Sometimes my instincts fail me, sometimes they work out OK. The last Encore $10K for the year, they failed me in the wrong spots and with the wrong people more often than they steered me the right direction.
On the plus side, shortly before the first break, I managed to get my stack back up to a respectable size by calling down a guy on my right who was betting into me while I held fourth pair on the board with a king kicker. But the reason I was down to 5,000 in the first place was that I’d gotten myself over-extended with a similar hand against one of the hotheads from a previous game.
I managed to tread water for several more hours, always closing in on the average stack if not quite reaching it, then I made the fatal misstep that put me out. I had [jx tx] and the older gentleman on my right had something he liked. The flop was [jx 7x 7x] and we got all-in, then he flipped his aces and I was busted exactly halfway through the field. I didn’t need to go all the way with that one.
Still, one bright spot came out of the game. The entire final table chopped the money for the first nine places, which came to $1,579 each and means Poker Mutant keeps the self-appointed crown for largest prize in a $10K event in Portland since Encore went to weekly games in October through the end of the year, because they’re on a holiday schedule the next two weeks.
Hadn’t been out to D’s place for a couple of sessions, but action was already started with me only a few minutes late. Jumped right in and did surprisingly well, particularly off a game of ‘Big O’ five-card Omaha. I was up over two buy-ins in profit then it was an evil downhill slope where I lost my profit, my buy-in, and two more buy-ins before I managed to recover a little.
Four-and-a-half hours. -140% ROI.
Deuces Players Club $122 Win the Button Guarantee
I hadn’t been into Deuces since the inaugural tournament back in July. It was pretty quiet just after midnight when I got there after leaving D’s, with four people sitting around one table playing spades when I was expecting to walk into the last minutes of the first round of their 11:22pm Win the Button tournament (which I’d been interested in trying out). There hadn’t been enough players to start the tournament—and even with me they still had to wait for another—so I hung out a little bit to see if it would get off the ground. After about ten minutes GG walked through the door and we got down to business.
I hadn’t played a Win the Button tournament before, but there’s certainly an extra dimension of strategy involved, even in folding. The winner of the hand gets the dealer button moved in front of them for the next hand, and while some versions of the game rotate the blinds and just give the button player last action, at Deuces the blinds are fixed to the button as in a regular game, so consecutive wins by the same player really punish the positions to his immediate left, especially once the blinds get up there.
Early in the game I was on the BB with [7s 2s] and called a 5x raise pre-flop to pair the deuce. Another deuce hit on the turn and I kept calling. A [7x] on the river made my full house but I wasn’t abel to get any more money out of them. I flipped over the hand and was the object of much derision for the rest of the game, with some mentions that I should read the copies of Super System in the lounge area. I sort of had to laugh. I eventually ended up re-buying and doing an add-on, but several other re-buys worth of chips at the other end of the table seemed to be taking the day by the time I was out.
90 minutes. -100% ROI. Placed 4th of 5.
Encore Club Noon $1,000 Guarantee (5,000 chips)
Worked for a while on my birthday morning, then headed off to the Encore. This is one of those times when I really wish I was keeping better track of my play, but it was my birthday and I was playing mostly for fun. I’d been knocked down a bit and thought I was going to double up with [kx kx] against an ace-high hand, but the board put out four spades and with his [as] he knocked me out. I got my re-buy stack (first in the tournament) and a newly-sat player on my right pushed on the next hand. I called him with [tx tx] and he flipped [9x 9x]. My barely-higher pair held and I was up to 10,000.
That sank to about 7,400 by the first break. I picked up the 3,000 chip add-on, along with another 21 of the remaining 28 remaining players. Not long after the break ended, I got another pair handed to me and pushed up to 17,100 with [jx jx] against [9x 9x].
With no action ahead of me, I raised from from BTN with [qx tx] and got an all-in from BB. I called and he showed [5x 9x]. I made an unnecessary set of tens. On my last hand before the break I ended up all-in with [ax ax] against [ax 9x] and hit a full house by the river. That put me up to and even 30,000 chips at the second break, with 15 players left and a little more than 10% of the chips in play.
