Me: Night night backyard birds, night night nocturnal animals, night night United States of America¹. Night night Barack Obama, night night our ever vanishing civil liberties.
Jackson: Night vanishing... vanish...
Katy: Civil liberties!
Jackson: Civil liberties. Liberties wake up liberties. Smash crash liberties!

He has a surprising deep understanding of politics for one so young.

¹: He has posters of backyard birds, nocturnal animals, and the united states in his room. They're part of the nightly night nights.

Not much to report, sadly: I busted on the first day.

Things started out quite well. The table was pretty soft, lots of people seeing flops, no three betting. One player seemed to me to be dangerous, playing lots of hands, making lots of small bets -- I later found out it was John Tabatabai. But I had position on him, and he never really got it going.

I actually really like being behind players like that. We'd have hands like: he minraises from the field, I call in latish position with like T7o, flop comes AT4, he continuation bets then folds to my raise. That turns out to be much better for me than stealing the blinds. I didn't do it every hand, but did it pretty often.

For some reason I got a ton of hands utg -- I think I raised 6 of the 8 utg hands I had in the first level. Only once was I really out of line, with A7s. The most memorable was raising with AKs, flopping the nuts, smooth calling the flop and the turn and getting a bet called on the river. After the first level, I had about $40k.

But I lost half my stack over the course of several hands in the second level. Here are two:

I defend the bb with KJo against a late position raiser. Flop comes J87. I check intending to raise, but he checks behind. Turn is a 4, I bet, he calls. River is another 7, I bet half the pot, now he raises to 2.5 times my bet. Can I fold here? Is he ever bluffing? I call and he has 67 for trips.

Here was a bad one. Early position tight player raises the 100 blind to 525, another guy tries to limp, and then once he is informed of the raise says he would have folded but since he is forced to leave his limp in now calls. I defend the BB with 8h7h. Flop is 76h5h, ding. I check, utg bets 1000, guy cold calls, I raise to 4200, utg folds, limpy guy calls. Turn is the Jh. I'm actually slightly concerned about a higher flush draw since he called twice, so I check. He checks behind. River is the ugly Qh. I check again, he bets 7000. I tell him I can only beat a bluff, and he immediately flips down his sunglasses and stares stone faced at the center of the table. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I eventually call -- in retrospect I don't like this call at all, since I hadn't yet seen him bluff. He declares straight flush and flips over Th9h. He is genuinely surprised to discover he doesn't have a straight flush that he was slowplaying on the turn -- he said he was hoping I had the Ah. I sure wish I had it too.

The next level I went back to playing lots of small pots and mostly winning them, firing at weakness and avoiding strength. Only that pro was playing the same game, and he didn't seem to be able to adjust to my picking on him from behind. The fourth or fifth time I raised him on the flop he thought for a long time, maybe to try and make a play. I had bottom set, so I really wish he had. I decided to slowplay the next time I had a real hand against him:

He opened early for 600, a minraise (no antes yet). I raise to 1800 with AQo, he calls. Flop is AJx, he checks and I do too. Turn is another A, we check again. River is a J, he bets out 2000, I raise to 6000, he thinks for a few seconds and calls... with A9. So I could have gotten a ton of value on the turn had I pulled the trigger then. And still chopped on the river.

I chip back up to a starting stack by dinner. After dinner, I stopped hitting flops. Lots of hands like, I raise to 1025, bb defends, flop is A high, he calls my cbet with an A and we check it down and I lose.

Here's a weird one at the 150-300-25 level: utg limper, the straight flush guy raises to 825, one cold caller, I call in the bb with 7s4s, utg calls. Flop is Ad8s5s, which seems good. I check intending to check-raise, checked around. Turn is the 4d, so I have a pair to go with my gutshot straight flush draw, and nobody seems to want this pot, so I bet 1600. Utg folds, and the raiser now makes it 5000. Button folds... and now what should I do? All my options seem reasonable here. I eventually decide to call -- I'm getting correct odds if all my outs are good, plus implied odds, but I don't know which of my outs are likely to be good. Against AK, say, I'm drawing fine, and I think there's a chance he's raising a diamond draw. River is the 7d, one of those cards I don't know if it's good or not. I check, he thinks for a long time and checks behind. Ok, I probably win. I turn over my two pair, and he tables... Qd6d, the second nuts. "You thought so long before checking I was worried you had the K high flush," he explained.

So at the end of level 4, I'm down to 16k. I'm still deep enough for some play at the 200-400-50 level, but have less than half an average stack. I decide to tighten up because of that and because it's getting late and I'm tired. After a couple of rounds I open raise with AA, get three bet with AKs and shove, he calls, and my hand holds up. Whee.

