The day had very little excitement, however. Counting all hands 45s or 46sand better, or JTo as marginally playable, I had twelve total hands you could consider seeing a flop with. I had three open ended straight flush draws early on, losing two small pots and one medium pot where I was out of position and betting down the whole way.

My table broke, and I got moved to Jim Bechtel’s right at a new table. There was one absolutely terrible player at the table, but his open limped 84 managed to beat my fourth open ended straight flush draw, and then I lost another very bizarre pot where I called his raise in the blind with 55, called a bet on the J106, then checked down the 7 and 4. He showed 73 to win the pot.

I won one hand all day, when I raised in MP with AQ, with a good player in the blinds calling. The flop was J33, and I continuation bet, getting a call. The turn was the K, and I checked behind. The river Q completed a flush draw and brought me a pair, but I made a good value bet when he checked behind, and he called and mucked.

I got no more hands until waking up with AK in the blinds, with the terrible player already raising. I just shoved him, and he asked for a count before making a terrible call with AJ. Jack on the turn and my WSOP was over.

I had a pretty tough table draw to start the day, with Ralph Perry on my immediate right, who also won a PLO bracelet the same day as me last year, in addition to Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, and eventually Dewey Tomko. Ivey played literally every pot but 2 for the first 3 hours. The first hand he folded came almost two hours into the event when the floor declared his hand dead while he was texting. I believe the second hand he folded was to finish texting. Literally every other hand saw the flop, either for a limp, a rare raise, or calling anyone’s raise from any position.

Of course, he was winning about 75% of the pots, constantly firing out bets and winning every single uncontested pot. I played virtually every pot in position against him, taking away several, and moving in on him on the turn a few times and folding to his second bet on the turn twice. We both were pretty deep when I saw a flop with KJ98 of J83 rainbow. He fired his continuation bet and I called. The turn was an offsuit rainbow K, and when he bet again, I moved in. After little thought, he called me with 33 for bottom set, a pretty tough call, and I had 6 outs. Luckily I filled on the river and would have a massive stack.

I took a couple sick coolers and a few beats in medium pots, and with Hellmuth finally at the table after arriving two hours late, we played a few pots. One of the strangest hands I’ve ever seen occurred when Phil limped, and I limped in position with A467. A couple more limpers to Mickey Appleman, who raised. I called behind Phil, as did the small blind, and the flop came A83. Mickey checked to Phil, who bet 5000 into like 15000. I moved all-in, or tried to, leaving myself 8000 behind after potting, trying to pick up the pot and get Phil to lay down his hand. It folded back to Mickey, who after thinking a long time, moved all-in. Phil went crazy, how could this happen to him again!? Eventually he said he laid down top two pair. I actually gave a little thought to laying down my terrible hand for the last 8000 but obviously had to go for it with some outs vs. anything and the pot being over 80,000. Turned out I just had the best hand, as he had KK8x with the nut club draw. I faded the king, 8 and club, picking up the nut heart flush in the process, so I would have somehow beaten Phil as well if necessary.

Same process of a few sick coolers and bad beats thrown into the mix, all par for the course when running good in the big pots, when I played what I guess was a terrible hand vs Ted Forrest. I raised the cutoff with J10106 with Alex Brenes and Dewey Tomko in the blinds, who had both been playing extremely tight. Unfortunately, Ted Forrest, new to the table, called in the button. The flop was pretty good, J86, and I wanted my hand to look fairly weak and I actually felt a strong potsize bet would accomplish that. Ted thought for an extremely long time before raising me, and not wanting to leave myself short with a pretty solid hand, I moved in. He thought for a while again, calling me with J1087, about as bad a situation as I could be in. With only 3 real outs in the deck, I put a sick one on Ted and rivered my set of tens. I felt like absolute shit after this, feeling like I had been playing terrible and obviously not deserving of my good fortune. I stepped back from playing pots for a while, actually feeling like WINNING may have put me on tilt. Taking bad beats has little effect on me, but playing badly hurts me a lot. So I stepped back, spent some time text messaging with a close friend about non-poker.

The table eventually broke, and I moved to a new one. On the second to last hand before the day ended, I took a sick cooler with AKKx suited, raising in late position, but being dead against AAKx when I was pot committed to call his shove. Fortunately on the last hand I made a real great play with a very marginal hand to move my stack back from it’s now 75k mark to 125k at the end of the day, good for above average.

