Napalm On Tour Part 3

Napalm's YTD: $12,950

On to the WSOP, $1500 buy-in NLHE. I was seated at a table of unknowns, unknown to me at least. Strong players overall. There was this one Asian guy who was super cool. He stared everyone down ever hand he was in, it was super slick and pretty intimidating. I am going to start doing that.

On the first hand some dude tried to bluff with A 4 off and got called down all the way with JJ. Bustout.

In the two hours, I got delt Aces twice, Kings once, flopped trip tens and had some other nice hands. But after that, nada. Since I was playing tight, I didn’t steal the appropriate number of pots and pretty much got blinded away.

I got busted out by Miami John Cernuto, a real nice guy, even though he sucked out my pair of kings with a two out set of nines on the river. I finished about 350th, ahead of a lot of the “poker pros”. Next time, I won’t get blinded out, I can guarantee it.

Overall, it was cool playing in the WSOP, I learned some new things and will definitely be back next year.

On to the Bike.

Last week, I was in LA for business and stopped by the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens. I won about $400 playing some mad $4 $8. I then played in the No-Limit Hold'em Frenzy $100 + $25 buy in even on Thursday night. I placed 14th out of 189. That gave me a seat in the Playoff Points Race the next night. Winner of that tournament won a seat at the $5000 buy in Legends of Poker main event in September.

I was kickin some real but, with about 105 of the chips in play, I wake up with AA. Earlier raiser on the short stack raises for about half his chips, I raise enough to put him all in, then to my shocking surprise, player on my left, about 4th in chips goes all in.

This is the dream scenario.

I quickly call. Large stack had KK and small stack has Ad 10d.

Flop is Q 4 6. If I win this pot, I will have about 20% of the chips in play and have a great chance of wining the whole thing.

Turn is the dreaded K. Ouch. I kind of had a feeling it as too good to be true.

I go out later when I go all in with 88 and get called by 7 6 and the board read 7 6 6 7 5

Check out these links for my places:

http://live.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/event.php?id=2399&screen=result

http://live.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/event.php?id=2400&screen=result

La La Land

liquid's YTD: $1324.91

Signed up for Hollywood Poker this evening. I promise I will soon resume illustrating my typically pitiful PLO play, but here is a hand from my debut session that I'm actually proud of.

Omaha Hi $0.50-$0.50 PL (real money)

Seat 7: Feeler (MP2, $59.25)
Seat 10: Hero (Button, $60.25)

ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts blind ($0.50), BB posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.50, UTG+2 calls $0.50, MP1 calls $0.50, Feeler calls $0.50, CO folds,

I have AcKs6sTs on the button and am feeling frisky, so...

Hero bets $2, SB folds, BB folds, UTG+1 calls $1.50, UTG+2 calls $1.50, MP1 calls $1.50, Feeler calls $1.50.

FLOP [Kc 8c Ad]
UTG+1 checks, UTG+2 checks, MP1 checks, Feeler bets $6,

Prior to Feeler's bet, I was planning on potting. His bet could help me though, since a pot re-raise would now be a much more convincing follow-up to my PFR. Or I could go bust.

Hero bets $29, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 folds, MP1 folds, Feeler

...thinks for a bit and...

folds.

SHOWDOWN
Hero wins $45.

Feeler: guess you have the case aces
Feeler: 3 pair no g00t
Hero: 2 pr ;)
Feeler: ha right

Soon thereafter, my crap DSL connection failed, for the nth time over the past couple of days. I hate compooters.

p.s. Whups, foe just posted this hand to 2+2.

Click Your Heels Three Times

liquid's YTD: $1313.41

I jumped back on Stars last Friday, determined to clear my bonus. By Saturday night the deed was done. Final tally: -$285.90 over 3000-odd hands + $100 bonus = -$185.90 net. Quite a drag on my YTD chart.

The next day I withdrew all funds from Stars, returned to the safe havens of PokerRoom, and promptly won a $129 pot, boosted by a bizarre river play:

Omaha Hi $0.50-$0.50 PL (real money)

Seat 1: Oddball (MP1, $64.25)
Seat 4: Hero (Button, $60.75)

ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts blind ($0.50), BB posts blind ($0.50), UTG posts blind ($0.50), CO posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
UTG checks, UTG+1 folds, UTG+2 calls $0.50, Oddball calls $0.50, MP2 folds, MP3 calls $0.50, CO checks, Hero bets $1.50, SB folds, BB folds, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls $1, Oddball calls $1, MP3 calls $1, CO folds.

FLOP [2s 7s Kh]
UTG+2 checks, Oddball checks, MP3 checks, Hero bets $5.50, UTG+2 calls $5.50, Oddball calls $5.50, MP3 folds.

TURN [2s 7s Kh 8c]
UTG+2 checks, Oddball checks, Hero bets $24.50, UTG+2 folds, Oddball calls $24.50.

RIVER [2s 7s Kh 8c 8s]
Oddball checks, Hero bets $10, Oddball bets $32.75 and is all-in, Hero calls $19.25 and is all-in.

SHOWDOWN
Oddball shows [6c 3s Qs Ad]
Hero shows [Ts Kd Kc Jd]
Hero wins $129.

There's no place like home.

Napalm On Tour Part 2

Napalm's YTD: $somethinglike $12.5K

Saturday brought more bad beats. I played in the Golden Nugget $60 multi table multi rebuy event Saturday morning. I was about mid-stacked at the final table with 8 players left. Tournament paid 6. I had a nice fat KK and put in a nice fat raise and got one caller. Flop came 7 J 2 with two hearts. Caller goes all in. I think and think and think. No way in hell I can pitch pocket Kings at this point. I put him on something like A J or even a flush draw. I have Caller covered, so I call.