I rarely see a flop for the next hour, maybe two or three in that time, from the bb or steal position. I do take down two pots by three betting preflop, so I actually chip up a little in that time. Then, 15 minutes from the end of the day, a big stack who is new to the table raises to 1200 from three off, and I defend the bb with J9. The flop is Jh9xh, ding. I check, he bets 1800, I raise to 6000. He thinks for a bit and reraises to 16000. Hm. Well, I think my hand is good enough here, so I shove for 34000ish. He thinks for 30 seconds, says he hopes I don't have a set, and calls (correctly) with Ah9h. He's got 12 outs twice, and indeed hits a heart on the river and I am out.

So... bah. I was happy to be making day two even with a slightly below average stack. I felt like I had a lot of good opportunities, shoulda made a couple of laydowns I didn't, but was generally happy with my play and with the table. But I'm not sure what I could have done on the last hand. I guess I could stop and go on the flop to defend against the draw, but I at least did get it all in with the best hand.

Oh well. Next year, I guess.

Main event, here I come. Playing tomorrow, for the third time. In '04, I died at the very end of the first day. In '05, I got all in with just one out and busted in the second level.

This year I'm a much better no limit player than I was then, though I actually think I played quite well both those times. I don't look back at any of the major hands and have any regrets at how I played them.

In Brasilia, table 161 seat 2.

I abbreviated my last post when I got to the mega, so here's a bit about the final table.

Super satellites are very silly at the bubble. Here's an example hand to see why.

The blinds are 4000-8000 with 1000 ante. I'm the second biggest stack with 68000. I find A9 in the cutoff, and I jam. The button has 48000, and 99. Here's the crazy part: he has me dominated, yet if I showed him my hand, he still has to fold.

We're 7 handed with 6 seats and 4500 for 7th, so this is a $5700 bubble. If he wins, which he does 70% of the time, he's very likely to get the seat, say 98%. If he loses, he's out -- that's 30%. What happens if he folds? Well, he's short, but there are two shorter stacks, one of whom is in the bb this hand, and the other of whom will hit the blinds before he will. He only has to outlast one of them. If they were even he'd have a 66% chance of being the next out; given the positions of the blinds and the nonzero chance that some bigger stack will make a mistake or run into aces, he must be over 70% to get a seat. Plus there's a chance of a deal, always, though as it turns out he took a bad deal so maybe that shouldn't be a consideration. If I show him an A, he should only call with rockets there.

He tanked for a long time, then asked for a clock to be put on him (never seen that before) then folded. Calling would be only a tiny mistake given that I had A9, but it would be a huge mistake if I had AJ instead, or any other two overs. So he has to fold, even though, as he put it, "he has my range crushed".

The big stack at the table with 94000 has AQ. He has a very easy fold, since he's basically a lock for the seat, and getting involved in a pot that could jeopardize that can only be a mistake. He should fold AA there. The other small stack had rags, and I won the pot.

Now, I don't know if it's right for me to jam A9 there, but it's certainly right for everyone else to fold almost everything. The problem is that if someone makes a mistake by calling with 99, say, or QQ, they lose equity but I lose even more (the rest of the table benefits). So I don't want to get involved in too too many pots for fear that someone will do something dumb and hurt me.

There are also weird degenerate hands that come up. For instance, one player has the 8000 blind and another 8000 back. Everyone at the table with a playable hand came in for the minraise and checked it down to try and knock him out (I folded 72o). The bb had K9, hit his 9, and quintupled up. The next time it happened, though, it worked and the bb busted (that got us to 7).

Once the guy to my right folded 99, he needed to outlast the other two short stacks. Each of them jammed and took the blinds, which were huge at this point. He decided to try to deal instead.

First he proposed an even split. I objected on the grounds that as a big stack I wanted a little extra. His next position was that the big stacks would get $10k instead of the $10k + $200, and the small stacks would divide up the rest. Um, that seems good for the big stacks, so sure. Then there was some negotiating about who counted as a big stack, but I didn't care since I was one, so I stayed out. But let's check the math.

I have like $86000, and the small stacks have $40-50k. So let's say they're twice as likely as me to bust out. And let's further say that the big stacks are all in the same boat as me, even though there's some variation in stack size. So 4x + 3(2x) = 100%, so x = 10%, which is my chance of busting next. But actually I think it's rather lower based on the fact that I'm much, much harder to call than a small stack, so I'm going to claim that I only have a 6% chance of bubbling here. That means my fair share is 9858, so 10k sounds just fine with no risk. If I think I have a lower chance of bubble then the deal gets worse, but I'm only giving up $29 if I have a 3% chance of busting, and that seems ok too. It's hard to believe I have less than that. If I really do have a 10% chance of bubbling here, my fair share is $9630, so $10k looks like a steal.

