didn't know why he was betting all the time, but he definitely didn't have a standard way of playing any particular hands.
I give him a lot of credit though. There was a good portion of the final table in which kyle wilson's cheering section was harassing andy, talking about a few bad hands he had played earlier, yelling things during a difficult decision he had, just saying inappropriate and classless comments for a poker event. I don't really think that the WPT's adaptation to a stage for the final table really is meant to turn poker into a sporting event so much that it should become standard procedure for the players at the table to beheckled in such a direct and immature way. I don't mind cheering loudly and even excessively for your player when he wins a pot, but don't bash other players at the table, especially during a big decision when they are playing for 750k or more. He told kyle during the heckling one time that it actually made him focus more and so he didn't really care about the heckling but that if it was his friends saying such things that he would be embarassed and that it makes him look bad. I do agree.
Maybe the WPT will be more strict on that type of heckling in the future. I am very impressed that he fought through that and continued on to beat kyle heads up.
I would have to say that all the members of the final table were very nice guys. I got a chance to talk to all of them before the final table started. I even found out that my cash game teacher grew up best friends with kyle, so that was an interesting dynamic that played out during the final table.
I got everything out of my experience as I wanted to. I had an early double up, which i was striving for. I had some downs and one huge up. I raised J9 into Franco's big blind. As some of you know, J9 is my favorite hand, and you'll see me involved in pots with it more often than not. Franco was a good player but he did take some weird lines and he would try to take some lines with air to win pots as well. He defended and it came 763. He checked and i cbet half pot about 80k. He called. The turn was a 10 and he decided to lead 155k. After thinking it through, I figured all of his really big hands he would definitely check to me again to get me to barrel.It's possible he would be taking this line with a flush draw or straight draw, but I really just put him on a really airy type range, trying to get me to fold overcards in my hand. I also had been playing very tight at the time and opened in early position with about a 21 bb stack, which is usually a strong opening range for me with that stack. With all that information, I decided to shove in about 600k over the top to get him to fold all those hands and represent a big pair. he actually ended u having the hand. He showed up with a10 for ace high on the flop and top pair, top kicker on the turn. i thought his lead was very unorthodox there but I will give him credit because he did make me stick it in really bad, although I probably would have been barrelling anyway. So my tournament life was on the line barring a miracle river card and he would be looking strong to doubl up. A few seconds for pause and setting the stage on the table before the dealer flipped over an incredible 8h on the river, giving me the pot with a straight. I jumped out of my seat in exclamation and ran to my cheering section to see them almost toppling over the railing and screaming just as emphatically as me. I think there were plenty of bruises and bumps between the 4 as well in result of that. It was easily the biggest and most beautiful river card I have seen in my life.
On top of that, it really allowed me to have a lot of fun for the rest of the table. Me and a couple other players started having a beer or 2 and really starting to sink in and just have fun. I think I didn't play that well for the first hour or so at the final table, i got a little over aggressive in some spots and ended up leaking some chips but after that I really started to settle in and play the solid A game that I've been starting to get accustomed to over the last month or so. As far as I was concerned, the rest of the final table was gravy for me after that. Franco busted a few hands later, being crippled by my J9. Jared Jaffe was on my left, playing extremely tight, and he eventually coolered me 77 to 99 in a reshove spot when I raised on the button and he shoved about 20 bbs. It was a lot of grinding and small pots from there on out and Jared eventually busted when Kyle turned trips against him in a 3 way pot with me. I then played the short stack 4 handed for quite some time before eventually busting when I reshoved KJ into kyle's 99 and couldnt hit. it would have been a double to 2 million and given me a fighting chane to really win, but I'm not unsatisfied with the experience one bit. I had so much fun, thank you to everyone who wished me luck and supported me throughout the tournament. Hopefully the first of many WPT final tables!
