The Steinhorn Stare

We’re a couple hours from the start of Day 4 of the 2007 $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event, and Jason Heidema is still doing great. As I’ve been doing the past couple days, I’ll continue providing real-time updates of his progress (at least as real-time as he’ll give them to me).

While the tournament starts up again at noon, here are some updated statistics (based on my calculations) to catch you up:

• The tournament started with a total of 6358 players one week ago, and is now down to 337 players
• Every remaining player is now guaranteed $39,445, with the winner getting $8.25M
• The average chip stack for the remaining players is a bit above $374,000, median stack is about $321,000, and the chip leader is Dario Minieri, with about $2.4M in chips (Dario has about $900K more chips than the next nearest competitor)
• With $205,000 in chips, Jason is 231st out of the 337 remaining players, putting him above about one-third of the field

For those who don’t play a lot of poker, let me put something into perspective. While Jason has below average chips right now, things change very quickly at this point in the tournament. Not only could someone with over a $1M in chips get knocked out in one or two hands, someone with a chip stack like Jason’s could easily win a couple big hands in a row and quickly move up among the chip leaders. Not to mention that one of Jason’s great strengths is playing this part of the tournament and in this situation; he has an amazing ability to get selectively aggressive and to put together a good run of strong plays to put himself right back in contention with the big stacks. I’ve seen him do it a number of times, and am looking forward to seeing him do it again today.

That said, I just took a look at Jason’s table for today, and he’s up against some amazing poker talent. While many of these people may not be household names, I recognize and/or know most of these guys, and to make a long story short, the total tournament winnings among Jason’s eight table-mates is over $6.4M.

Here’s the specific lineup, including chip counts (and links to each player’s previous tournament success):

  Seat 1: Mark Weitzman   $155,000
Seat 2: Randy Holland    $400,000
Seat 3: Kevin Howatt     $145,000
Seat 4: Jac Arama          $366,000
Seat 5: David Levi          $262,000
Seat 6: Thomas Barnard  $596,000
Seat 7: Allan King           $400,290
Seat 8: Mark Ellerbe        $434,000
Seat 9: Jason Heidema   $205,000

I’ll continue to post updates right here as I get them…

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Update (11:57am): Things are about to get underway and cards should be in the air shortly. I spoke with Jason for a while this morning, and after briefing him on his table and letting him scream “F***!!!” a few times, we held a strategy session and realized that there are some bright sides to this tough table. If he can pick up a couple hands in the first hour of play, hopefully it will be another long day. If not, he’ll have to rely on aggressive play and good reads to get him past the next couple levels. Regardless, it sounds like he’s ready.

Update (12:55pm): Just sent Heidema a text letting him know that eliminations were going very quickly early in the day (I probably get better info from the WSOP blog than he gets by being there, unfortunately). He texted me back letting me know he’s at $255,000 in chips. No more info than that, but at least he’s moving in the right direction.

Update (1:05pm): End of Level 15, and players are on a 20 minute break. Jason is getting a good feel for his table, and is pretty comfortable. He’s at $240,000 in chips, and has the button to begin the next round. Level 16 has blinds of 4000/8000/1000. Don’t know for sure, but I believe enough players have been eliminated that the payouts have increased to $45,422.

Update (1:50pm): As reported on the WSOP blog, this hand occured just before the last break at Jason’s table (Jason wasn’t involved):

   David Levi Rivers a One Outer
David Levi was all in with K-K against Kevin Howatt’s A-K. Howatt flopped a Ace and was ahead until Levi rivered a case King. He won the pot with a set. His stack increased to 350,000.

Unfortunately, David Levi isn’t the guy at the table you want getting lucky and accumulating chips.

Update (2:25pm): Just got a quick text from Jason. Still in the $235,000 range. He also mentioned that Seat 6 (Thomas Barnard) just lost all his chips to Seat 7 (Allan King) on a huge bluff, and now Allan King has over $1M in chips. I guess if anyone at your table has to have a huge stack, you want it to be a guy on your right (chips tend to flow around the table clockwise) who doesn’t seem to have a lot of experience. Hopefully Jason can take advantage.

Update (3:15pm): Folks - I’m very sad to report that Jason’s run at the World Championship is over. After the chip-leader on his right came in for a pre-flop raise, Jason looked down at pocket tens, and had to seize the opportunity. He pushed all-in, his opponent thought for a minute and called with AKs. A king came on the flop, and unfortunately, Jason didn’t improve on the turn or river. He went out in 226th place, earning $45,422.

From the WSOP Blog:

   Jason Heidema Eliminated
Jason Heidema moved all in for 150,000 with 10-10. Allan King called with As-Ks. The flop was Kh 6d 2d and King took the lead. The turn was the 3c and the river was the Ac. King’s hand held up as Jason Heidema headed to the rail.

CONGRATULATIONS HEIDI ON AN AWESOME RUN!

This is a continuation of the thread about Jason Heidema, my good friend who is getting ready to start Day 3 of the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event. Here’s how things currently stand (based on my calculations, so take it for what it’s worth):

• After completion of Day 2 for all players, there are currently 797 players remaining in the tournament
• The average chip stack for the remaining players is about $160,000, median stack is about $134,000, and the chip leader is Gus Hansen, with just over $620,000 in chips
• With $212,000 in chips, Jason is 199th out of the 797 remaining players, putting him right about the 25% mark
• 621 players will make the money today, and I estimate we’ll hit that milestone around 4pm, give or take
• The minimum payout for 621st place is $20,320, with a top prize of $8.5M

Play starts at noon today, and I’ll be updating this thread throughout the day with any new information or status. Feel free to check back periodically to see how Jason is doing…

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Update (12:15pm): Cards are in the air. Day 2 ended with 37 minutes left in Level 11, with blinds at $1200/2400/300. Play will continue for the next 37 minutes before blinds and antes increase again for Level 12.