So I got a decent deal, but not amazing. The guys who got the amazing deal were the two shorter "big" stacks with 75k and 68k. The 68k guy was halfway between the small stacks and the biggest stacks, and yet got the full big stack payout even though it was totally clear to me he would have settled for less. But the small stacks were motivated to make a deal work out, and the #3 stack was starting to make noise about getting on with it (he'd looked at his hand and it was good), so they didn't argue about it. The 68k guy did agree to chip in enough money to even out the payout for the small stacks so they ended up with $8600 instead of $8566 or whatever, so he did take $120ish less than I did.

I'm happy it ended when it did, because it was 12:40 or so, and could have gone on for a good while longer since it's so damn hard to call someone if they shove.

One note on strategy: a couple players were raising small amounts. This is completely horrible, because they have to fold basically everything if a bigger stack shoves on them. Because taking a small bustout risk is so bad if you have chips, you throw away everything, so raising with smaller amounts is just giving them away. And indeed the guy who came to the final table with $102k bled down to half that via that method, before reverting to jam mode and getting back up a bit. Just awful. I took advantage of that several times to build to my big stack status.

It's been a while since I updated here, so here goes.

Last week was a big pile of hosing. I went somewhat deep into the $2500 mixed limit/no limit event, with 50% more than average chips at dinner, partly from picking off bluffs. But then I picked a rather dumb time to bluff myself and was out. Some hands:

I open raise on the button in limit with 22, Victor Ramdin tells me I have K high and three bets me. I call. Flop is T84r, he bets, I call. Turn is another 4, he checks, I should check behind but I bet, and now he check-raises. I decide it's worth two more big bets to see if he's bluffing, so I call the turn and the river, and he shows down KQ no pair. I explain to the table that they should refrain from trying to bluff me.

A few hands later, 100-200 no limit, I open for 525 late with 75s, Victor cold calls on the button. Flop is T63r, and I decide to check instead of betting my gutshot, and Victor checks behind. Turn is a 2, check check. River is a 7, and I value bet my pair for 600. Victor now raises 1000 more with like 1400 back. Odd... I don't really see how he could have a hand other than like TT or 33, and a bluff sure seems more likely. So I call and he raps the table and my hand is good.

Much later, I'm in the 800 bb in no limit with 18000 back, big stack opens for 1950, button who just has me covered call, and I defend with 97s. Flop is K86, checked around. Turn is a Q, I check, big stack bets out 2000, button raises to 6200, and I think my stack is a good size for a resteal and jam my straight draw. But actually this really isn't a good spot -- the button has shown a lot of strength this hand, is a pretty tight player, and would be getting better than 2:1 on his money and might not lay down a hand like AK. The big stack folds and indeed the button has bottom set and calls. I was in a really good spot on the flop with an open ender against a set getting a free card -- my equity there is huge if I don't stack myself if I miss on the turn. Which I did.

The next day I play a few one table satellites, and lose them all. One I got down to four handed with a big stack, but ran into AK on back to back hands with worse aces and was out. In another I was the first person out: lost a small pot, then had my KK cracked by a set but lost the minimum -- I checked the flop and called the turn and river with my overpair -- then ran JJ into KK. Bah.

The trip this week started out with a series of small annoyances. I get to the airport a bit early for my flight, and they're boarding the previous flight to Vegas. I ask about standby but even though they plane is half full and it would cost them nothing to put me on it, they want to charge me $95 for it. I decide I can wait an hour after all. I guess they have to think about the longer game so people don't book the cheapest flight and just standby onto earlier flights that would be more expensive, but it sure seems like there should be some way for them to get me on for a nominal charge instead of more than doubling the cost of the ticket.

Then in a tiny bad beat, despite me having the best boarding pass, the gate guy decides there aren't enough people to bother with being organized and declares everyone can come up at once. Only 14 people on the flight and I got my front row seat anyway so whatever.

Then, when I get to the Bellagio, the computers are down and they're checking in everyone by hand. So it takes an hour to get through the line and get checked in, and during this they fail to put in my credit card for room charges so I can't get internet when I get to the room.

So I've stayed at the Bellagio 5 times this month now, and there have been annoyances every time. The first trip, the lights over the beds didn't work, and it took two trips from the techs to fix them (they fixed one but didn't bother to check the other). Next trip the shower clogged, and again it took multiple calls to fix it. Also there was an annoying buzz coming from I think the ice machine in the hallway that was loud enough it made it a little hard to get to sleep. The third trip they put me in a smoking room, then when I complained told me I would get an upgrade but it'd take a few hours, then reneged on the upgrade. Last week I got another buzzing room, and this one had the check in problem. Plus I couldn't check out this morning from the room, and had to spend another 10 minutes in line to check out.