-TT
My first WPT final table!(how i got there)
I'm writing on the morning of my first ever televised/ wpt final table. I usually wake up around 10:30 or 11 but today I'm awake at 8:30 and I don't have any intentions on going back to sleep. As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited and I can definitely feel the blood shooting through my veins a little quicker on this morning. Im gonna try to relax for 2 more hours before showering, shaving and heading to the store to buy a new dress shirt for today. I have to be there at 2 pm even though the final table starts at 4 pm for interviews and hair and makeup. I'm going to make another post all about my final table experience, but I thought I'd let you know how I got there in this post, my journey along the way, if you will.
I started out by arriving 15 minutes before the start of the tournament to register. Apparently I needed a players card which I didn't know until I got to the front of the registration line, thankfully it wasn't too long. I got sat about 15 min after it started at a table with all the rest of the people who late registered. Several of them just happened to be my friends from the poker community. Usually tournaments keep an open seat or 2 at each table for the late registrars so all the people who come late don't start at the same table, not sure why it was different in this. It was set up pretty poorly in my opinion. On top of that, normally atleast if they sat all the late registrars together they would break them first, but they decided to break the opposite side of the room so I had to play all day with the following people at my table:
around to my left was Hafiz "hafizzle" Khan, Zach Hyman, Shawn "buck21" Buchannon, Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Dan Heimiller, one random, Matt "aLLinat420" Stout, and Tim "Tmay420" West.
Adam and I talked about how everyone was good at the table so no one could get out of line at all. There wasn' anybopdy abusing anyone else but there were no free chips at the table anywhere. It made for a tough day 1, although I did come out of it with the most chips at our table. Ended the day with 73k. There weren't that many interesting hands, I was playing really tight all day long because of the table draw. I did turn a one pair hand into a bluff against Dan Heimiller on one hand that I probably didn't need to but it worked out for a big pot. Other than that it was mostly small ball. I did knock out hafizzle JJ to A10 when I was the 4th caller in the sb with and he shoved 25 bbs from the bb.
Day 2 I started out with a bunch of unknowns at my table but was moved rather quickly to a different table and sat next to a friend of mine Darryl "Dfish" Fish. It seemed like a very good table draw for a large majority of the day. I had a few older gentlemen on my left that I assumed were going to play pretty straight forward although they made the day tougher than I had expected. I was fortunate enough to cooler the man on my left KK to QQ to get a full double up from 85k to 160k mid way through the day. I had been opening a lot of pots and he 3bet me and shoved when I 4bet him. A couple new players got moved to our table and I took about 2 minutes on a deccision in one of the pots and a new player called the clock on me. I ended up folding but 10 minutes later I raised AK utg and he 3bet me, I 4bet him and called his shove for a little more and ended up having aces but I hit running diamonds to run out a flush and beat him. I didn't say it to his face but I really didn't feel too bad because he had called the clock on me earlier. Karma burns! haha. I kept playing solid poker the rest of the day and even had the chip lead for an hour or 2 when I got up to 350k at dinner when the blinds were still only at 800/1600. The structure in this tournament was great. I had one interesting lay down when an aggressive older gentlemen who I had just won a pot against check raised me on a T55 when I had A10 to 20k, I called and then he shoved 100k into 40k on the turn and I went deep into the tank, announcing to the table that it was gonna take awhile and that they should go to the bathroom now if they needed to. i ended up thinking for almost 11 minutes and finally folded. I had got some information from a friend that said he liked to overshove really big hands like sets and 2 pairs so I was really cocnerned with him having a 5. He defended his big blind a ton so I definitely put a 5 in his range. He told me after the day that he had the same hand as me but I still like my fold at that point in the tournament because I was pretty sure he would never just shove a worse hand like that.