The second day was pretty steady until getting into the money. I flopped the 2^nd nut flush and also hit top set with my KKxx double suited, but obviously ran into the nuts. Then I misplayed a hand vs Patrik Antonius, reading him for weakness only to have him move in on me. I doubled through him a few hands later when real short with AAK7 double suited, but when down to 25 players I moved over the top of David Chiu’s pot raise for a full pot-size reraise with T876. He thought a while and called with kings, flopping a set and ending my tournament on a flip.

 I hovered right around my starting chip total for the first 3 hours, and had about 15 big blinds left when the antes finally came into play. Unfortunately I had to go through a stretch of folding 38 consecutive hands at that point, always facing 2 raises with 6 high. Not much I could do. Down to 1600 chips at 100-200 with an ante, I moved in with A4, looking at just the ace, and spiking to double vs 1010. Next hand I raised it up with AJ, missing the flop, but shoving against the bb who called and then followed it up with a weak lead.

I didn’t play another hand until the blinds went up again, this time to 200-400. With just over 13 bbs, I moved in with AQ from the cutoff, and the small blind once again woke up with aces. Luckily the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha is finalllllly here. Looking to get it done over the next 2 days, with that and the $1000 NL Rebuy!

Neither happened. He had the aces. The board came good, with QJT, but I didn’t get there. I ended up raising it up with A10 under the gun, getting a call from the big blind who I have played with quite a bit. He plays very strange and often quite poor, but he knows that I know that he knows etc and so on. The flop came Q42, and I put out a continuation bet, which he called. He would put me in here with a real hand unless he flopped the nuts, but when he checked the 5 turn, was pretty clear he didn’t have much, and I fired another bullet. He called, and checked the 8 river. Now he pretty much has to fold when I fire 1000 of my 1600 chips into the pot, but no, he calls with A2o. Didn’t think he was poor enough to call my UTG raise with that preflop, or make any of those calls. My bad I guess.

From 600 chips I stole a few times, pushing allin. The AA guy raised UTG to 150, another guy called, A2o guy made it 650 from the button, and I went allin with just ATo, smelling weakness, for like 900 total. He obviously called and showed his wonderful K4o. The flop came KKJ, but there was justice in the Q on the river. I then doubled again, calling a raise preflop with KJ behind a caller, and moving in for 2x the pot on the K953 rainbow board, getting a call from K6. I then doubled again when I flopped a flush in a 4-way pot, betting and receiving 1 caller. I bet again on the turn, got raised, insta-shoved, and got insta-called by a 7 high flush.

Unfortunately, with between 5000 and 6000 chips, I went with the three-barrel bluff play on Aaron Been, raising with KQ, and continuing on the AJ5 flop. He called, and I fired after he checked the J on the turn. He just called, and when he checked the river spade, I moved allin for essentially a pot-sized bet. I was pretty certain where he was at, and he had to have a decent hand that couldn’t be that strong considering the action, likely AQ, which I didn’t think he could call me with. We had some history, playing in the top 4 of the headsup championship at the Mirage, and I think he knows the way I play, so I went with something abnormal. He went into the tank, with another player eventually calling a clock. With time ticking down, he announced he was calling since he had the Qs, and his AQ was good.

I would take seven pretty sick beats in levels 2 and 3, getting as short as 1,200 chips, before slowplaying a couple big hands and getting my chips back. I won a pretty huge 6-way pot with AA, and was nearing the 7000 chip mark. Level 4 finally rolled around, and my KK ran into the BB, who defended K5. He flopped a flush draw, some bets went in, and he got there. I then lost another pretty large pot with AA to Nicky Frangos, who defended 104 and hit two pair. My two pair didn’t hold against his own AA, and I was down to 1100 chips again.

In the cutoff, I raised 66, and the BB, an absolutely terrible female player who was running incredibly well despite her horrible play defended. The flop was a nice AJ10, and she check-called. She reluctantly check-called the 10 on the turn as well. 300 of my final 350 chips went in on the river Q, and she just called. Q4o. Cute. The end.

In the $2000 No Limit Hold’em, I was off to a really hot start, building up to what had to be close to the chiplead despite feeling incredibly ill feeling forced to play in the 100 degree heat of the tent Harrah’s disgustingly provided for excess players. Ready to leave the tournament and try to feel better after getting to 45,000 in chips, more than the “in the money” average, I took a sick beat on the river with a set and had been hovering at a little above average for a while.
 

