Touch Keyboard>Release Frustration

Well, this is my first post on a "blog". What the fuck is a blog anyway? Where did that name come from? Someone told be it comes from web log. Wow, clever. Cyber-geeks really went out on a ledge to get that name. Well, me being the ADD kid I am, as well as having no profiles or connections to any of the social networking sites such as WhySpace, Facebook, etc. it is no surprise that I have never kept a blog or anything of the sort. But I figure it may be time.

I am just figuring that if I can get my frustrations out here, even if read by no one at all, just having them floating around in cyberspace may help me in letting it go.

Just thinking about the gripes some of my playing comrades have to hear. Especially my buddy Lance. He is a good friend when it comes to playing poker and discussing strategy (i.e.-obsessing). A guy who over my playing-life has been the main recipient of my gripes about Donkey plays, remedial math-idiots and standard degenerate gamblers. He has also been there for my best moments, such as final-tabling in November 2007 at WSOP Event #5 out of 221 players in Nawlins and chopping with 4 of us remaining for $14K, cashing at my first ever WSOP Event at 28th out of 511 players in May 2007. He was also there to listen to me when I was ready for ritual-suicide in New Orleans at the following WSOP Circuit Event #3 held in November 2007. This Cat was also on the periphery to witness my wonderfully sick rush in the Tampa area cardrooms from September through December 2007.

Headed to New Orleans during an exceptionally rainy South Louisiana winter to the WSOP Winter Bayou Poker Challenge in 2007. Poker is both so beautiful and twisted at the same time and on one particular November day, it was such that my only wish was to be fucking tied to a freighter and keel-hauled in the Mighty Mississip through the entire Riverwalk portion of Downtown Nawlins. Yes, it was Lance who purchased the now famous "Talisman" from some old lady in a Voodo shop when we were walking through the Quarter that week. Yes, it was Lance who had to hear my rants about the "Old Man" as I referred to him (turns out this "old man" was Howard "Tahoe" Andrew - winner of not one but TWO bracelets during the 1976 WSOP and who has been cashing in WSOP events since I was riding my fucking Big Wheel!) who had a monumental suck out (yes, a true one-outter) against me while deep in a WSOP Circuit Event #3.

Well, this diary is designed for me to vent, so I might as well talk about this. Played in Events 1, 2, 3 an 5 as well as playing (most of) the night in the very fun (and happily full) cash-games at Harrah's that get spread there when the World Series comes to town. I love the WSOP Events in New Orleans, especially since my first experience in May 2007 there was such a good one. Before I even left Florida, I KNEW I was going to make a final table while there.

Let me set it up. Well, I had been playing really well in event (#3)-a $550 buy-in event with 187 players. By the time we had arrived at the 100/200 blind level and I had over 14,000 in chips! I mean it was sick, we only started with 2,500 so I had quintupled up pretty early. I was playing very well, making good reads and most notably trapping my ass off. Well, deep in the tourney we were at down to 4 tables, at 600/1200/200 ante level and I was the dominant chip leader at my table sitting on 69,000 chips or so when in an unopened pot, everyone folded around to me on the button and I look down at two black QQ. Well, of course I throw in pretty standard raise of 3775. Small Blind folds and then the Big Blind, this "old man" re-raises all of his chips!!!! (fucking Howard Andrew-how was I to know? I mean the guys looks like any normal 76 year old! I play in Florida for Christ sake!) Well, the only thing I did not like about is was that he was 2nd in chips at the table with about $38,600 or whereabouts. But, instantly my brain starts to decipher the move; if this old man had AA or KK, would he re-raise all his chips (against me, the big-stack no less)?? With nobody else in the hand? No fucking way! If he was that strong, he would have re-rasied me, but not so much that he would have run me off. Bottom line, he thought I was on a standard button-steal and he was just trying to take the pot down right there without even having to see a flop. IF I had been on a steal, that is exactly what would have happened.

