well, as you can probably tell from the title, i played both the 10k plo event and 25/25nl cash today.  so clearly, i busted out pretty quickly from the 10k plo.  i don’t mind my play for the most part, just bricked a lot of everything.  i potted/called a pot reraise in position with KJT9ds and bricked.  later i 3bet the most aggro guy at the table with TT99ds and ran into aces so i called his 4bet and bricked the flop.  later i hit a flush under a flush and lost some more chips… just a lot of crappy situations.  meh, so it goes.  i definitely could have saved chips by playing some of these hands less aggressively, but if i just hit one of the big hands, i double up and get a healthy stack.  so it goes.

anyways, after i busted i went and sat in a 25/25nl game which was super-juiced.  i played for 4 hours and made 14k, so a solid session if i do say so myself.  the money definitely didn’t come easy though.  there was some guy named john who i guess won a wpt back in 2005 or something.  he lost a big pot and then started raising every single hand.  one hand i complete the mississippi straddle, two callers, CO makes it 250, john calls, and i make it 950 to go with red kings.  CO calls with 2k behind and john calls with whatever BS he has.  i have 7k total at the start of the hand.  the flop is a beautiful AQ5 all spades… i freeze up and check, putting the 2k guy on AQ, JJ or TT, and I’ll fold if he bets because he isn’t going to bluff with the pairs.  he checks and john bets 2500 into the 3k pot.  i put him on bs suited connectors preflop (or offsuit, who knows) so basically GG if they’re spades and i ship in the 6k.  he mucks quickly and i pick up almost 5k on the pot.

another hand john opens to 250 when we’re 8 handed and i pop it to 800 in position with ATo.  this gets a lot of respect i think b/c i’d only repopped twice before, with kings when it was shown down, and with QQ which didn’t see a flop.  we were playing pretty straight-forward due to john being insane.  anyways, the SB, the same guy from the last hand, cold calls 800 with 5k behind.  John folds somehow.  the flop comes JJ2r and SB check/calls 800.  turn is a T, check/check.  river is a 3 and SB now bets out 2k.  i couldn’t put him on a J since he cold/called 800 preflop, and i didn’t think he was really value-betting QQ here so i figured it was KK, AA, or something retarded, possibly AQ or AK bluffing now.  since he was obviously pretty bad i called and he turned over 99 which made 0 sense whatsoever, but i scooped the 8k pot, so ship it.

last fun hand i played right before i left - straddle on the button again, limp limp MP makes it 350, i flat with AQss and the SB overcalls.  the flop is KJ7ddd, checked around.  turn 3h, checked around.  river 5h for a final board of KJ735ddd, and MP bets out 700.  I call, SB mucks 99, and I win vs MP’s ATo.  Talk about thin calls

Anyway, after that the game got kind of bad, the donkey busted and John left, so I just picked up and went home with a very healthy win.  I’m chilling back at the DC house and I think we’re going out to a movie tonight, so until then I’m just gonna relax and unwind.  I might head down to Bellagio to play the 2k tourney tomorrow, depends when I wake up I guess.  That’s all for now.  Later!

Yesterday was sort of a weird day.  I woke up after 4 hours once again and couldn’t get back to sleep, so it was one of those tired hungover feeling days, despite not drinking.  This is something that’s happening to me as I get older - I start to get hungover when I have two or three drinks the night before, and I guess I sometimes feel hungover without even drinking at all!  So I was sort of groggy and sat at the table in the dining room/computer room in the DeucesCracked house just reading 2p2 and playing mid stakes HU for a bit.

I won 2 buyins after some guy did the anti-hit’n'run, also known as the “insta-quit” which is where they make some terrible call that’s sort of embarrassing, and then instantly leave so they don’t have to look at the table anymore.  In this hand, I 3-bet J9o and he called and the flop came J92dd.  This was actually the first time he finally defended to one of my 3-bets.   So I bet 140 into 200 and he called.  The turn came a 5d and I had about 950 left behind with 480 in the pot.  With 3 diamonds up there I decided to jam it in to try to represent AdXo or whatever, so I jammed 950 into a 480 on the J925ddd board.  He thought for 10 seconds and called with 9To no diamond, drawing dead.  So yeah, he did the insta-quit.  It always comes after I do something sort of unconventional and thoroughly own someone’s soul, so it generally makes me feel good and boosts my ego a bit.  This was no exception.