On my final real hand of the tournament, I opened for 1300 at 200-400 with AK UTG+1, early position. Rolf Slotboom tanked for over 3 minutes before being forced to whisper to the dealer that he was all-in, raising my 1300 chip bet to over 13,000 chips, with the 89. I wrote a blog detailing this hand, as it was obviously pretty frustrating to bust from the tournament, but more than that, it is soooo frustrating to lose to one of the worst plays you’ve ever seen in your life. Rolf is apparently a blogger for pokerpages.com and I guess does some writing for CardPlayer Europe? I’m not entirely sure his background, but he responded to my blog in his piece, which I will take the time to address now.

First he addresses the fact that I am unable to handle my loss, and then asks how good or great players can complain about someone playing terribly and beating them. If this was a cash game and I had a player who played as bad as Rolf in it, I wouldn’t say a thing. Ever. Obviously I would want them to remain in the game and keep feeding me their money. The terrible beats would obviously frustrate me to some extent, but over time, I would get all that money back from their bad play. Tournaments are similar in some ways, in that over time I am going to have a lot of success playing really strong poker and the bad players will get lucky here and there, but it evens out. Anyone who has actually played tournament poker knows that getting knocked out of tournaments isn’t fun. You can’t rebuy and are just out, while the person who played awful to get all your chips now suddenly has great equity. Even if you play really poorly, if you have a ton of chips and are overly aggressive, you have a decent shot at success in the short term.

Now to address the actual hand and his perceptions. He says that I played a bit overaggressive and had a tendency to overplay big cards. This probably comes from the fact that he was unable to pay any attention to the actual game, as he may have noticed that I had raised the fewest pots of anyone the previous two hours, only opening 3 total pots. Clearly it’s good for me that he had no idea what was going on, as it led him to make this horrific play in a spot where I likely have JJ or better, or AK. If he had been paying attention to the game, he would have me labeled as the tightest player in the game, but luckily he had me pegged as the loosest. Should work out pretty nicely for me! He says he was trying to push me off a hand like AJ or AQ, and obviously his 13,000 chip raise would accomplish this. However, he could have also done this by playing well.

The hand was folded to Rolf in the small blind and he had mid-suited connectors. This is a pretty good hand and plays well against overcards, but it also isn’t the best hand to play out of position, especially against someone who you feel plays pretty well. So that leaves him with three real options here. The first would be to fold it, which isn’t really advisable considering how deep we are and the fact he could get me to pay off a lot of chips with a hand like AA if he hits the flop well. So the other two options would be to smooth call, or put in a reraise to try to get me to fold a hand like AJ or AQ. Had he put in a normal size raise, of course I would have folded those hands, so it accomplishes the same thing as moving all-in, but it saves him 10,000 chips, more than average at that point, when I have him just completely crushed, which will usually be the case.

So he had two real choices, to call and see a flop, reevaluating then, or put in a reraise and react to whatever I do. He decided to make up a third option, what he claims in his blog to be a signature move, to go all-in for 35 big blinds. As I’ve said before, this is one of the worst plays I’ve ever seen in poker. It shows little to no understanding of the game, and is basically conceding the fact that you don’t know how to play and can’t win if you let skill get involved, playing flops or small ball poker. There’s a reason the vast majority of the best players in the world get involved playing a ton of small pots and building up their chips. It takes the most skill, but it’s also the most profitable. When your signature move is putting all your chips on the line when you can’t be ahead and hoping to get a fold or get lucky consistently, it means one thing. You are bad at poker. You don’t understand the fundamentals and you have a lot to learn and probably a lot to do before you try to play in real tournaments.

Whether Rolf is actually a decent player, I have really no idea. I asked many other players about him, both Dutch and American to try to make sure it wasn’t a bias, and they simply laughed. Apparently he has been playing this style for many years and the consensus is that he is just a really bad poker player. Apparently his real game is Pot Limit Omaha, so maybe he just has no understanding of no limit hold’em or just tournament poker in general, but I’ve also heard that the way he plays PLO is also incredibly wrong and ill-advised. I have never seen him play this game, so I won’t be commenting on that here.

To say I can’t handle a loss, however, is beyond ridiculous. Obviously I’ve been doing this for some time, and never for a second would I claim that I’m not going to be frustrated, and possibly angry when a donkey eliminates me from a tournament with a horrible play that gets rewarded. It’s a sick feeling you get when things like that happen. Going bust to a bad beat is something that happens more often than not. It’s really not a big deal, and despite the fact I won’t be happy as it happens, I rarely remember it an hour later. It’s when someone makes a play so outrageous and terrible where it really sticks out. This was one of those instances.