But boys and girls, as we know, I actually have a hand. So......I snap-called him and he says, "That can't be good for me."-turns over JJ. I in turn reveal my QQ and going to the flop I am a solid 4 to 1 favorite.........or so I thought. The clown to my right in the cutoff (and he WAS a clown), says to me, "Bro, you're in good shape, I folded a jack." Well, let me just say from that moment on, I hate when people tell me what they folded and I now NEVER do that to anyone before the ENTIRE board is ran out. So lets get this strait. Now with the new revelation from Fat-boy, I am now a 9-to-1 favorite going to the flop. He can only catch one Jack to beat me barring some miracle 4-flush or J-7 strait. Well, what does the dealer throw out there on the flop???? Thats right, the CASE JACK! I am stunned, never catch up in the hand ad double up the only player at the table who can really harm my stack. So that sucked. I during the next orbit, picked up AA right behind the Clown who jinxed me with that "I had a jack" comment earlier. I am sitting directly to his right and he makes a standard raise of 3x the BB. I re-raise all-in because I feel he will for sure think it is a steam-shove and that maybe he will feel I am still annoyed with his big mouth. He calls. With 33. What?! haha. Wow bro, nice hand! So, you are no better than a coin-flip to beat any hand other than 22? For your tournament life? And you still called? Good play. I am a 4-1 fave going to the flop. He fails to hit his miracle trey and I knock him out. Bye-bye. I say it again and again, know your odds, statistics and most importantly, your opponents dipshits!

About 2 orbits later I am getting short and blinds are getting huge. I was still steaming re the JJ cracking my Queens hand against Howard Andrew and with A10 Dimes I open shoved (bad-play I know) and got called by this Euro-dude who is holding AQoff. I catch a beautiful 10 of spades on the turn and double through him. He then goes on steam. Starts ranting about my turning that 10 for like the next orbit. (Funny side note, later that night I was playing in the 2/5 cash game and he sits down at my table and we proceed to GO TO WAR because he remembered having me dominated but resulting in me still dragging a double up pot through him with that turned 10. So he began laying for me in the cash game. Needless to say I snugged-up in the cash game when in a pot with him and took quite a bit of "steam" chips off him. He was a good guy though. French guy-accent and all! Thats just poker. Two guys going to war, nothing personal. Fuck that, deep within the psychological warfare that goes on during a poker game, it is always personal!!

So anyway, back to the WSOP tourney event #3, It all ends uncerimoniously when I end up getting short on chips with 27 players left and I put my short-stack at risk against Matt Brady (very good pro) with 8c10c when I flopped middle pair with an up-and-down strait draw. Well I had to push with that hand at tat point with my chips. I never caught up and I was out! Oh the dreaded walk of shame! oh, the horror!

So I went back to our kick-ass suite on the 20th floor of the Hilton Riverside right across the street from Harrah's and proceed to wake Lance up from a nice long nap and melt down to him about getting beat by that case jack when I was in such good position. Typical stuff I say when mad, like I am not playing in any more events, etc! Well, Lance listened too me and straitened me up quick and told me that I WAS going to stop being a pussy and get my ass in the event tomorrow regardless. Well, I did. And that ended up being the best poker experience (as well as biggest cash and highest profile finish)of my poker life. A poker life filled with pretty good results for someone....I digress. Will not reveal when I started playing. Got to keep that one secret.

So I decide the time is now, since the rain, cold and shitty weather would have prevented me from any outdoor alternatives. I register for Event #5, another $550 buy-in. Of course I ate my traditional New Orleans pre-game meal of a lucious Ham Po Boy from Mother's! This, it seems has become a tradition for me. I want some Debris!

The tourney ended up having 221 players in the field. What a day this would be. Not much happened during the early stages of this tourney, some good and some bad. At dinner break Lance is still as well and we still had 6 tables left. I wanted to go to Mother's (again! I am superstitious!) and get a Shrimp Po Boy but Lance wants to roll to Ernst. Ernst is good shit too so we roll, I get a shrimp Po Boy and all was good. Oh by the way, right before dinner break who gets moved to my table but Brandon Cantu. 2006 WSOP bracelet winner and all around uber-aggresive player. He is in Seat 3. I am in Seat 8 and have been for quite some time. We will have our paths cross big-time later in the night. I had been card dead for some time as well. Just being patient and surviving. Ten a nice little hand right before dinner break. Under the gun, I squeeze out AA and decide that I need to get paid for this hand. So I limp in praying for someone to raise. Well, this hot little asian chick in seat 10 obliges and raises. It folds around to a shortstack in seat 6 and he raises all in. BB folds and I move in over the top to shut the asian hottie out of the pot. She folds. He turns over Kc6c. I felted him. Dinner Time! Hour and a half to find some food in the greatest culinary city in the South. Shouldn't be a problem! During supper, we have a nice cocktail and toast to a final table in the near future. We come back from break and quickly break down a table. 50 players or so, still prodding along. So ok, I already have Brandon Cantu at my table and then they move Dan Schmeich to our table, another bracelet winner! So 2 at my table. Great. I also had a really nice guy to my left forever at that same table. Later realized it was Mark Ellerbe, a fairly capable amateur with some nice cashes.