Ego intact and flying high, I rounded up some of the jews to go play some bball down at 24 hour fitness.  Chuck and Jay came and the three of us met a group of punk high schoolers who were too cool to play defense and generally very mediocre at basketball.  Only having three people, we acquired two of said high schoolers onto our team and proceeded to play 3 v 5 every time we had to play defense.  We lost the game and it was just really shitty.  We had waited long already and had to get back soon so we didn’t have time to wait for another game, so we left after the shittiest basketball session ever.  But wait, just before we left, we discovered that one of these high school punks has actually stolen Jay’s wallet.  Some searching happens and after a while, we leave, dejected from a trip that can only be described as epic fail.

The rest of the day was uneventful I s’pose.  Or really I just have to leave to go to my tournament now (10k PLO holla).  But basically I sweat 5x 6max final table for a bit, had my ESPN interview which hopefully they air during the ME coverage, gambled for a little bit, and had a pretty quality dinner at Delmonico at the Venetian.  All in all, the second half of the day was much better than the first, and after my first good night’s sleep in 4 days, I’m ready to go crush some live donkeys in PLOmahahahahaha.   Wish me luck!

if y’all follow the world of online poker news, you’ll know what my post title is about.  and stevesbets, if you ever find me and you get done with dogishead, i’ll challenge you to HU as well.  i’ll just challenge the whole damned world right now; i might as well, seeing how this thing with neverwin never panned out and i just want to be able to feel again.

the past two days i have busted not one not two not three but four tournaments.  i busted the two wsop’s in timely fashion, going out in 45 minutes and 1.25 hours, respectively.  that left me plenty of time to go deep in the bellagio events both days without cashing (which is annoying considering i have all my own action in those and the one tonight was 110k for first).  i ran up a big stack early, making two full houses and getting paid off on one of them.  then i was card dead for the entire day, and then anna wrobleski thought AJ was the nuts vs my first three-bet in forever with a stack i can never three-bet bluff with (24BB).  of course, it was the post-flop nuts so not much more to say about that.  i went down to 2.5bb, ran my stack back up to almost average, and then made a very questionable UTG shove when i was down to about 14BB.  we were 8 handed and ppl fold way too much live so i thought i’d get called by 99+ but 88 and 77 would fold bc they dont want to flip and i shoved utg etc.  so only 6 pairs would call me and blah blah i dunno it might be a fold.  anyways i ran into kings and that was that.

ive been somewhat enjoying playing tournaments actually, which is probably why i go about these masochistic undertakings.   but i’m taking the day off tomorrow so i can be good to go sunday for the 10k plo.  i’m doing an interview tomorrow evening with ESPN - i think they’re going to do some sort of feature on me when they air the coverage for the series.  or maybe just an interview or whatever it is, not feature per se, but whatever it is, hopefully it will be some good espn face time, which is always good for business.  they wanted to do it today but i made them wait because i had bags under my eyes due to lack of sleep today.  luckily they waited because i’m just that baller (lol donkaments?)

in other news we have some elves living in the DC house.  we leave treats around and they come and steal our treats.  it’s frustrating but i think keeping the elves happy is the most important thing, so i acquiesce.  if you don’t know about the elves, it’s probably just better that way.

in unrelated news, some crazy guy has been sending me crazy pms on 2p2.  he said some crazy mean things and then asked me to hang out when i explained the misunderstanding i guess he had with himself, at which point i just thought he was crazier.  i might post the pms anonymously but i’d have to go through and edit out his relevant info, so i don’t know if i have the time or energy.  not right now anyways.  but you know who you are, crazy guy.  so stop involving me in your insanity!

ok i’m out for the night.  peace!