That’s where I stopped recording regularly. Three hours into the game, I was at 68,000, then back down to 60,000 (with the chip average under 32,000) when we made the final table. At the four-hour mark I had 131,000 chip, and was over 50% of the chips in play by the time we got to 3-way play. Every hand I was getting had some sort of ace in it, and I was putting the two other stacks at risk continuously. They were talking about how they were playing for second and third at that point, I was prepared to make a deal of some sort, then I shoved with [2x 2x]—the hand I’d won with in the $10K—and the larger of the two stacks decided he’d had enough and called. I don’t remember what he had, but he had enough chips that when he hit a better hand by the river, his stack was larger than mine. That caused me problems on the next hand when I shoved with [3x 3x] and got called again, because then I was out, with less than half the money I could have won from some smarter play.
Four-and-a-half hours. +134% ROI (including tip). Placed 3rd of 34.
Encore Club 10pm $500 Guarantee (5,000 chips)
Aside from the re-buy, I broke my other cardinal rule and had a drink (on the house, courtesy of S) while was playing. Hell, it was my birthday, I had two drinks. Busted out shortly after the first break.
Eighty minutes. -100% ROI. 17th of 23 players.
Deuces Players Club $122 Win the Button Guarantee
Wandered back across the river to Deuces and made it possible for the Win the Button game to get going. PO—who used to run mixed games elsewhere—was behind the desk and it was good to see him again. My second run at this game went considerably better. By the time it was down to just GG and myself, I had him at a bit of a disadvantage, and this time there wasn’t much joking about my need to brush up on Brunson, especially with me winning the button 80% of the time and a small blind representing 3% of the chips in play.
I was magnanimous. It was late, the 2:22 game was due to start in fifteen minutes, and there wasn’t that much money at stake. We chopped evenly.
Two hours. +53% ROI. 1st of 6 players.
Deuces Players Club $222 Guarantee Last Call Freeroll
I thought this game was going to go a lot differently. Not long after we got going, a player sat in seat 9 and started blowing through buy-ins. He was all-in on his first hand and it seemed like his only move was all-in. Inevitably, he’d get called and while he did win a couple showdowns, it wasn’t because he had the best hand to start. Or even a good hand. Anyway, some large stacks got made at our table because of it. I picked up quite a few and was doing well until after the final table was made, then tangled a couple of times with other big stacks and got cut down.
Deuces has been trying to run a 24-hour operation, but later in the day after I was there the web site changed to say they were only going to be open late-night from 11pm to 7am. I wish them (and everyone else in the Portland poker scene) luck with that.
One hundred ten minutes. -100% ROI. 9th of 15 players.
According to an official comment on The Final Table’s Facebook page, their $10K game Friday night resulted in a 7-way chop for over $2,400 each, which leaves me in the lead for recent pots in Portland $10K events through my 50th birthday on Tuesday.
UPDATE: Encore’s Saturday $10K chopped three ways for $3,112 apiece, so I’m good through tomorrow.
The field in the Encore $10K Guarantee I won a couple weeks back wasn’t the largest since it went to a weekly schedule at the beginning of October (there have been six events so far, with one week replaced by the Anniversary $25K Guarantee) and it had the fourth-largest pot, but with all the chops going on, my first-place $4,275 prize is the largest single prize awarded in the weekly game so far.
My Monday night home tournament got cancelled, so I took the opportunity to spend the evening at Encore, excited for a chance to finally play the PLO game at 7pm. I had some time to wait, though, and I thought I’d be dropping into the 4pm guarantee close to the end of the first level only to find out that I was just the second person to sign up. Within a few more minutes, some more players had been corralled and we got underway, with the guy on my right announcing that his plan was to take everyone out before the break.