None of these things are a big deal, but for a hotel that thinks it's high end, it's a pretty long litany of complaints. On the other hand, it really is pretty cheap for a nice hotel this month, so I guess it still feels like a good deal. Especially compared to trips we've taken to places like New York and Madrid, where the hotels were like 5 times the cost and not really that much nicer.

So after the hotel annoyance, the next morning I head over to the Rio pretty early because I think there's some chance the 1500 event will sell out, so I figure I'll buy in at 8 or so and have breakfast. But I get there and discover it sold out the night before at around 9. I hang around in hopes of unregistrations, but there is a line, and eventually I give up and go eat. I come back and Kenny is there planning to unreg because he isn't feeling motivated, and we try to figure out some way for me to get his seat, but the unreg process is strict and they won't transfer the seat to me. We hang around in line planning to get me to the front and then have him unreg and have me be next in line, but the line refuses to move and we give up. He decides to play anyway.

Well bah. I sit on a bench outside the registration room and read my book for the next couple of hours in case there are late unregistrations from people who made day two from the previous day's tournaments, but nothing doing. So I buy into the 3:00 $330 super satellite (which is called a "mega satellite" because I guess "super" isn't impressive enough); the tournament doesn't start until 4, natch. No cash games or one tables running either due to no tables being available, so I end up playing pai gow for an hour. I win $10. It's slightly odd playing a game where I was betting $50, and the woman next to me was betting $450 on my hand. So my wins and losses on my hand are dwarfed by hers (she's also betting that much on her hand). I let her opine on my settings since she cares more than I do, but pai gow is pretty formulaic.

The satellite, however, went well. I play a bunch of small pots then win a big one, then resteal a lot. There are a couple of super passive readable players and I abuse them. I bust a small stack who pushed with TT, which obviously doesn't beat my 77 preflop, then double up another small stack when his AJ beats my AQ. But mostly I am jamming over raises a lot and taking it down. The passive limpy woman next to me tells me repeatedly she really wishes she had my seat, as if I could possibly be getting enough hands that were raising hands by her standards.

I suck out again when the sb limps and I check in the bb with 83s. Flop comes T32 with one of my suit and two clubs, and he bets. I jam over him, he agonizes and calls with JT, but I hit a 3 on the turn. Whee.

We get short and I have decent chips so I slow way down, picking on stacks that need a monster to call me, and avoiding spots where I could go broke. We get down to the final table, then 8 handed. There are 6 seats and 7th place gets 4500. Then, entertainingly, the small stack jams and the bb is agonizing, and the small stack declares he has a pair to get the bb to fold. The TD declares an 8 hand penalty, and the small stacks doubles with 66 against QTs, then has to sit out for a round. He begs but is rejected.

Ok, my flight is boarding, so long story short, at 7 handed I am the #2 stack, we agree to a deal where the big stacks get $10k seats (six places get 10k seats + $200, so I'm "giving up" $200), and the three small stacks split the rest. The small stacks are clustered around 40k, the big stacks around 80k (I have 84), so this seems like a good deal for me. I later did the math, and I think I made about $200 on the deal.

So I won a seat. Playing monday, day 1D.

I flew back out yesterday, landing at 1, at the Rio by 2:30. Only to discover that they weren't running satellites because the seniors' event sold more than they were expecting, and in fact sold out, so they didn't have any tables. Ok, I'll play a cash game until dinner.

I play 10-25 for a while. The game had an interesting rule: the optional Mississippi straddle. Here's how it works: you straddle on the button (for 50). Now the small blind acts first preflop, then the big blind, and around the table, so you get last action preflop (and every other street). Wow is that a hosing for the blinds.

So the question is, what are the strategy adjustments when the straddle is on, and is it worth taking?

Well, there are two effects on the quality of hands to enter a pot. For any given position, say UTG, you now have more information -- the blinds have acted and probably folded. So that's a big incentive to play more hands there, perhaps slightly more than if you were 3utg and the first two people had folded, since there's now dead money in the pot and the most likely candidate to call a raise, the bb, is out. However, there's a countervailing issue which is that if you get called by the button, which is likely, you are going to be out of position post flop, which is a big deal. After some thought and observation, I decide that I'd loosen up my opening standards by one position (instead of two), and raise more than usual preflop to discourage the bb from playing random stuff in position.

Is it a good idea to take it? Well, you're making the pot bigger when you have position. And you're completely hosing the blinds, and that equity has to go somewhere, and I think you get a bigger share of it than anyone else, so that somewhat offsets the $50 you're putting in blind. I think it's worth it, though putting in blinds is always questionable. I did put it on myself.