Well my first huge confrontation has arrived. Brandon Cantu has been outplaying a lot of players at my table since dinner. Outplaying them after the flop. With a lot of marginal hands. you know, pro stuff, hehe. I was just sitting there card dead,but suspecting larceny time and time again watching him drag pot after pot from the several weak players at the table. I knew what he was up to. I told myself early that if I was going to play a pot with him I was not going to let him out-aggress me, I was going to take it to him if I was in a good spot and got the chance. So he has been coming in light all night so when he makes a standard raise in middle position, it folds around to me and I look down at QQ. I decided to come over the top of him and raise all in. It folds around to him and he calls quickly. I say, "damn, that was fast, maybe you have me." He turns over AK and I fade al the outs as he picked up a flush draw on the turn. So I have now just crippled one Mr. Brandon Cantu. He would later go out with 3 tables to go.

Shortly after that Lance goes out (4 from the money, in 31st place) and we play down to 27 players. "Juice" Lipscomb, the tourney director/announcer and a childhood frind of my buddy Benton (Thibodeaux in Da House!). Well juice announces we are breaking and redrawing tables. I am excited about the redraw. I had been in the same seat for 5 hours. Go to a new table with Jason Barnes (sorry, Bro if you are reading) on my left and took 2 nice pots off of him. I manage to win a few pots here and there and we break down to 2 tables. I draw seat 1. And what a beauty seat 1 would be. Ended up felting a guy who UTG moved in for his stack, I looked down at KK and snap-called. Jason Barnes (not quite a buddy, but definitely a rival who plays at my local cardroom. We have had many battles) was in Seat 3 and he thought for a long while and said he folded QQ (I'm still calling BS on that Jason, no way YOU fold QQ pre there. A good player, yes. You, I dont think so). So Player UTG has AQ off and I show down KK. KK holds and I am flush with chips and the entire tournament chip leader. A few hands later I would felt a guy with a shortstack out in 12th place when he raised all in with K-high and I snap-called with 10-10. I was a 2.5-1 favorite. It holds. We play until 1:30 am and finally get down to 10 players. We break for the night and I an a close second in chips bagging up 65,600 chips. Chip leader on has only 1,000 more than I. So we are told to be back (on the big stage) tomorrow at 4.

Final Table: I dont want to get into what I did prior to showing up to that Harrah's and the WSOP final table, but I was in a good place mentally and was ready to take the thing down. We resumed play at 1,500/3,000/400 Blind Level. I will say this final table started crazy and I quickly established myself as the action player at the table. I was not going to sit back. And that is exactly what these guys decided to do. I am in seat 8 by the way, and I have Mark Ellerbe to my left, I had him to my left all day yesterday too so we know each other's game well. Two hands in and Seat 5 moves in for around 28K. I look down at QQ and re-raise all in. Ellerbe goes into the tank and ultimately folds AK. Wow, big fold. I wish he would have called. OG player shows 66 and I table QQ. I proceed to flop QUADS and he is gone! I am far and away chip leader with 93,500 chips. Another one bites the dust! Very next hand, Dude that was 2nd in chips with 66,000 would raise to 9000. I look down at JJ and reraise to 22,500. He re-rasies all his chips and now I have a decision. Well I called, he had AQ vs. my JJ. He would flop an A.. I wish I had flat-called him pre and then that A would have allowed me to easily get away from the hand. So he doubles through me, becomes the tourney chip leader and I am down to 30K and in trouble. Honestly, I had not even gotten the chips all stacked from the previous pot I collected. So I played a lot of hands here and took advantage of how tight the squeezers at my table had been playing! I made a living out of moving-in and survived by opponents folding their hands to hands I held like As10s, 55, 88, AJoff. A while goes by and I have built my chips back somewhat. We are down to 4 players and of course the chop-talk starts. With Jason Barnes being the most vocal about splitting up the remaining purse. Well, no deal made yet and Jason shoves (sitting to my right) all in, I look down at AK and snap-call him. He has 9s10s. He turns a 10 and doubles through me. What sucks is I had him covered and we would have been down to 3 players, with my clearly playing the role of the table captain, driving the action.