i haven’t played online in a while so i thought i’d donk around a bit at stars 5/10. i 2 tabled this guy for about 1.5 hours, he 3bet like a madman and i would call to spike a pair but i never hit a pair, so that was frustrating. i sucked out once, hit nice turn/river cards for stacks twice, got sucked out on or coolered 5-6 times, and owned him 10-15 times for a grand swingy total of +4k.  it was sweet, i still got the touch. stupid windows vista doesnt save hh’s unless i remember to run as administrator which i of course never do, but i still have this one gem of a hand. note: i had not called down a single 3 barrel of his yet (i think he only did it twice all match) because his 2 double barrels i called down (and then caught on the river for one, folded the other) appeared to be huge hands. but this was sweet.
PokerStars Game #18277369282: Hold’em No Limit ($5/$10) - 2008/06/21 - 02:15:52 (ET)
Table ‘Carme’ 2-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: suckoutqueen ($5347.50 in chips)
Seat 2: hvete ($1000 in chips)
hvete: posts small blind $5
suckoutqueen: posts big blind $10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to suckoutqueen [9c Ks]
hvete: raises $20 to $30
suckoutqueen: calls $20
*** FLOP *** [2h Js Td]
suckoutqueen: checks
hvete: bets $50
suckoutqueen: calls $50
*** TURN *** [2h Js Td] [Ad]
suckoutqueen: checks
hvete: bets $140
suckoutqueen: calls $140
*** RIVER *** [2h Js Td Ad] [7h]
suckoutqueen: checks
hvete: bets $380
suckoutqueen: calls $380
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hvete: shows [Kh 4s] (high card Ace)
suckoutqueen: shows [9c Ks] (high card Ace - King+Jack+Ten+Nine kicker)
suckoutqueen collected $1199.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1200 | Rake $0.50
Board [2h Js Td Ad 7h]
Seat 1: suckoutqueen (big blind) showed [9c Ks] and won ($1199.50) with high card Ace
Seat 2: hvete (button) (small blind) showed [Kh 4s] and lost with high card Ace

Yawn, this is getting pretty boring. I have accepted neverwin’s challenges to a HU freezeout so many times it’s unbearable.

Here’s the BS he posts on his forum today:

“She just jumped into my 25-50 plo game and I asked her when we are going to play that hu match. She replied, “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” I told her I am ready to play whenever she wants. She then began insulting me saying she would have to see the money first. Then proceeded to say that I am over 500k in debt. LOL. Get your facts right before you come in talking smack to me. Before she abruptly left we semi agreed to a 20k freezout, and she said she preferred online. No other details were mentioned, so I will clarify here.

First since you have to see the money, I will now only play you live, so that you can see all the money I have in front of me with your own eye. Yes, Vanessa you will be able to see all the money you can potential win right in front me, and you may salivate over it like you do with your girlfriend’s p****. Only difference is it will be much tougher for your tongue to get a hold of, but I promise you it will taste just as sweet.

So here are my stipulations and since you have no class, I will show no class with u as well. If you want to be civil and act appropriate, I will too, but so far you have shown no attempt whatsoever.

My challenge will be 50-100 nl, 20k freezout. Loser has the option to ask for a rematch as many times as you desire. I will also throw in 50-100 plo 20k freezout option as well. Terms of a bigger freezout may be negotiated later, but I am ready to play whenever you get back to vegas.

I would also like to video record the match if you agree. However, I am sure you will decline just to save face and embarrassment. So now the official offer is on the table. You claimed I backed down, because I never responded on 2plus2. I do not have an account there. So here is my challenge for the world to see, im ready whenever, lets see who backs down now. Bring it!