Two hands. 1: I straddle on the button. Fishy guy opens for 150 from the field, I defend with 66. Flop comes AT6 rainbow, ding. He bets 175, I raise to 525, he reraises 1000 more. He has 1300 back and must be totally pot stuck, so I just stick it all in... and he folds! Bah.

2: Straddle is on, and I'm in early position but after the blinds. One of them limps for 50, I find AKs and raise to 250. There's one cold caller, and the button reraises to 1000. He has 2200 back, and after the limper folds, I shove. The cold caller folds, and the button thinks for a while and folds as well.

So the straddle definitely seems to encourage action.

I pick up shortly after 6 with a $1000 profit and look for dinner companions. JP has just joined the HORSE mega satellite (which turned out to be somewhat less than mega, only getting one table), Sable busted out of the 8-game or whatever she was playing in time to go play the Razz tournament, the rest of the team is all playing that. So do I want to wait until 9 to eat with people, or go off on my own?

I decide to wait and sit into a $25/point chinese game, half high with surrender and honors, half low no surrender. This is bigger than I've played before, but the table talk makes it clear one guy has no idea what he's doing, and I figure that's good enough. I promptly lose my first n hands and am down almost a grand.

But I slog along, and get a straight flush in back which pays $100 from everyone. That was sort of pleasant. Here's how honors work: if you get a qualifying hand, then you win points from people depending on how you do for the rest of the hand. So if you get a straight flush in back, you win 4 points if you lose your other hands, 6 if you win one, and 8 if you win both. Quads in back pay 3-5-7, full in the middle pays 2-4-6, trips in front pay 1-3-5.

It's a bad rule since it just increases the variance (no skill in finding quads), and actually removes some skill from the game since there are settings you can't consider. For instance, the other time I had a qualifying hand I played boat/boat/rags. In a regular game I'd play boat/trips/pair, but I can't even consider that setting because of the honors. This time, though, I was on the upside of the honors variance, so I guess it worked out.

After a while the fish leaves, and I play another couple of hands, then JP come over on break and tells me the game is awful. Ok, I get up. By the time his break is over the best player had left and was replaced by an unknown, which JP thinks means fish, so I sit back down. I'd rank the players as Solid Guy > me > guy with clue who makes mistakes >>> new tyro. I think that's probably good.

I start winning and win some more. I was up a few hundred during my brief haitus, and up 1300 when JP busted and the dinner break for the 5 o'clock tournament rolled around and I picked up. Whee.

JP and I wander around to find people in the Razz tournament and fail, but we do get hold of Sabyl on the phone. She declines dinner, and JP and I try the Noodles place at the gold coast, recommended by Fich. fich is on crack. It was not nearly as good as Ping Pang Pong, the other chinese place there. Perhaps we chose our food poorly, but it just seemed less good.

Then we head back to the satellite room, and both get into a $275 limit omaha 8 satellite. I hose out in 5th place, but JP scrapes and claws his way into the top two and chops it.

I decided not to play any events today. The noon event is the $10k pot limit holdem, which might be good but my real stacks pot limit experience is minimal. The 5:00 event is limit O8, which I can play reasonably but not at a super high level. Anyway tomorrow is the half limit half no limit holdem event which I really want to play, so I don't want to play the 5:00 event today regardless.

So satellites and cash games today for me.

Day two of the 2000 event, to which I limped with just two orbits worth of chips, sure went fast. I was on the button, the hijack opened for 3000, I push for 7400 with AK, he obvious calls. He has Kd9d and I'm in trouble with the Ts8d7d flop, and drawing dead on the turn. Ok, that was fast.

The nice thing about it being instant is that I still had time to get into the 1500 tournament, so I did. I promptly win a couple hands, then a player opens for 525, I raise to 1500, he pushes for 3000 total, I call with AK, he has KK and it holds. I recover a little, then have a crazy hand with Bodog Ari:

He limps in the sb for 150. I have Q9s, which isn't bad, so I raise 300 more. He quickly reraises 1500 more. I think this looks super fishy, like he's just stealing. Ok, what then? I don't really want to call with a third of my stack. Do I have enough to make him fold? My raise would be 2700 more. Ok, I think he'll fold his crap hands to that, and I really think he has nothing here. So I push. He calls after a few seconds with K7o. Hm, I guess I didn't have enough to push him off after all. I cleverly suck out. At least this is going to be good for my image... but the table breaks immediately after that hand.

My new table was amazingly soft. Example: in the 100-200 level, the button limps with 50k back. I have T2o in the sb and fold, the bb raises 300. The button now raises another 500, and the bb calls. Flop is AsTs5d, the action goes check, bet 1200, check-raise to 2200 until I point out that's not legal at which point he corrects it to 2400, call. Turn is a 7, check check. River is the Qs, the bb bets 2500 and the button thinks and calls. The bb tables... 32o, and the button has A6o. So yeah, there's some value to be had at this table.