I apparently was doing my level best to help him out, because I busted and during the second level (although not to him). With another two hours to go before the PLO game, I rebought. That got me to the break—barely—but even with the add-on I was out by 6pm. I went around the corner to get some Thai food.
90 minutes. -100% ROI. 10th of 11 players.
Encore Club Pot Limit Omaha $200 Added Freeroll (5,000 chips)
There’s something about the volatility of a four-card hand that is incredibly attractive to me about PLO but which seems to being out the crazy in some other players. I don’t think they play any crazier than I do, but they certainly act crazier, and the volume of the club Monday night certainly seemed higher than even the nights when every table is filled for the Main Events. I busted out here when my queen-high straight was beaten by a king-high, then rebought and managed to make it (barely) to the final table. My big regret here was getting shoved another king-high straight to a potential flush, I would have chopped a large pot. Instead, I ended up starting the 1,000/2,000 round after the second break with all of 9,000 chips (in the big blind, no less) or about 3% of the chips on the final table. Amazingly enough, I wasn’t the shortest stack, but I didn’t last long.
Two hours and thirty minutes. -100% ROI. 8th of 34 players.
Encore Club Shootout (30 big blinds)
I was actually out the door but the night was (relatively) early and I went back inside when I realized the 10pm game was just a few minutes off. Then I noticed a Shootout table in the back that wasn’t full and bought in. Missed opportunities was the name of the game here. I reluctantly tossed a [7h 2h] from SB pre-flop only to see three hearts roll out on the flop. The action was furious between three players, with a pot of at least 40bb built up, and a straight won. On another hand a [tx 8x] I considered after a period of card coma would have made a winning full house on the river in a large pot.
My stack had been down as far as 23bb at one point but I’d chipped up to about 40bb just before the end of time when I got [ax kx] and raised. A three-way all-in ensued, with the small stack’s pair of queens improving to a set to take down the main pot. My ace paired, beating the largest stack’s pocket kings, awarding me the 1bb side pot, which I gave to the dealer as a tip.
50 minutes. -97% ROI (not including tip).
Encore Club $500 Guarantee (5,000 chips)
Broke my rule about not buying in past the first level again (heck, I’d already broken my “no rebuys” rule—twice—earlier in the day). All I remember here is that my better ace was beaten by the ace of spades and four spades on the board for a flush just before the end of rebuy/add-on break. The table tried to rope me into a rebuy but I called it quits for the night.
Who wouldn’t be stoked to be back for the first running of the game you won the week before? I know I was. I was eager for another win and I think I probably let my excitement run a little away with my play, because I got knocked out before the end of the 50/100 round. The TD said he was stacking the table with previous event winners, but the place I lost most of my chips was to my immediate left in seat 9, where my hands kept getting beat by something slightly better, like double-paired [ax 4x] v double-paired [ax 8x] and an ace on the river that killed my pocket pair.
45 minutes. -100% ROI. 76th of 82 players.
Aces Players Club Saturday Freezeout (6,000 chips)
Rather than wait two hours for the 10pm game to start up at Encore (and after drinking some of manager S’s personal Scotch), I went to lick my wounds elsewhere, breaking a personal rule (again) and getting into the game halfway to the first break. It was a pretty quiet night, and the field was small, but I continued to do something wrong and was out before the break on this one, too. At least I saved myself the add-on for both games.