Neverwin”

and my response:

“jesus, I have accepted his challenge so many times it’s annoying already. he asked me whether i’d rather play live or online and i said online. he agreed, then when i hopped out of chat, he said he’d only play live.

dustin, i will play you live, but i’m not wasting my time or anyone else’s for 2 buyins. we can play 25-50nl for several 20k freezeouts, or we can do 50-100 for 40k freezeouts. it’s not about the money, but i don’t want you luckboxing this too quickly. so assuming you can get that money together (your choice of which stakes), i would be more than happy to play you.

i get back to vegas on the 26th in time to play the shorthanded event. since i have events scheduled almost every day, the best time would be while the main event is going on. if i have time before then, perhaps we can do it on an impromptu basis, but i can’t make any promises. if you would like to schedule, let me know what day you are playing the main event and i’ll register as well. we will pick a different day and make this happen.

i will not stoop to visit your joke of a site, so have one of your degenerate scumbag posse alert you to this post. and if you have more random stipulations as a result of this, which seems to be a trend, do me a huge favor and just stop wasting my time.”

it’s getting pretty old at this point but if you guys see that scumbag lying in a gutter somewhere, let him know i’m waiting for him if he ever wants to actually play poker, like, for real money and stuff. i’m not gonna waste my time hoping anymore.

Well, I made another deep run for 3 consecutive tourneys with deep runs.  The first was the $2500 where I finished a disappointing 34th in a field of 1400 for a cash of $14k.  The very next tournament I played was the PLO, and then the next after that was the $10k HU event.  Last year I finished 3rd in this event (when it had a 5k buyin) to Dan Schreiber, who went on to win his HU matches and take down the bracelet.   This year I face Alec Torelli in the semis and I got most of my chips in pretty good with one more card to come (he was drawing to 11 outs), but alas, it was not to be.  I can’t be too upset because I delivered some brutal beats to get there (most notably winning with J9 vs John Snipes’ A9 on a T62r board in round 1), but those beats just hurt so much more when they cost you $300k or something in equity.   Not to mention costing me the shot to take the lead in the player of the year race and be the first person this year to win two bracelets.  But I don’t have much to complain about given that I made it to that chance in the first place, so I’d have to say that overall I’m pretty damned psyched at my recent success.  And everyone else, my friends, everyone from DeucesCracked… they’ve all been so cool and supportive, so that’s really nice.

I was out in Vegas for about 10 days and because I went deep in everything, I didn’t have any time to play very many tournaments.  So I played 5, cashed in 3, final tabled 2, and won 1.  Sustainable?  Probably!  I’m home right now - it was Nora’s birthday on Tuesday and I have a family member’s wedding shower on Saturday.  Then on Wednesday I have a softball game (I have missed so many for the WSOP and I love my softball team and playing in the league).  I’ll fly back to Vegas early Thursday morning, in time for the 5k 6max event.  I’m hoping to manage to play 5 more tourneys with similar results and hopefully take down player of the year =)  In all seriousness, I’ve been talking about how well I’ve been playing in live tournaments in the past 6 months or so and for a while I couldn’t get anything together… I felt like I was running extremely poorly.  So it feels good to keep playing well and I feel like things are finally coming together for me.  Also, I think I’ll have an even bigger advantage with more name recognition because I feel like as an unknown, I couldn’t get players to lay down marginal hands vs me.  As someone who commands more respect, I’ll be able to make them fold A high and maybe even 3rd or 4th pair (wow!) out of fear, and then I’ll be even more unstoppable.  These are my hopes, anyways.  Wish me luck!

Ship the bracelet in the $1500 PLO event.  I was chipleader most of the tournament, and got there with some solid play and a few key suckouts (including one where I shoved with KJT7ss on a J82ss board and get there with the running K J vs Men’s AQQ9 with nut spades).  Here is the write-up of a few of the key hands from the final table that I did for a cardplayer piece:

Hand 1:

This is on the final table bubble and the table is playing extremely tight.  There are only three players at the table willing to raise with anything other than AA - they are Thom Schultz in seat 10, me in seat 5, and Tony Phillips in seat 8.  We have been basically folding around with the three of us stealing the blinds for the past half hour; the player in seat 7 has 2 big blinds and is very obviously going for the 8k pay jump between 10 handed and the final table.

