and James the big stack had

Scott got it in pretty quickly after I folded, he admitted that it was a relief that I folded since he would have folded to my all-in. The board ran off blanks, and Scott doubled up at a critical time.

Obviously that’s a tough result but it just happens to be the perfect two hands I wish my opponents to have.

Scott took that double up all the way to 18th place. (Click here) Nice finish Scott, congrats, could not happen to a nicer guy, honestly.

I am in the 5 seat, directly across from the dealer, and I have the best seat on the table. To my right are the biggest stacks, they also happen to be the oldest players at the table. I am usually the oldest player! (like I was on day one, at 37, I’m old in poker.) To my left: an internet pro, live tournament pro/former Brazillian soccer player Paulo Rink, FTP pro: Scott Clements and FTP pro: Paul Sexton.

I have the overall Day 1 chip leader two seats to my right, James Dainelsson. I googled him the night before, I could not find anything about him at all. If someone asked me, “what would you want to the day 1 chip leader to be like?” I would have said, make him like:

James Danielsson

The first hand of Day 2, James was UTG with is 208,000 chips (Day 2 average was about 48,000). Blinds: 200/400 ante: 50 and James raises to 3000.

BOOM 3k, no problem. What is even more amazing is that he got re-raised out of the SB to 13,500 by a 87,000 stack and he called.

Flop was

SB bet out 15k, and James Called.

Turn: and both players checked.

River: and the SB fired off 20k in this huge pot.

Final board: (may not be 100% correct but for all intensive purposes it is.)
James called w/ and won. The SB showed a busted gut shot flush draw.

Now the big stack was even bigger and everyone looked at each other like, “WOW BUCKLE UP!”

On to my hand.

I chip up after a level and half and start this hand with 35,000 in chips. I have yet to tangle with the big stack. It is obvious that everyone is jumping into pots with him as he never folds to re-raises and will get it in on the flop fairly easily. Well after being at 250,000, he is now “down” to 180,000 to start this hand.

Blinds 250/500 Ante: 50 (pot 1200).

James the big stack raises to 1200 after one fold and I look down at:

FINALLY! BUCKLE UP ITS DOUBLE UP TIME!

I make it 4400 to total. I guess this could be debated and I was told by one player I respect that I should consider just calling to give one of the tight agressive players a shot to squeeze lightly with the big stack likely just calling.

I kind of agree but, for that moment, raising was my line. James does not have a big pair, he was over-sizing his preflop raises with pocket pairs when he open raised. His normal-size raise from early position is likely some ‘playable’ hand. Meaning a range of any two broadway cards, or any suited 2 or 3 gapped broadway card or suited Ace, (T9s+, QTo, ATo, A9s, etc.)

I was hoping to just get it in on the flop against the big stack as he never folded to a re-raise (thus my bigger raise size) and would get it in light vs shorter stacks.

Back to the action: two quick folds and Scott Clements (26,000) calls in stride. What I mean is he called quickly, no thought about it at all, and I sort of quivered in my seat knowing I had him beat but knew he could complicate this hand.

Scott knows me from some mix games tournaments a few years back, surely noticed how tight I was playing as well. His range is TT-KK, AKs, that tight, in fact he has QQ and JJ most of the time. I am pretty sure he folds 99 and AKo, all AQ combos surely hit the muck.

Back to the big stack and he calls.

3 players to the flop. (14,400):

And I think, “whatever you do dealer to put a Quee…”

F@&K ME

Thats the worst flop I could imagine. I would rather have a QJT flop as it would be easier to get away from, granted a dry Q-high flop would suck but this has all of it. All of Scotts range and a good chuck of James range as well. Before I even really see it, the big stack looks at me and says, “how much do you have?” I quickly answer 30,000, and he bets out 20,000.

Well he’s got a piece. He might have two pair, he might have , he has all sorts of combos that have a pair plus a T as well. He likely does not have the nuts, as weak player just check the nuts, but he could have it as he would over bet the pot to “protect” and there is a flush draw out there.

I look left at Scott and ask, “how much you do have left?” and Scott says, “about 22,000″ and I tank a bit, and decide that Scott was seeing a flop cheap to dodge a Ace or K flop w/QQ or JJ, as he knows I made a big raise vs this short stack to get him heads up with a strong hand.

I folded.

I will post the results later this week, but I discussed my hand with MANY top NL and tournament players, and the hand made for quite a debate. In fact, I received emails talking about it this week, nearly 2 weeks after I played the hand. Most of the tournament players fold, and a lot of cash players fold but a portion of the cash game players ship it in.

The hand was also the #1 topic of discussion in Vanessa Selbst new podcast “Tournamentality” on DeucesCracked.

DeucesCracked Coaches that I finally got to meet in person for the 1st time: 6

DeucesCracked members I met: approximately 200.
(Could be more as every time I walked the Rio hallway I was stopped at least once, usually twice. (I am tall, imo.) Add in the 4 meet ups we had with about 40 members at each meet up on average, 200 sounds about correct.)

