This One Hurts

I arrived at the casino cool, calm, and confident. I slept well last night which is unusual for me the night before a big tournament. The atmosphere was very exciting with around 230 players but many big names like Ivey, Forrest, etc and ESPN production everywhere.

I got a hideous draw. I was sandwiched between John D'Agostino (who plays super high stakes cash games as well as most big tournaments; just got 3rd in the WPT Borgata) and another guy who plays super high stakes but few tournaments named Cong Do. About five minutes into the event I reraised a late position D'agostino raise with KK (he called and we checked the flop; I won it with a bet on the turn). After that my cards went to shit and I sat back and watched the table go bananas over and over and over.

Even though we started with 400 big blinds players were repeatedly finding ways to get their whole stacks into the pot. Whenever I had anything playable I missed the flop badly and was down to about 16k from the 20k start before I made a huge wild bluff that may have been the most exciting hand of my life.

With the blinds at 50-100 UTG and 2nd pos both limped and an old guy in late position raised to 300. D'Agostino called and I reraised to 1550 with K2s on the button. My reasoning was that the old guy did not have a big hand because he had been raising harder with big hands, D'Agostino did not have a big hand because he just called, and the early position guys did not have much because they were both the type to raise it up in any position with anything decent. Also I had been playing quite tight because the crappy nature of my cards and I had not made a reraise since the very first hand I mentioned. I knew everyone would put me on AA or KK. Everyone quickly folded to D'Agostino who called. I was not upset at all about this call; I assumed he thought I had KK or AA and that he could break me if he hit his hand, which I thought was probably a pocket pair. The flop came J43 rainbow and he checked. I bet 2500; he studied for a while and called. I was deeply concerned he flopped a set here because like I said, I thought he thought I had aces or kings. The turn was the 4d giving me a flush draw which I thought was probably useless anyways now that the board paired. I quickly checked after he checked. The river was an offsuit six and he checked again. Now I knew he did not have a set as he would certainly have bet it. I now started to think he probably had 65 suited (openender on flop) which now beat me. With so much lying in the pot I decided to bet 4000 feigning a value bet with KK or AA. In retrospect I probably should have bet more like 6000 because of the pot odds I offered him that I could be making a bluff with a hand like AK. He immediately said "dammit" and then thought for about three minutes before flinging in a crying call, ready to muck his hand. I turned over the K2 and no one at the table could believe it. D'Agostino had pocket nines.

This left me with only 8k but I am still proud of the play. Just about every player at the table told me they put me on AA or KK and everyone was impressed. A couple hours later Cong Do told me he respected the play quite a bit and it showed him that I was a player. The hand got quite a bit of discussion throughout the day as everytime I entered a pot someone would ask if I had K2 again.

I got all the way down to 5k before gambling with 67s and more than doubling up against a maniac after the flop came 642. A bit later I had KK in the BB but everyone folded to D'Agostino in the SB who just called. I made a solid raise and, not surprisingly, he called. The flop came QJx and he check-folded. A short time later I had AA on the button and decided to smooth call when UTG raised. The flop came KQx and he check-folded.

After a missed flop or two I was at around 10k when early position raised my 200 BB to 700 and got two callers including D'Agostino in the SB. I called as well. The flop came T94 and everyone checked. The turn was a 4 and D'Agostino bet 1500. I had about 8k more at this point and went deep into thought about my options. I wanted to raise to get rid of the potential draws out there but I had a short enough stack that raising would cripple me if D'Agostino or someone else had a 4 which I was very concerned about because it was a four-man pot. Finally I decided to smooth-call the bet and was relieved when the others folded. The river was a 7 and D'Agostino quickly checked. I was now almost certain I had the best hand and needed to make a value bet. It dawned on me that going all-in would look like a bluff and D'Agostino had already revealed himself to be a Sheriff having called me with his 99 on the earlier crucial hand and another guy with K high another time. I pushed in.

D'Agostino immediately declared that he knew I was going to do that. He went into the tank, talking it through to himself and the rest of the table while I sat motionless staring at the felt. I was dying for a call so I tried to send off false tells. I stiffened my body, blinked a lot and kept trying to convince myself that I was going to be out of the tournament if he called. D'Agostino kept talking about what a sick call it would be "just like the one I made at Borgata." He also said "that would be sick if you had 87" and "this just reeks of queen-jack." Finally after about four minutes he threw in the call with either ace or king high and I turned over the AT. D'Agostino mucked, said "nice hand" and then immediately put his headphones on and cranked up the volume.

OWNAGE. Boom! Just like that I was back to 19k and feeling great about the tournament. With only 3o minutes to go, confidence swelling, and a new table draw coming at the end of the day I was feeling fantastic.

About five minutes later I picked up AK and raised two limpers to 1500. Cong Do then made it 3500 behind me and the others folded to me. Now I heard two voices arguing in my head.

Voice #1: He obviously has aces or kings. You have not gotten out of line today and he knows that. If he was making a move or he had queens he would raise bigger. He is raising small because he wants to sucker you in. Fold this and move on to the next hand.

Voice #2: You have AK! That's a big big hand! How can you possibly fold for only 2000 more! Call and try to hit that ace or king!

I eventually called and the flop came KJx. Really I did not want to see that king. I wanted the ace because that would almost certainly give me the best hand. When I saw that king I heard another voice screaming that I was about to lose the rest of my chips. Unfortunately that voice was muffled by the top-pair top-kicker staring me in the face and I checkraised all-in. He had aces and that was it. I am so pissed off right now for playing great all day and then blowing it all by not listening to my gut when it mattered. Cong Do is actually the chip leader of the whole tournament at the end of day 1 with 99,975. He got AA and KK twice, KK against QQ, and AA against my AK and busted the other guy all 4 times.

I saw a couple "WHOTW" nominees at the table today. WHOTW aka Worst Hand of the Week is going to be a weekly blog feature starting this weekend. I may also start a "Play of the Day" feature. Play of the Day for today was my AT double up against D'Agostino (one of the proudest moments of my poker career).

Of all the crazy things that happened today the weirdest of all was that pokerwire.com was reporting my chip count throughout the day. I have no idea why they did this. I am an unknown player having never cashed in a major tournament. I don't even know how they knew my name. My best guess is it was easy to report my count since I was sitting next to D'Agostino who had a camera in his face all day long and got my name from the casino's seating chart. Still I am befuddled and amused to see this on a website that gets pretty heavy traffic:

54 Mike Matusow $15,300
55 Phil Ivey $15,300
56 Kenna James $14,500
57 Thomas Koral $14,000
58 Richard Cohen $12,500
59 Michael Saltzburg $11,300
60 Tom Fuller $11,000
61 Alexandra Vuong $10,000
62 Steve Zolotow $9,200
63 Layne Flack $8,500
64 Barry Greenstein $8,000
65 Cyndy Violette $4,800
66 David 'The Dragon' Pham $4,025

Despite the bad result this may have been the most fun I have ever had playing poker in a casino and I cannot wait for the next 10k event. The banter was hilarious at times (especially Bobby "I AM PROFESSIONAL" Chung) and the discussion of play was stimulating. Unfortunately I will probably not play another 10k event until Foxwoods in November unless I sneak off to Vegas in a couple weeks (very unlikely because it is during Canterbury) or Indiana for the WSOP Circuit (an intriguing possibility that I could add on to the Minnesota trip). My game is improving by leaps and bounds and I get better with every one of these I play.