Thom Schultz raises UTG to 20k with about 160k in his stack.  I have 600k and KJ98ddhh and decided to repop it to 70k.  I do this because everyone is folding basically everything that isn’t AA and if he does decide to play some sort of run-down type hand (or if he has AA himself) I have a hand that is in pretty good shape.  But I expect Thom to fold everything other than AA here.  Well, out of the blue, Tony decides to re-re-raise the pot, which makes it about 240k to go.  At this point I’m absolutely sure he has AA (but of course I don’t know what his side cards are).  My hand, hot and cold vs. aces, runs at about 42-45% equity, and I’m getting 2:1 to make the call at this point, as he raised th epot.  In a cash game this is an immediate call (and he has another 190k behind, so i’d be getting 3:1 to call that off and there are many flops I will see where I have to call) but in a tournament, I had a big decision.  I had to determine I wanted to risk my tournament life on a marginal play and subject it to luck.  I decided that Tony was the 2nd best player at the table and quite aggressive, and if I folded he would have me outchipped with position on me going into the final table, and this was not something I wanted to happen.  Additionally, if I called and lost, I’d still have 160k and be a small stack but not completely short… so I’d still have a shot at real money.  But if I called a won I’d eliminate a dangerous player with position and I’d have half the chips in play at a 9 handed final table and a very good shot at the bracelet.  So I decided to make the call.  The flop came down 8h 4s 5s, which is not exactly how I wanted to hit the flop, but at that point I had to call the all-in getting 3:1 with about 40% equity vd AA.  I called and spiked two pair on the river to take down the gigantic pot and eliminate the 2nd place player.

Hand 2:  Now we’re down to 3 handed and I’ve been chipleader throughout this entire tournament, including day 1, until this moment.  I have just doubled up both players - one with a pair and a wrap to his aces with a flush draw and one with a small full house when he had a bigger full house.  I’m down to about 600k in chips and my opponents both have 800k.  My image is terrible, I’ve been bluffing like a madwoman  (which is usually the correct strategy with the initiative in a PLO tournament where people generally play way too tight postflop with so few big blinds).

The button folds and I have JT73ss in the big blind.  Jamie Pickering who had been playing extremely tight, especially in the blinds, raises the SB.  At this point I really put him on big cards.  Anyway the flop comes down Q92dd and he bets out the pot.  I decided to make the call, intending to bluff if I hit a diamond and hopefully double up if I hit a straight, as those outs are more disguised.  With blinds of 10/20k and a raise to 60 pre, the pot was 120k and he bet full pot.  I was committing a lot of my stack to call but I knew I had a lot of favorable cards.  Sure enough, the turn was the 3d and he checked.  Against some players you’d have to be wary of them having a flush (and of course it’s always a small concern) but just observing the way he bet his made hands and hsi draws, I strongly felt it was a made hand.  Anyway, he checked, and I bet 170k into a pot of 360k, which was more than enough to make him fold what he later told me was AA.  By betting that amount I put him to a push/fold decision out of position while only committing half of my stack if he happens to have diamonds.  It also looks like I’m milking him.  In retrospect, I probably could have bet even less.  Also, he later told me that if any non-diamond comes he was potting, which means I had 6 cards to double through him as well.  Pretty sweet situation and it demonstrates th epower of position in PLO.  In my wrap+straight draw hand where I doubled Stan up, I had to check/shove my draw due to position.  If I had been in position, I could have played the hand more passively and stood to gain or lose chips in a far more optimal way (lose fewer, gain more if i hit).