He claims that he creates lots of renewing strategies, and hopefully that is the case here. I have not seen any other players taking to the Rolf-method and moving all-in in terrible situations and hoping against hope for laydowns in early levels or to get lucky. Possibly the readers of his material have given it some thought and realized it was really just beyond bad. For those who are still considering it, however, hopefully this blog will help save you some money. Should be back in action over this weekend, will keep you all posted.

I had what had to be the best table draw in the room. Of the seven other players, five clearly didn’t even know the rules, one was completely trashed, and the seventh played the game fine. This was an amazing spot to be in. Unfortunately, my A236 would keep running into the up-cards of KJ and couldn’t get them to fold. Of course I would brick out and their eventual 9 low would be good. I played 19 hands, winning 3, and taking 16 sick ones. I got to play extra hands since I think I got maximum value out of my best hands, and lost the minimum when I got sucked out on.

I don’t think there’s anything else I could have done. This was clearly not my day, and atleast it got to be a short one. Being dragged through an entire day of Razz to get sucked out on when the big money is on the line has been a terrible feeling in the past, so I guess there’s a bright side!

Next two days are great tournaments, $2500 NL short-handed, and then the $5k Heads-Up Championship and a chance to improve on my 2^nd place finish in last month’s Mirage $5k Heads-Up Championship. Hopefully a chancef to break through this year…

I played the next 90 minutes terribly. We were forced to play out in a tent in the 108 degree Vegas heat in a place that smelled worse than the average barnyard. Despite having twice average in chips, I attempted to get a refund to simply leave this horrible venue, as I was feeling incredibly sick and liable to pass out at any time due to the heat. I limped into the first break with just under 6000, and after my table broke, I got moved to a different area in the room that was atleast a little bit cooler than the first table near the glass doors.

I picked up AA, reraising a limper outta the SB, and only the BB came along. The board came KJ high, and I got paid off pretty well by his AJ. Shortly after I raised KQ, getting one caller. I continuation bet the 1096, and he raised almost the min. I decided I’d try to take it away later, just calling. The turn was a nice Q, and I decided to just check-call this time around. The river was a J, completing a flush draw, and I checked. For some reason he opted to bet huge, 5k, and I had to call with my straight. He had flopped the nuts with 78, although I have absolutely no idea why he would make such a bad bet on the river. Worked out nicely for me though.

I chipped up to over 30,000 in chips at this point, still in level 3 at 100-200. When the antes came around, I made it 700 to go from EP with 33, getting 3 callers who all had position on me. The flop came 2310, and I fired out a pretty good 2000 chip bet. Next 2 folded, and the last man remaining in the hand shoved me. I was, of course, forced to call, and he had made this terrible play with 810. I have no idea why he called preflop or why he made such a terrible play here, and things were looking good as I would be at over 45,000 after the A on the turn. The dealer held the river card up in front of himself for a while, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t just ridiculously slowroll me, but that was the case. K. Sick.

Not much went right after that. I picked some good spots, but I isolated an allin shover after 3 people called my initial raise in the 200-400 level, and I lost the flip getting nearly 3:1 on my money for another 16k or so pot. I chipped back to 14,000, when I opened UTG+1 with AK to 1300. It folded around to the SB, who went into the tank, and I mean really went into the tank. Three minutes passed without him doing much of anything besides quietly move his mouth, apparently doing math. He had only played one hand in the 4 hours I’d be at the same table as him, when he open shoved his button for 50bbs with K7, sucking out on AQ. He whispered something to the dealer, who made him repeat himself twice. I asked the dealer what he had said, and he said “the player says he is allin.” We were within 1 BB of each other, and he reraised my 1300 bet to 13,500. I instacalled, and it took him 30 seconds to finally realize he had to turn over his 89. He started screaming like Mattias Anderson of the 2005 WSOP final table, telling the dealer to concentrate on 8s and 9s. I asked the dealer to please not reward the moron just one time. That would not be the case as the donkey kong got there and I was out.

 (EDIT: According to the coverage, apparently Kong has a name:

Rolf Slotboom of Card Player Europe somehow managed to get all his chips in the middle pre-flop with 98 and was met with AK. He knelt on his chair beside the dealer and leant right over the table, urging the dealer to deal low cards. )

If either of these huge hands had been even decently played, and I just happened to get unlucky, it would be one thing, but I was really playing fantastic and to lose to people who are just simply that bad, I dunno. It’s a disgusting feeling. Guess I’ll be back at it tomorrow, although I’m considering taking some time off and leaving Vegas for a while.