The juiciest target is that giant stack just to my right, but he ends up giving it away to someone else over a few hands. I still triple up over the next couple of levels basically by not doing anything dumb. Two interesting hands:

I open for 625 in the 100-200-25 level fairly early with AKs, and a player in the middle pushes for 4000. Now the sb cold calls with 7000 behind. It seems like he either has something like JJ or TT where he doesn't want to commit against me just in case I have a monster, or he has AA or KK and is trying to entice me in. I consider pushing, but fold instead. He had JJ, the other guy had KQ. Oops.

The next hand I find A9s and raise again, and now a different player pushes for 2500, and the same guy cold calls again. This is an easy fold so I do, and the sb has AQ versus the jammer's 77.

Eventually the table breaks, and my new table features David Singer, Jeff Madsen, Vanessa Rousso, and after a few minutes, Phil Hellmuth immediately to my right. There's also a reckless guy with a huge stack, so it wasn't all bad.

Side story: at the dinner break I am describing the table to Sabyl and JP, and I don't know who the female player with the pokerstars gear is. Sabyl asks about ethnicity, age, and hair color, and I get two of those wrong. (I said brunette and 30's). In my defense she was wearing a dark colored hat. This is not much of a defense.

It was certainly interesting to play with the pros. For one thing, they do a lot of limping and then folding to a raise, which seems bad to me. Madsen made some pretty questionable plays with a short stack (calling an utg all in with 66, then again with KQ, doubled up both times). Hellmuth sure talks a lot.

We only played one interesting hand. Hellmuth raises to 900 utg in the 200-400-25 round, I defend the bb with AT. Flop is J54 rainbow, check check. Turn is a T putting the second club on the board. I bet 1600, he calls. River is the 6c, I check and he instantly fires out 3000. I call, he has Jc8c for the flush. Maybe I should fold.

I also get into a hand with the big stack and another bad player: big stack opens for 1100, I raise to 3300 with JJ, bb cold calls, big stack calls. I have 30k and they both have me covered. Flop is T93ss, checked to me, I bet 7000, they call. Turn is the 7s, the bb looks at his chips and checks, and the big stack bets 15000. Ugh. I fold... and so does the bb. (This hand actually preceded the Hellmuth hand above.)

I'm down to 17500 at the next break, which is a hair under average, and our table thankfully breaks during the break. The next level is 400-800-100, so I only have 9 rounds in my stack. This is a borderline jam or fold stack, but it's a really great resteal stack. Someone opens for 2200 or so, it's really hard to call a jam back. So I plan to do that.

My second hand I get dealt AA, someone opens for 2100, I jam, they fold. Two hands later I have AJs, open for 2100, and now the sb jams for 9400 more. I call, he has A7s, but escapes with a chop. Then in the sb a few hands after that, someone opens for 2100 early, I jam with TT, and get shown AA and the door.

I have a meeting it would be really inconvenient to miss on friday, so I'm just going to play satellites and take a bit of a break today. Next week is my last shot before the main event.

Brief report: I had pretty soft tables all day yesterday. However I was hampered by feeling sick -- I had to take several urgent bathroom breaks, which is not really what you want in your poker tournament.

Once it hurt quite a bit. In the 400-800-75 level, I scurry off, and come back to by big blind. However, I didn't get back quite in time so my hand is dead. I look at it anyway only to discover KK. There's an all in for 14000 and a call, and I would have won a very nice pot. Bah.

A little later an aggressive player raises to 2100 in the 500-1000-100 level, big stack in the field calls, I call in the bb with KhQs. Flop is KJ7 all spades. I check, aggro player bets 4400, big stack folds, I check raise to 12000, aggro guy instantly pushes for 17000 more. Ugh. I fold, he shows As2s.

I pick up some blinds, then lay down to a resteal, then we get to the last hand of the night. I have A9s and I open for 2400 in the cutoff with A9s. The bb pushes for 22000. This is normally a fold, but I get a clear impression that he doesn't want me to call. He'd mentioned earlier that people don't like to bust on the last hand of the night, which is true. The longer I look at him, the more I think he is just restealing.

The problem is, I should just fold anyway. I don't have much and he could have a baby pair or something else I might be a tiny favorite against. But I decide to call, and he has AJ, and I now have 7400 left. This is the player, btw, I would have busted if I'd gotten back in time to play my KK.

I'm not sure who he was but a dealer called him "Chow", I think. He evidently has three bracelets and plays in the big game at the Bellagio regularly. He is a middle aged asian man who loves the massage -- he had a massage going at the table for literally hours. At $2/min, that can add up.

