The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

Not going to go into the details of this one. I made a good call early on and doubled up, then got cut down to a quarter of the starting stack by the same player. Worked it back up, got the add on, then ran jacks from the small blind into UTG limped kings and busted in three hours.

TJ was wrong @FinalTablePDX JJ < KK duh pic.twitter.com/NFV6Z2uZU6

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) November 24, 2018

Did a last-minute buyin to the nightly Ignition Casino $5K NLHE Turbo. It was down to 200 players from over 500, with 90 playing, and the big blind was up to 1,600 (on a 10K starting stack). Got it in on the second hand in a 4-way all-in pre-flop with J♠ T♠ and made the best hand on the turn with two pair, but a Broadway draw got there in the river.

Played a $7 buyin Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go for the first time in a while and immediately got a 5x $35 payout table, then took it down by knocking out one player and having the other lose his connection (I went into heads-up with a 5:1 advantage anyway).

I wrote this back in June and never put it up, Figured I’d better get it posted before…you know.

Something the Sat Dragged In

I made a quick trip down to Vegas over the weekend that may be my last for the summer, since it didn’t go so smoothly.

I headed down with one of my co-workers, Ben, who was seeing the WSOP for his first time.

We got a room at the Rio, since we just had a couple of days, getting into town at 7pm on Friday. We got a Lyft to the hotel, got checked into a room  in Masquerade with Trump’s hotel in the middle of our view, then headed down to the floor, where we immediately ran into Kevmath. After a brief chat I hustled over to the cage to buy into the evening’s $585 Mega Satellite, I made it all of 40 minutes until I bet my pocket tens that were good to the river when A♠ K♠ made a backdoor flush.

Ben and I headed over to the Strip, starting off at Planet Hollywood, where I introduced him to the Mutant Poker Original Friend of the Blog Brad Press who was enjoying some cash game action.

We walked up the Strip checking out the Friday night crowd, as Ben displayed for me his strategy for winning at video roulette, then headed back to the Rio.

Saturday morning we headed down for the 9am WSOP $185 Mega Satellite, where Ben made it about halfway through and I busted 17th, with 8 places paying $100 cash and three $500 tournament buyin lammers. The single-table satellites were going off all around for the Millionaire Maker, but they also ran a satellite for that afternoon’s Eight-Game Six Handed bracelet event, and eager to play some games I don’t get a chance at at home, I jumped in. Amazingly enough, I was (a distant) second in chips by the time we were down to three players, but I ended up going out third.

Ben headed out on his own adventures most of Saturday, ending up in a small tournament at Treasure Island where he chopped for what would be the only cash of our combined weekend. I headed to the Venetian Deepstack Poker Championship $40K GTD NLHE Survivor hoping to pick up one of the $3400 payouts. I wasn’t the only one, as my table had a couple of pros I recognized. Over at another table was Carlos Welch. When I came back from break, I had the scare of my life, as another famous name walked past my table, I thought he was looking for his seat, but he was on his way out.

OMG Kassouf just walked past my table looking like he was looking for seat #unlucky?

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) June 10, 2018

Played a couple of games on WSOP.com, then did the Mega Satellite again on Sunday morning. Busted out of that, headed to the Orleans and jumped into a tournament there.

You say there’s time for some PLO8 @OrleansPoker before I go home? Well, okay then. pic.twitter.com/F5RkDteQTw

— Poker Mutant (@pokermutant) June 10, 2018

I guess I’m lucky that I busted, because even though our flight (on the wretched Spirit Air) was an hour late Sunday night, the game still hadn’t hit the money by the time we were originally scheduled to take off.

It has been standing room only in LAS Terminal B for hours, flight to PDX at least an hour late, OAK flight still in Oakland waiting for crew (3.5 hours late). pic.twitter.com/xOjCinJG7a

— Trying to quit you (@darrelplant) June 11, 2018

So that’s probably Vegas for me for this year. I think trying satellites was the best strat—any one of them would have made the whole trip even, and the big one on Friday would have been fantastic (with a $50 cash payout and $5K in lammers). On to the next attempt.

The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

I’m trying to make the most of my last couple months of poker, so while I’ve reserved my Saturday afternoons for stuff at home since Portland Meadows initiated their noon $10K GTD NLHE tournaments (at least when I haven’t been on a poker trip), I’m trying to cram them in.

I got there not long after the start of Round 1, and promptly managed to lose 6K of my 25K starting stack to a very nice Russian lady on my right when she flopped the wheel and I turned a flush draw and made two pair on the river after raising 4♣ 8♣ under the gun.

I managed to chip back up from that and a few other bad choices with K♠ 5♠, after I turned the nut flush. A low fifth spade on the river made me worry for a minute about a steel wheel, until I realized that my five blocked any straight flush.

That was about it for success, though, as far as my stack went, though I did crack the table up with a joke about Neil Diamond tickets. I clung on with a couple of shoves, pulling out a chop with Ax Jx v Ax Kx when the board double-paired. I went into the third break with half the starting stack. I ran it back up to 32K, but the blinds were eating big chunks out of my stack, there were several big stacks at my new table, and I went card dead, picking up absolutely nothing where I had two cards both above eight.

Eventually, on a button raise against my big blind, I shoved 4bb with 6♥ 5♠, got called by Ax Tx and busted on the flop. Out 32nd place, 17 from the money.

The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

The plan for the weekend was to bink the Friday night Final Table $10K GTD NLHE,then  fly to LAX for the LA Poker Open $500K GTD NLHE Main Event at Commerce Casino in the morning.

We were playing short-handed for a little bit with Bourbon Bill dealing, me in seat 6, Ron in seat 2, and Tony S. in seat 8. We’re having a pleasant enough conversation and game. Then Darren sits down and starts Darrening it up.Eventually this blows up into a hand where I raise 9♥ T♥, he reraises, and we go to the flop. 9♦ 8♥ 7♥. I check, he bets, I reraise, he goes all in, I call and he has 8♦ 7♦ but I’m still 60% to win the hand with any heart, two nines, three tens, and three jacks and three sixes (discounting the hearts of each rank). Needless to say, the turn and river are black and a queen and king. So I’m down to 3K but still have 30+ big blinds.

I manage to chip back up, doubling once through Darren when he calls my top pair with his flush draw and misses, and picking up some other chips with a couple of shoves.

But Darren is still my downfall just 80 minutes into the game. He’s Darrened off most of what was two starting stacks and shoves from middle position on my big blind. I have jacks. The small blind calls his 3400 all in, I shove my jacks, Darren shows deuces, the small blind calls with aces, and while I get a gutshot draw on the flop (Qx 9x 8x) I’m just covered and don’t rebuy. Tomorrow’s the $10K at Portland Meadows.

Made myself a Chocolate Syrup Bourbon MIlkshake when I got home.