Poker
WSOP tournaments played: 5
Day twos played: 2
Day threes played: 1
Cashes: 0 (argh, f-tournaments, imo)

Cash game sessions: 5
Winning: 4
Losing: 1

I do not have my main event numbers (June 28th-July 17th) yet but

Phone, email, random stuff (May 28-June 27 (31 days)
Text Messaging Incoming: 1,283 (41/day)
Text Messaging Out: 1,455 (46/day)

Minutes on phone: 867 (30 mins/day)

Emails sent: 524 (16/day)
Emails received: unknown as it’s too much to count with all my folders, etc. But probably around 700 or so.

Business meeting dinners/lunches: 12

Golf rounds and scores
Bears Best – 125
Siena – 123
Legacy - 109
Wolf Creek – 124
Badlands – 112
Paiute Snow – 108
Painted Desert – 111
Red Rock Arroyo 64 on front, didn’t finish (108 degrees)
Rhodes Ranch 118
Bali Hai – 114
TPC Las Vegas – 104

Total rounds: 10.5
Total strokes: 1212
Golf balls lost: 70
Avg round: 115

Restaurants
Highly recommended: Cut-Palazzo, Craftsteak-MGM, Botero-Encore, Rosemary’s Restaurant-offstrip, Raku-offstrip

Times visited Thai Noodle House: 12

I played well on day 1, but I can play better. I had some tough spots, but I survived them!

Here is one tough spot that crippled me a bit. I have around 45,000 to start, blinds are 100/200.

BIG stack who is playing tough raises in early position to 600, some weak player calls, and I call in late position with A5.

Three to the flop (pot 2100): A K 8

Pretty damn good flop for me, but the preflop raiser has a big stack and is out of position vs two callers. He bets 1100, which is just over 1/2 the pot, the middle player folds and I elect to call. Since he did raise in early position, and bet into two of us, it’s quite a strong line. I figured it is best to see the turn cheap and then decide how to continue.

Turn brings (pot 4300): K , obviously a terrible card. Now the villain fires off 3200 in stride, I think for a bit. Against a lot of tight straight forward players I can consider folding this turn. There is reasonable suspicion that he could still be barreling on a bluff, he was too aggro with his big stack to give him full credit here, so I called.

River (pot 10700): 6

There it is, the nut flush for me and now my opponent checks. Here is where I make a mistake. It’s tough for a limit player to access value on the river. There is certainly value here, he may pay off with AQ, AJ and certainly KQ, KJ are in his range as well. The question is just how much to bet?

I fire off 8000, which is too much in retrospect. I was feeling confident and brass and I should have thought it out a bit more. I was going for big value which is a mistake this early in the tournament. A great tournament player suggest I bet 5800 or so and try to get bet paid early in tournaments is better than no value or worse….

I got check-raised All-in.

So there I was, holding the nut-flush on the river and my tournament life on the line.

I folded.

Well, day 2 starts at noon for me on Saturday, cannot wait to get back at it!

I will be playing the $1500 HORSE event today. If it is any where near how soft the $1500 Stud8 field was, I will be more than happy!

-Joe

http://twitter.com/joetall

Or you can follow it on PokerNews:

http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2010-wsop/

You can follow all the action from the DeucesCracked team here:

http://www.deucescracked.com/wsop

Looking to make a solid run this year! Lets hope the DC team can clean the WSOP up!

Hope all is well,
Joe

View Larger Map

Here is part one of the trip report which will be featured on WineWeirdos.com.

Will a credit rating of 600 in three or four years now be the new 700? If those who could afford their underwater mortgages start walking away, what holds for the future of those buying houses? I find it interesting that those who are paying loans that are much greater than their home value (underwater loan) are technically referred to as having Negative Equity.

Well, when we think we have negative equity in poker, what we do is fold.

I cannot blame them for folding, sure seems like the right thing to do.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Well those same microwaves are connected to your cell phone right now, the same ones are used in WiFi (wireless internet) as well.

OK OK, they are no where near the frequency to pop a bad of popcorn, but they are the same microwaves. (Cell phones use about a use a frequency of 1.452 to 1.492 gigahertz (GHz) and microwaves usually at a frequency of 2.45 GHz – source: Wikipedia)

Studies are starting to show some adverse effects of heavy cell phone use. Well, I guess if you use anything heavily, you will hurt yourself. Say you ate 100lbs of raisins? That would have to hurt, right?

Take your time and read this article: Warning, Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health.

And I am glad I emphatically use a headset, always have. I am uncomfortable with the phone near my head. In contrast have had a cell phone since 1998, actually canceling my land-line somewhere around 1999, and never looking back. For those of you that know me, I live a ‘wired’ lifestyle to say the least.

Well, I think it’s time I start shutting the phone off a bit more.

I just hope I can convince my 2 year old when the time comes!

Take 45 mins and listen to this:

All credit to This American Life : Inside Job for an outstanding program.

Find more about Magnetar and the failure of our economic system that caused the current crisis: ProPublica.org

Bet Against the American Dream from Alexander Hotz on Vimeo.