So the 1500 event today started out really well. I busted someone in the first level by flopping a set, then nearly busted someone else the next level by flopping top set, but failed to put him in on the river. Then I won a big pot with *another* set. At the second break I had 25000, and ran that up to 30000 right before dinner.

But then I doubled up a guy for 8.5k with QQ against his KK in the 150-300-25 level. Two hands later, he opens for 800, one call, and I call from the sb with 66. Flop is K64 all spades. I check, he bets 1600, other guy folds, I raise 3400 more, he pretty quickly calls. Turn is a K, I bet 6000 and he pushes for like 8000 more. I of course call with my full house. He has AsKd for top trips and the nut flush draw. The river pairs the 4 and I'm suddenly short.

I find Kenny and have dinner with him, Terrence, Matt (who is on break from the HORSE final table), a guy named Micah, and Bill (only there for 5 minutes). Micah, it turns out, is the guy from yesterday's satellite that three barreled on the flush board when I had top/top. He told me that if he knew who I hung out with he wouldn't have tried that.

I opt not to be a nit and buy out of ccr even though I got by far the cheapest meal since I wanted a salad and other people got steak and seafood. Luckily (and traditionally) Matt footed the bill.

Back to the tournament, I'm pretty short with like 5.5k playing 200-400-50, so I have an easy shove with ATs. 66 finds a call from the button, and it holds up. Feh.

I check in on Matt. He is sitting at the final table looking bored. I go see if I can find the rest of the gang, and I hear them selling the last two seats in a 1030 satellite. Ok, fine. I buy in, then put up 500 for a last longer. Then Greg Raymer sits down with us. He doesn't recognize me, but after we chat a little bit about BARGE and whatnot, he actually somehow recalls my name. I was impressed.

That was the quickest satellite I've played yet. Called with 66 in the bb, missed and folded. Called with T9s in the sb, missed and folded. Raised some limpers with AKs, Greg called, I checked it down with him and he rivered the fourth club to make a flush with his 97o. Loose guy raises and gets 4 callers for 150 each, then I raise 800 more with QQ and he calls. Flop is A high, I bet out 1100, he jams, I fold, he shows an A. Then a limper, a raise, and I jam with 99. The raiser calls with AQ, I flop a set, but he backdoors the four flush to bust me. I think I looked at 15 hands, got way above average starting cards, and didn't win a pot.

I hike back to the bellagio, and wander past the poker room. There's a very good looking 25-50 game with 100 ante from the bb, so I decide I'll sit. I buy in for the minimum $5k. Notable hands:

I raise utg with AKs to 200, bb defends. Flop A54 with one of my suit. He checks, I bet 300, he raises to 1100, I shove, he folds.

I call a raise from the bb with 99. Flop is T93 all diamonds. I check-call 500, then 1500 on a black turn, then the rest of my stack on the A high river. He declares a pair of aces and I table my set.

I raise from the field with KK to 200, sb calls. Flop is K83 all clubs. This is sure happening a lot today. He check-calls 400, then 1000 on the blank turn, then 1800 on the Q river.

I call 200 from the sb with 77, then the bb raises 900 more. The original raiser calls, and I do too. Flop is K76hh, ding. I check, bb bets 2000, other guy folds, I raise 4000 more, he calls with only another 5000 behind. Turn is a T, I put him in, he calls. My set is good again.

I play a few more smallish pots, but am getting kind of tired and holy shit I just won over $20k in less than two hours. So yeah, that makes up for hosing in the tournament and satellite today, in a huge way.

I flopped 9 sets today in about 10 hours of play. I won 7 of them. I broke even in the tournament with sets, winning 3 and losing the big one, busted out of the satellite (but the money went in preflop) with one, and won with all four in the cash game. The most set-tastic day I've had.

Side note about Jerry Buss. He owns the Lakers. The Lakers are in the NBA finals, playing tonight. Jerry is here playing poker. This seems odd. We talked about it at dinner, and again at the satellite, and Raymer claims that Buss doesn't fly. He'll drive to Vegas or Arizona or other close places, but he just won't travel to far away places. Could be true. Evidently he was here last year too.

Hosed out of the shootout, won it back in satellites.

The shootout was pretty fun. Sabyl was at my table and we had good conversation. She was two to my left, which was kind of a bad deal since she's aggressive and tricky, but she lost half her stack early on and I won a little, so I wasn't too worried.

Then she went on a crazy heater. Through a variety of bets and raises preflop, she managed to get it all in with KQs against AK and QJs and made a flush to win (I open raise, guy calls, Sabyl calls, short stack jams, I fold, guy calls, Sabyl now jams to get him out, and he has AK and passed on raising twice but calls her all in). She wins another pot, and now she's the big stack.