2011 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza IV Main Event (15,000 chips)
First off, if I’d had my druthers, I wouldn’t have plowed the money from my first-place finish at the Encore Club on Saturday into a single event. I’d been keeping track of tournament series throughout the summer with the plan to get somewhere where I could play five or more tournaments—probably in the $300-$500 range—over a period of days. Events in Reno, Las Vegas, Los Angeles—stuff I could get to cheaply and easily—I had them all plotted into my calendar at one point or another through September and October (a good share of my winnings from the Encore’s Tournament of Champions went into tournaments at Foxwoods when I was there in August). Big Poker Oktober at the Bike, the Pot of Gold at the Grand Sierra, Pendleton’s Fall Poker Round-Up, the Commerce Casino’s LA Poker Open—they were done as last weekend approached. The last flight of the WSOP Circuit Main Event at Lake Tahoe started at the same time the Encore’s $10K Guarantee began, so I wasn’t making that. With the cancellation of the Ho, Ho, Hold’em series at the Bike , by the time I won the event at 4am Sunday, I was down to just a couple of opportunities: I could pay an exorbitant amount of money to get a last-minute flight down to Vegas and try my hand at the Venetian’s DSE Main Event for $2,500, or I could wait until the 28th (after our family’s holiday dinner) and try my hand at the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic, where I still didn’t get that many buy-ins for my money (at $500 and $1,000 each) and where if I did manage to win enough for Prague, I’d be really scrambling to get the arrangements together before I’d need to leave on December 4th. The best-laid plans, etc.
So less than four hours after I walk out of the Encore with my winnings, I’m loading my computer bag with a change of clothes and other stuff through the TSA x-ray machine on my way to Vegas. I haven’t slept for over 24 hours. At the gate, I get called up and asked to take one of the exit row seats so they can put some family members together and I think that’ll be great because I’ll be able to stretch my legs out a little bit. I can, but I still only get manage about 15 minutes of nap time on the plane. Usually I can fall asleep before we take off.
I make it to the Venetian almost exactly at noon, get signed up for my Grazie card and then count out my $100s for the tournament entry, plus a $10 dealer bonus of 5,000 chips. Goodbye $2,510!
Table 78 is far outside the poker room, on the edge of the sports betting area. It’s Sunday afternoon in football season and the crowd noise is pretty overwhelming. I’m okay, but it seems to be bothering several of the players, including the woman seated to my immediate right (who I believe was Brazilian player Alessandra Dos Santos). It does make hearing verbalizations difficult for both players and dealers, and with some of each speaking with accents, there were several instances where dealers misheard bet and raise amounts and had to be corrected by neighbors of the acting player.
My stack went up and down at 78. A couple of times I was knocked down as far as 15,000, but I managed to battle back up over the total starting stack of 20,000. Play didn’t seem that different from card rooms back in Portland. The players certainly acted the same. I haven’t been able to place the name of a player across the table who I sort of recognized, but his frustrated manner of tossing his cards was quite familiar.
My stack was down a bit after the first break (at two hours) when I was moved to a table in the 50s, further away from the sports bet. The first thing I noticed was that there were a couple of large stacks on the other end of the table. Chips at 78 had been fairly-evenly distributed and there hadn’t been any bust-outs in the time I was there, although the board showed a number of them that must have been spread across about 30 tables in the tournament. The second thing was that the guy directly opposite my spot at the table was wearing a Nike Portland State t-shirt. And then there was a guy between us sitting on a short stack who bore an amazing resemblance to Phil Laak.
Play at this table was harder than at 78, mostly due to the influence of the large stacks. For every chip I won, I blew off two or three. One of the players—Thong Tran (who started the final table today number 6 in chips)—managed to put the screws to me at just the right times when I was a little over-extended. Meanwhile, I chatted with the guy in the PSU shirt—who said he currently lived in Vegas—about Portland. The Laak-alike—who said his name was Bob—said he’d never been to Oregon. I don’t know, he looked like Laak, he acted like Laak, but Vegas is a town full of impersonators and I know Laak’s been to Oregon. I was tempted to tell him about the high desert of the eastern part of the state, the skiiing in the mountains, the scenic north coast, and the amazing sand dunes on the central coast, but somehow conversation between us and the dealer turned to “It’s a Wonderful Life” (which the PSU guy had never seen) and “Bob”, the dealer, and I discussed whether Mr. Potter was just a misunderstood member of the 1% and excavated favorite lines. “Bob” got a laugh out of my ability to come up with “No more we live like pigs!”, Martini’s line as George is moving him and his family to their new home.