Day 3 started and I was in 5th out of 60, 45 being paid. I started out with a great draw, getting the chip leader Phil "USCPhildo" on my direct right but we got moved early on in the day so I didn't get to play much with position on him. I then got moved to a terrible table with JC Alvarado on my left, Marco Johnson a couple to my left and Erica Shoenberg a few to my right. There were several other good players at the table that were playing aggressive so I played tight once again and tried to just keep playing solid hands. I ended up losing AK to marco's AQ for a 200k pot or so but still had about 330k at 2k/4k. Nothing much happened until I got in a pretty big pot with Erica where I raised an A54 flop and she didn't believe me and decided to 4b the flop. i just called and bet the turn and took it down. I won't say what I had but it was a really big momentum booster at the time for me, bringing me up to just shy of 400k. We redrew at 27 left and I again drew a very tough table. I had Jared Jaffe (who made the final table) on my left, along with a lot of other good players including Wade "soggy dogg" woeffel. One of the first hands I played at that table I raised 99 utg and Jared 3bet me right next to me. i called and saw a flop of 1098. I checked to him and he checked behind. At this point I was putting him on AK, possibly, QQ or AA. The turn was a great card I thought, the king. I checked again hoping he would bet it but he didn't The river was a 4 and i decided that he was going to try to value bet his AK on the river so I checked a 3rd time and he did oblidge and bet 88k. I then shoved for my remaining 340k or so and he eventually made the call and told me he had aces. A great double for me, getting me up to over 750k.
I got moved to another table with Jon Little on my left and my good friend Dave Sands across the table. Didn't get involved in too many hands until an older gentlemen raised utg and I flatted AK. It came JTx and i called a continuation bet. The turn was a king and he bet out fairly large again and I called again. The river was a 9 putting a 4 card straight out and he checked to me. I put him on a 2 pair or set type hand and I assumed that he would know I had a lot of queens in my range and I didn't think I had the best hand so i decided to bluff at it for 160k. He eventually made the call with aces which suprised me a lot, but I now knew that he was a calling station and that bluffing this man was out of the question. I played pretty tight after that for awhile, I watched dave lose AK to AQ on the river for a pretty large 500k pot and then raised 99 into his bb a few orbits later. He 3bet me and I think 99 is well enough ahead of his range to put all my chips in the middle so I did. He eventually made the call with AQ for the remainder of his chips and I held for a 700k pot. Definitely had fun playing with him, he played very well as usual. My last hand I played on the night was interesting. The chip leader got moved to my right with almost 2 million and he was raising a ton. I 3bet his utg raise and then Tyler "brainwash" Cornell cold 4bet from the sb to 175k. I thought this was just a great spot for him to cold 4b and I know he's definitleey capable of having air here. The chip leader eventually folded and went with my instincts that was light and I shoved in my 800k stack and he folded. I showed the 9 of hearts 
Day 4 was going really well for me, I started playing tight again to get a feel for the table before opening it up when there were about 13 left. I raised A8 in the cutoff and a very aggressive online kid who had just 3bet and folded to soggy dogg's shove, reshoved about 25 bbs(280) against me and I went into the tank for a few minutes before calling. He had q8 and I held to get over a million. I then did some 3betting on the final table bubble to chip up to 1.4m for the 10 handed redraw. I think I won 2 pots while we were 10 handed, I had aa once and 3b and the guy folded, and then flatted jacks against the chip leader and his a3o outflopped me and I only called one bet and we checked it down on an ace high flop. I squeezed into the 6 handed, televised final table with just under a million chips. sitting in 5th of 6, but I still have a little over 40 big blinds to work with. It's definitely going to be an exciting day, and hopefully a long and profitable day as well. Good luck to me!
-TT
wsop wrap up
Well guys, my world series didn't pan out the way I had it planned this year, but it's such a high variance and stressful time of the year and I'm glad its over. I ended up with 2 cashes in the last 2 tournaments I played before the main event. I ended up busting a disappointing 24th in the 1k on day 3. I had a lot of expectations for making money in that tournament because with 30 left I had an average stack and I had 2.5% swap with the chip leader and the man in 5th place (whitey and justin young respectively). I ended up losing a really big flip where I called off an asian guy's reshove for most of my chips with a9 and he had 88. It woulda put me top 5 in chips or so. Justin busted shortly after me in 20th but we still had good news because he gave most of his chips to whitey who still went into the final table as the chip leader but had an extrememly disappointing finish in 9th. So with all the equity I had with 30 left quickly crumbled into barely anything.