At blinds of 100-200, a player jams for like 350, and I have AQ on the button so I raise to 700 with 6500 back. Sabyl reraises 1500 more, I call. Flop is J high all hearts, so I fold to her bet. She has KK. Glad I didn't jam preflop like I considered. Then I give her more chips, though I forget the hand now.

Finally a player open raises to 600 and I jam with 33 for 2000 more. He pretty quickly calls with ATo and wins the race. Bah.

Ok, satellite time. I buy into a $1030 satellite. There's a black guy with a diamond-encrusted watch sitting right behind me, and playing a loose tricky style I have trouble with. He calls lots of hands in position, and then makes small bets later in the hand to take down lots of pots. His name card is sitting by his seat and I take a look: Cornell Haynes. Never heard of him.

Then some woman comes by and asks for his autograph, which he somewhat grumpily gives her (he signs a poker chip she handed him). Ok, now I'm curious, so I google him. He's Nelly, the rap artist. Huh.

A little later some older texan pro busts out and comes over to shake Nelly's hand and tell him he played well, and then asks him for backing in the 10k deuce to seven event. Nelly declines, which leads to the following conversation:

Me: Ah, poker. Where else will people randomly ask you for money and actually hope to get it?
Nelly: Family reunions.
Me: Heh, yeah. Ok, but where else do you get total strangers asking for money?
Nelly: Family reunions!

Touche. As the blinds increase it becomes apparent that his style of seeing lots of flops with weird hands in hopes of picking up pots doesn't change even though his stack size doesn't support it. That style works great with deep stacks, and is just awful with shorter stacks, and he doesn't adjust. This leads to the following hand:

I open with KhQd for 800, he cold calls. Flop is Jh7h7x, and I continuation bet 1100. He now moves in for a 1700 raise. Oops. This is a terrible situation I've gotten into here -- my bet was just awful given his stack size. I should either put him in or check-fold. Anyway I have a read that he's impatient and I'm pretty sure he isn't very strong here, and I'm getting crazy odds of like 3.5+:1 and decide to call. He has 8h6h and catches his flush on the turn, I miss my flush redraw on the river. I think we both played it bad.

Next hand I am playing jam or fold with my remaining 2400, and find A9 so I jam. Nelly has JJ and busts me. A tiny brush with fame.

JP and Grapes and I have dinner at a surprisingly good chinese place at the Gold Coast across the street, then JP and I head back for more satellite action.

I get in another 1030 satellite, and win 3 of the first four hands, more than doubling up without showing my cards. The first hand I flop a set and check raise the flop and take it down, second hand someone opens from the field and I defend the sb with ATs. Flop comes T94 all diamonds. I check-call 300 on the flop, 700 on the blank turn, the river is a J and I check again and he instantly fires out 2000. He's bet at every opportunity so I certainly can't beat anything but a bluff. The problem is that I can't find a hand that's consistent with his bets and his demeanor: he instantly bet every street. If he had an overpair with a diamond, he really should check the river or at least think about it a bit. If he had the flush I think he might try to look a little more uncertain at some point in the hand. Finally I call and he mucks, claiming K high.

I accumulate chips for a while until I have 40% of the chips 4 handed. Then we get down to three handed, I have 40%, the big stack has 45%, and the other guy has 15%. The big stack and I are in the last longer and agree to chop it, which pays for the satellite. I'm now almost freerolling, in for $30 and playing for $10,000. The small stack doubles through the other guy, then the following hand occurs.

I open on the button with 200-400 blinds for 900 with JT. The sb who had just doubled up and has been restealing successfully quite a bit against me raises 1400 more. I call. Flop is 7 high two clubs. He bets out 1300, and I make a rare cold steal attempt by raising to 3900. He thinks and calls. Drat. Turn is a Q, we check. River is the Kc, and he checks. I adopt the flush draw and fire 4500, a "call me" bet that should look a lot like a flush. He thinks for a long time, and eventually crying calls, telling me "nice hand". Drat. He had AA.

Now I'm down to 4500 with 200-400 blinds, so I'm jamming lots and they're folding. Blinds go up to 300-600, and the button opens for 1500. I push for 4900 with A5s, and he thinks and calls with A3. Flop 3, river 5, ding. Now I have over 10k. He busts to the big stack shortly thereafter.

Ok, deal time. The big stack offers me 2700, which is almost perfectly fair. I tell him I'll take 3000, he says I have to tip, ok fine. So I profit 2930, which nicely pays for the 1500 tournament and 1330 satellite plus last longer with Nelly. And Grapes lost ccr for the restaurant bill, so I make a tiny profit for the day.

Tomorrow is another 1500 donkament. While this strategy of bust early and go play satellites is fine so far, I'd really like to do respectably in one of these things.