He shows A 9 of hearts. Now, think about that. Would you call a 5x BB raise with A 9 of hearts out of position? Didn’t think so. Here is some info I failed to mention. This same Caller was at my first table. He made a $1000 bet into a $75 pot with AA, then show the AA when everyone folded and said “I get them cracked all the time. Better to win a small one….”

Needless to say, the third heat spiked on the turn and I was crippled, finishing in 7th, one out of the money.

Later that night I tried my hand at the $125 multi at the Nugget, an event which I won a 5 way split with earlier this year. Same old same old, except for this time, while at the final table, I got no hand with a 10 or higher for the last hour and a half of the tournament and finished 10th.

Sunday was no different. More $2 $4 bloodbaths and even a $4 $8 attempt that was looser than the $2 $4

Later that night I sat back down at the $2 $4 with my buddy and one of my work bosses. I was board out of my tree. All of these bad beats were piling up and I could see the big bad Tilt Monster ripping out of chest like the Alien. My boss had been talking smack all night about how awesome he was so I announced to the table that I would raise his BB in the dark, just to mess with him.

I am in the SB and my boss is in the BB. 4 of 5 callers, I can’t remember. I raise, like I announced, everyone calls. Flop is Ks 9d 3s. Ok, I am still in the dark and first to act. I bet, of course. Boss calls and I think 2 other people called. Turn is a blank. OK, I bet, boss calls, everyone else folds. I am still in the dark and have no idea what I have. River is a 9s, making three spades on the board. I bet, boss raises. Oh crap, I better look at my cards…..

K 9 in the hole. I reraise.

Well, that went on for quite some time with the boss thinking his flush had to be better then my dark hand, no way his ego would let him fold to me although he did eventually stop reraising. When I turned over the K 9 the entire room exploded. Now I know the secret of poker.


On Monday we drove to LA for a meeting Tuesday morning. We decided to go to the Commerce Casino, the world’s largest poker room. I really should have tried my hand at Mexican poker instead of the insane game of $3 $6 we tried. Besides the fact that no one at our table spoke English, we could understand at least one word, “Raise”, which happened every single hand, with at least 3 callers, sometimes a cap. It was like Bingo from Hell.

I was so disoriented from all the crazy action that I quickly lost my $100 when I thought I had an Ace high flush, flipped over my hand only to find an A 7. Boy, those 7s look a lot like Jacks, don’t they?

My business meeting went well on Tuesday and we drove back to Vegas that afternoon only to meet more doom at the Belliago.

Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Sammy Farha, Johnny Chan, John Hennigan, and Tony Esfandiari were all playing in the big game that night. I was thinking about raining my hot Napalm upon them with my last $500K, but…

I played $4 $8 instead. Three terrible 3 out suck outs later, I was down another $200, at least I still had my $499,800 left.

Back to the Nugget for some fast a furious $2 $4. By this point, I was so on tilt I couldn’t even see straight. My $1500 WSOP event was the next morning so I had to get back on my horse.

News From Olympus

liquid's YTD: $1134.88

At last, after months without an update, Phil Hellmuth throws us a bone:

Phil is working on his new site and a couple of bracelets at the WSOP.

Stay tuned for Phil's blog from the WSOP.

(BTW, don't tell Napalm, but I've found his Christmas gift.)

Made For Breaking

liquid's YTD: $1122.73

Long time no post. Like Napalm, I hit the road for a week or so, but unlike Napalm, I played zero hands of poker during that span. In the time around my break, I've fled Stars (again); had a so-so run on PokerRoom; and then yesterday moved on to Party to collect their July bonus. My bankroll has gone almost nowhere in the past month, so Party's easy-to-collect $100 bonus is very welcome.

More from the Why I Love Omaha series:

Seat 1: Hero [Jd Qs Jh As] (CO, $25)
Seat 2: TopSet (Button, $9.10)
Seat 8: MadeStr8 (MP1, $26.50)

ANTES/BLINDS
SB posts $0.10, BB posts $0.25, Hero posts $0.25.

PRE-FLOP
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.25, MadeStr8 calls $0.25, MP2 calls $0.25, Hero raises $0.75 to $1, TopSet calls $1, SB folds, BB calls $0.75, UTG+1 calls $0.75, MadeStr8 calls $0.75, MP2 calls $0.75.

FLOP [6s Th 9s]

Action flop! Long story short: TopSet, MadeStr8, and I all shove our stacks in. TopSet has TTxx for top set; MadeStr8 has 78Jx for the made straight with one improving straight card; and I have the nut flush draw and an open-ended nut straight draw. Savor the numbers:

pokenum -o as qs jd jh - tc td 4h 3h - jc 8c 3d 7h -- 6s th 9s
Omaha Hi: 666 enumerated boards containing 9s 6s Th
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
As Qs Jd Jh 271 40.69 390 58.56 5 0.75 0.411
Tc Td 4h 3h 274 41.14 392 58.86 0 0.00 0.411
Jc 8c 3d 7h 116 17.42 545 81.83 5 0.75 0.178

That's right, Jimmy: If you play Omaha, you too can flop the nuts and earn a whopping 17% chance of winning the pot. Push your stack in pronto!

p.s. The turn bricked, and the river paired the board, giving TopSet the main pot, MadeStr8 the side pot, and Hero some material for his blog.