Then, on a hand when I picked up [ax qx] and raised, “Bob” went all-in. Action folded to me, I called hoping for jacks or lower but I was heads-up against [ax kx], which cost me half my stack and put me under 10,000 for the first time. With the blind levels at 150/300/25, I was under 30 big blinds and going down fast. It was a great gig while it lasted.
Instead of staying through Wednesday (when my return flight home was scheduled) and playing the daily tournaments, I rebooked to come back early Monday, dumped the second and third nights of my booking at the Imperial Palace ($20/night in combination with my flight through Alaska Airlines) and upgraded to first class after sitting on hard-ass poker chairs for so long. I couldn’t have won enough to make it to Prague, and that was the point of the trip.
I looked up the names of the 57 players who made it through to Day 2 (22% of the field, and less than half of them would make the money) and spotted Gavin Smith in third place, 2011 WSOP Main Event fifth-place finisher (and DV’s nemesis) Phil Collins, and Lauren Kling, among others. Probably plenty of other names to recognize among the other couple hundred who got booted in the first day. Only a couple of the names I looked up didn’t have entries in the Hendon Mob Poker Database.
Got into the club in time to qualify for the bonus 500 chip and started off on the black tables because of a leak behind the usual tables due to a torrential rainstorm. Table friendliness was driven by L—a bartender at Boss Hawg’s, “Home of the Hawgarita”—who was buying shots for the anyone who wanted one. Though I typically don’t drink while I’m playing (and probably shouldn’t have here), I accepted and tossed in some of my money from the weekend win. Chipped up nicely when my flush draw beat out a set of deuces and I got the first cocktail just as I was moved to another table. “Another shot!” was the phrase of the day.
I managed to stay well ahead of the chip average for quite a while, with over 40,000 chips while we were still at two tables. I lost a little ground calling smaller all-ins with my stack, but managed to push people off a couple of raises as well, including one BB I played with [7h 2h], going all-in after two hearts hit the flop.
L was at the final table and I put in for a couple of drink rounds myself, which may have led to the call I made that kept me from the real money. We were at 1,500/3,000 with just five players and I was BTN with [kh 9h] when I raised to 9,000 (a little less than a quarter of my stack) and got re-raised all-in by one of the tighter players from BB. I called him, he showed [jx jx] and I whiffed the board completely (he caught another jack on flop), which left me with one thin 1,000 chip. The player to my immediate left had been down to 1,500 in the previous level and was up over 40,000, but you did have to wonder if it could happen at the same table twice in a half-hour.
I tossed several hands until I was UTG (which wasn’t long), then tossed my chip in with what I had: [qx 4x]. Amazingly enough, I quadded up when a queen hit on the turn and I took the main pot, but I was all-in as BB on the next hand and didn’t make it any further.
Got deeper than I should have considering I hardly ever drink. Back to whatever passes for diet soda next time, I think.
Now that my attempt to get to Prague for my birthday is over (unless someone decides to donate $20,000 to the effort in the next few days, which seems unlikely) I’m looking at where to concentrate my efforts. With that in mind, these are some stats from my attempts in $10K guarantee tournaments at the Encore Club.
Date
Door Fee
Buy-In
Add-On
Total Cost
Entrants
Place
Prize Money
2011-06-11*
$10‡
$100
$50
$160
142
8
$650
2011-08-13*
$20
$100
$50
$170
139
48
$0
2011-10-08*
$20
$100
$50
$170
141
60
$0
2011-11-12â€
$10
$120
$50
$180
71
54
$0
2011-11-19â€
$10
$120
$50
$180
75
1
$4,275
TOTALS
$70
$540
$250
$860
$4,925
* Monthly event prior to October schedule change. †Weekly event after October schedule change. ‡ Discount from usual monthly door fee for frequent player card.
That’s two cashes in five attempts. On the other hand, I haven’t managed to cash once in the Aces $10K in 13 tries.