After the brutal loss with the AK, my situation is not yet dire, but I am now the shortstack at the table. So keep in mind, I have been openly jamming all-in on these guys a lot. So, 4-handed ad first to act I peek at As9s. Now what happened was I had a slight hesitation to consider my options here. At some point in my deliberation I became aware and I knew that all the other times I moved in on my opponents I did it reasonably quickly. Well, I wanted to move-in again, but I felt I took to long to think and thus gave away a tell that my had was not quite as strong as prior I had made the same move with (not necessarily true) but I felt that it was a matter of time before I got called down. But these guys were playing so passively it was ridiculous, we are 4-handed at a WSOP Circuit FT.......PLAY SOME HANDS NITS!!!!!! So I fold. Basically, this hand may have cost me the whole tourney (instead of a chop) because Jason and the chip leader got into it and I would have flopped trip 9's. NO!!!!!!!!!! Fuck. Wish I would have shoved on hat hand in hinsight, but I amde wht I thought was a good and smart fold there. Oh well, timing is everything in life. Anyway, we chopped it up soon after. We agreed to give $22K to the Supernit chipleader. This guy failed to realize he was actually winning $22K, but was going to have to pay taxes on the listed 1st lace finish. Have fun paing taxes on $34K while only getting $22K Nibblenuts! The remaining three of us took $14K each. I got listed as 4th place because I was 4th in chips after Jason sucked out on my AK! Not a bad score.

I will not get into the details of how sketchy chopping up $60,000 in cash was. Despite me asking Jason to assist us with the chop, Harrah's and the WSOP could not by law be involved with a deal made between players. I understand. I asked Harrah's to give us a private room to divide up the money, it was the least they could do, and they did. Arguments arose (mainly because the guy Carl was a total whack-job). I am going to share something with you. I took the $14K in cash and walked right out on Poydras, crossed the street to the Hilton and went to the room. I know, I know I am a sicko.

Anyway, I had a great time and although that tournament was a while ago, I wanted to share it on here to my peeps (translated-geeks) that were not out there with us. If I could relinquish my workaholic geologic ways, who knows what damage I could do in this game! Luckily I have plenty of legit local cardroom and some not so legit games to crush.

Maybe someday I will share the Summer 2008 trip to Vegas Lance, Benton and I made where I played in a few Ceasar's Mega-Stack Series, Deep Stack Extravaganza's at the Venetian (Cashed, 37th out of 511, damn), and the killer Rebuy Tourney I almost final tabled in at the World Famous and very history riddled Binion's Saloon in downtown Vegas!

One thing I am sure of in playing any number of versions poker; is that a lot of so-called"players" really do NOT understand how to play. I mean really. They FUNDAMENTALLY do not understand betting amounts and the mathematics involved in the game nor do they they always know the correct play to make given the situation and pot they find themselves in. Donks do not understand position and they most certainly can not figure out why calling off their chips is monumentally different than shoving your chips in first! Gap Concept anyone? I know, I know, what's that you say? Any of you Donkeys ever hear of Sklansky? I didnt think so!

This blog is solely for me to vent, rant, bitch and give my opinions about the "plays" I see "players" (i.e.-bad ones) do in the many cardrooms I frequent. I am sure that 99.9% of it's content will consist of me on a VW sized soapbox about my experiences during poker sessions/tournaments where some donk-ass motherfucker who I have just masterfully trapped into pushing their whole stack into the middle drawing dead against me, only to have some shithead dealer (sorry dealers-you know I always forgive eventually!) spike a 2-outer on 5th street for the hero-donk! I usually have the edge in any pot I am splashing around in, so it does not happen too too often, but when it does, I want to have someone to bitch to! Even if it is just cyber-air.

Those who know me and especially those who play cards with me, know how intense of a person I can be, so maybe it is a futile enterprise, but it is my hope to release some frustration with this blog. I mean, after all, I am really lazy so there is a great chance that I just stop writing at at some point anyway.

Laters,

Gregorio