I played the 2500 NL the next day and got a chance to sit next to a great guy all day on day 1 in matt brady. Kinda befriended him a little bit. I always respected his game and now really respect him as a person. I was playing really good poker for the early portion of the day before I won a big pot where I flatted KK against a fish and had a guy jam 4500 with TT and the fish called half his stack with QQ and then but the rest in when I shoved to get me up to over 20k before antes started. I played great poker the rest of the day and finished with around 59k to end the day. Day 2 I abused the bubble at my first table for awhile and chipped up steadily to over 120k in the first 4 hours before flatting KK and running into AA and AK on the same hand and got crippled and eventually busted in 140th or so.
My main event, I had a great mindset and was ready to play great poker because I had took a road trip back home to california for the 4th with steve and got to hang out by the beach and watch the fireworks from my balcony, which was a great change of pace and a good release from the pressures of vegas. I started out in the main hitting the nuts on the first hand I played and got up to 33k from the 30k starting stack. Then I had a hand where I didn't lose too much set under set when I guy just flatted a 3bet with aces and I flatted as well and he flopped me set over set on a A52. That got me down to 21k. I grinded that back up steadily with well timed aggression and ended dinner at 53k, which I was extrememly happy with. My after dinner coma must have hit unforunately though because I didn't play well after dinner. I played impatient and tried to do too much without cards and ended up with the 2nd best hand a number of times and spewed a bit and ended up busting in one of the last hands before the end of the day and walked over to see steve bust the hand after me. Pretty depressing end to our main event run.
So now its back to the online grind, Ive put in a few mtt sessions since I got back and have final table bubbled some decent sized online tournaments as well as a 4th, 7th and 8th place finishes. I'm still losing the big key flips as I was in spring, so hopefully that will turn around shortly so I can start making some real money.
I was in wisconsin last weekend for my good friend Aron's bachelor party. We rented a cabin with 11 guys in wisconsin dells and did some golfing and drinking and had a blast! I'll be heading back to wisconsin in early september for his wedding and then planning a trip to philadelphia in late september for the braves/phillies series that week and to visit Mark Herm and Matt Brady and play some wcoop events.
finally something blog-worthy(wsop)
Sorry I haven't blogged all month since I've been in vegas for the wsop. To be honest, I really haven't had much to blog about, it's been a bit depressing. I bricked my first 14 events of the summer in extraordinary fashion, not even making a dinner break at the rio. It was a combination of perhaps a lack in focus, a lack in smart play and a lack of run good. It seemed the days I was playing well or the hands I was playing well I was getting sucked out on and the days I wasn't playing well, I spewed off untl I had a short stack then couldn't help but play tight and eventually get it in behind.
But, a las, there is hope. I just finished day 1 of event 47, a 1k NLHE in which I finished the day among the chip leaders with 59k. We will be playing 15 more minutes at 300/600 blinds on monday before going to 400/800. I'm pretty happy with my play today overall. I got caught in a couple bad spots that crippled me to near 10 bbs at 2 points during the day but was able to be patient and grind up and got a little better help from the poker gods to increase my stack size throughout the day. It really boomed a few hands before dinner when I went from 5k to 25k in the 3 hands right before the dinner break. I won a race aq to 22 then picked off a big bluff when I checked behind top pair. After dinner it seemed that people were tightening up to make it to day 2. I started raising a lot of hands to take advantage of that, then some of the players started to adjust poorly against that by shoving me with very marginal holdings or calling off their stack with less than premiums. I was able to win a lot of pots in the last hour to go from about 36k to 59k without too many showdowns.
I'm going to be playing online tomorrow (we play day 2 monday because of the day 1b starting day for the 1k tomorrow). I have a feeling i'm going to have a really good sunday because some of the pressure of doing poorly at the wsop has been lifted off my back and I'll be able to play a little more freely and open-minded. Regardless of my finish in the 1k, the next week is going to be very busy, as I don't anticipate having or taking a day off until the day before whatever day I decided to play the main event.
-TT