Hands 3 and 4:  These were the two KO hands vs Stan and Jamie respectively.  I group them together because they’re similar, in that I only got so many chips in these hands due to my aggressive bluffy image.  In both hands the respective stacks were about 20 big blinds.  I don’t remember the numbers of the bets, but when I raised preflop I raised to 2.5BB, creating a 5 or 6 BB pot, and then bet 4 and get shoved on for about 14 more.  In the first hand against Stan, I raised preflop with Ah 4s 5d 6s on the button, and Stan called out of the BB.  The flop came down JT8sss, and he checked.  This is what I’m talking about when I say people play too tight relative to their blinds.  I only have a 6 high flush, and a lot of players would be scared that another player has a higher flush so they would try to control the size of the pot.  But I recognized that with 20 BB’s, I’m destined to go broke in a flush over flush situation.  Since Stan knows I like to continuation bet, I figured my best chance of making money vs a straight or a set is just to bet and have him commit his chips right there.  If I checked I think it would actually look fishier an dI wouldn’t get paid off; not to mention the scare cards that could fall against a set (or two pair!).  So with that in mind, I bet 2/3 of the pot for 4BB’s with 6BB’s in there, and he pot raised me all in for a total of 500k or so.  The blinds must have been 12/24.  He showed down As Qh Td 8h, for bottom two pair.  That was a very weak holding for such a ridiculously coordinated board, but I think he was playing against my aggressive image and he probably didn’t give me enough credit to realize how crazy a board that would be for me to bluff on.  In any event, he was drawing to only four outs, which is one of the best situations I can get into in PLO, so that was a very fortunate way for me to take him out.

The final hand was less noteworthy but also involved me getting paid off due to my image.  I limp/called the pot witih Jc Js 9c 2d and the flop came down 7c 8c Ts, so I flopped the nuts w/ a flush redraw.  Jamie checked and I bet 90k into a pot of 144k, and he jammed for 400k total or so, maybe a bit more.  He held AQT9, for top pair with a gutshot to the nuts and an OESD.  If I could be betting two pair on the flop when he checks, he is in very decent shape with overcards and the OESD, but given I had the stone cold nuts, he was drawing very very slim (to 2 outs minus my redraws), and once again I was in amazing position considering it is PLO and you almost never get your money in that good.  So luckily my image came through for me and I was able to hold up in those hands and take down the bracelet!

i actually, for the first time in my life, lost my username and password for the site.  and i hadn’t entered an email into my profile so i couldn’t update my blog.  but have no fear, I’m back for real now, and I plan to write.

i’m currently in video production mode, working on my new series, hoodie wars.  when i get a chance and feel like taking a break, i’ll be stopping by here to update about the bellagio cup series a little bit (including my 2nd place in the women’s event and experience there as well as my blow up on day 2 of the main event in which i went from a double average stack to busto in 4 levels.  fun times!) and maybe some other stuff as well.  hopefully i will get to his before saturday, as i’m taking off for greece with family for a week!

back to the videos, for now.

I’m trying to bring some things back in my life that I used to take a ton of care to do - for one, keep up on the news in the world and politics and all that.  I just started using google reader, which is amazing.  You add a ton of blogs that you like and it lets you know when something new is posted there and instead of going to multiple websites, you just go there and catch up on everything.  If you have any good blogs that I should check out (along the lines of dailykos, gothamist, overheardinnewyork, or stuff white people like) please do drop a comment and let me know.

Also, I’m back from LA and in NYC and for a month and a half in a row… so I’ve started hanging out with friends again.  This is amazing both in and of itself, in that my friends are pretty great, but also because they can tell me about all sorts of funny shit that happens in the world that flies over my head.  Like the Sarah Silverman/Jimmy Kimmel youtube vids - props to my friend Rachel for letting me know what’s up.

Poker is whatever, I’m stagnating between having a lot of fun and being pretty damned bored.  I’m excited for season 2 to come out - Emil and I did some basic PLO stuff which should be a good addition to the site.  I have another PLO series already made but I think I’m going to wait until season 4 for that one and incorporate some cool HU and/or coaching stuff with members for season 3.  All musings and ideas, again, so stay tuned.  In the meantime, to keep myself interested, I’m posting objectionable points of view in strategy posts on twoplustwo, and playing a bunch of mid stakes limit O8.  I might start playing some more live in NYC in the upcoming month, have to see if the mood strikes.

Oh and I’ve made the decision to head to Yale in the fall, which means leaving NYC for the wonderful town of New Haven (blahhhhh).  So I’m foregoing the summer in vegas and spending my last precious moments in Brooklyn.  Can’t wait!  A ll these plans… I’ll try to remember to keep up with the interesting poker hands as they arise.  Until then…