Update (12:55pm): End of Level 11. Jason was able to increase his chip count to $240,000 in the first half hour. Level 12 has blinds of $1500/3000/400.

Update (2:28pm): I haven’t heard from Jason since the beginning of Level 12, but with about 30 minutes left in this level, the field is down to about 675 players. Again, the top 621 make the money.

Update (2:50pm): Tournament is about to enter “hand-for-hand play.” This is the point where they are within a few players of making the money, and they want each of the remaining 65 tables to play at the same speed to keep players from trying to stall their way into the money. There are only a few minutes left in Level 12, so I expect that they won’t hit the money until after the 20 minutes break and the beginning of Level 13.

Update (3:00pm): End of Level 12, and players are on a 20 minute break. Still hand-for-hand, with 14 players needing to get knocked out to make the money. Just spoke with Jason, and he is at $203,500 in chips. Apparently, he had gotten up to $280,000 earlier in the round; he then got heads-up with pocket Queens against a pre-flop raiser. He re-raised, got called, and the flop came JT4. He got check-raised on the flop, and laid the hand down (reasonably easy laydown, as pre-flop you put your opponent on AK, KK, JJ, or TT, and therefore can now only beat a bluff). His opponent claimed to have pocket Kings, so it was a good read on Jason’s part, but he did lose some chips. Level 13 starts at 3:10pm, and will continue hand-for-hand until they make the money.

Update (4:35pm): 48 minutes into hand-for-hand, and they’ve only played 6 hands! Jason hasn’t played a hand in this time, and says everyone is tightening up tremendously trying to make the money (he says short-stack UTG just folded TT pre-flop ). Seven players left to go before the money, and Jason believes that at this rate, it will likely be another 60-80 minutes until we get there. I had estimated hitting the money at 4pm, but that was before I realized that hand-for-hand would likely take about two hours. On the bright side, once we get into the money, I expect we’ll see a lot of short-stacks busting very quickly.

Update (5:35pm): We’re in the money!!! Congrats Heidi! It took a couple hours, but we’re down to 621 players, and everyone remaining is guaranteed at least $20K. Jason is down to $177,000 in chips after raising with 77 in early position, getting re-raised and having to lay it down. To give an example of how bad some players can play during hand-for-hand (for fear of not making the money), here’s an example of a hand Jason witnessed at his table a few minutes ago: cut-off raises, button calls, and big-blind (the big stack at the table) re-raises the pot. The cut-off and button both lay down, and the cut-off says that he folded pocket Kings! Unbelievable how anyone could fold that hand in that spot…but I guess when it’s the difference between making $20K and potentially not, people do stupid things.

Update (5:45pm): They’ve decided to extend Level 13 by another hour (to make up for the two hours of hand-for-hand play), and the players are on a 20-minute break. Jason is still at $177,000 in chips, and blinds are still at $2000/4000/500 for another hour once play continues. After this level (in an hour), players will be on dinner break.

Update (7:20pm): End of Level 13, and players are on a dinner break. Jason is at $174,000, after dropping to $110,000 (after making a poor play from the small blind, in my opinion) and then building back up. Then there was this little hand that made the World Series of Poker official blog:

   Willie Tann and the Hammer Bet
Over on Willie Tann’s table, all nine players went in on a prop bet, where they would pay $25 each to the first person to move all in with 2-7 offsuit (a.k.a. “The Hammer”). After Jason Heidema opened the pot for 12,000, Willie Tran moved in for 42,000, inducing Heidema to fold. Tann proudly showed his 2-7 . “$25 each, boys!” said Tann with a laugh.

Turns out Heidi had QTo, and thought there was a good chance Tann was on a bluff; unfortunately, he wasn’t so sure that he was willing to come over the top with this hand (good decision, Jason). Jason is now at dinner (until 8:45pm), enjoying a mango margarita before returning for Level 14, and blinds of $2500/5000/500. Oh, and there are now about 540 players remaining, with each player guaranteed at least $25,101.

Update (9:50pm): Just got a call from Jason during a quick break — apparently they’re losing players so quickly they can’t keep up with all the tables they need to break. Jason tried making a move early in this round, made a good read and raised his opponent who he read for a weak hand before the flop. His opponent was weak, but unfortunately defended his original bet, and then refused to go away after hitting a small part of the flop (top pair, weak kicker). Jason wasn’t able to get the guy off top pair, weak kicker, and had to lay down when the guy got aggressive later in the hand. Jason is down to about $50,000 in chips, but hasn’t given up yet.

Update (10:00pm): By the way, we’re down to 458 players, and each player is now guaranteed a minimum payday of $29,883.

Update (10:40pm): Jason is up to $90,000 in chips, and payouts are up to $34,664 (410 players remaining). For those who are interested, here is the payout schedule.

Update (11:25pm): Players are on a break after Level 14. Just got off the phone with Jason, and after a roller-coaster round, he is back up to $236,000. By my calculations, the chip average is probably around $310-320K, so he still has some work to do to get above average (then again, he’s been struggling to get above average his whole life, so what’s new ). In this round, he horribly misplayed a big blind hand against the small blind (didn’t have the balls to put in a big bet and take the pot when a four-flush hit the river); he maximized his value when flopping a small set against two players; and he took down a decent sized pot with pocket Queens at a pivitol time when his chips were dwindling. If nothing else, Jason is coming out of this event with a lot of interesting hands to discuss.

Update (11:31pm): Btw, there are 399 players remaining, and there is only one more round (2 more hours) scheduled for tonight. Level 15 play will begin any minute now, and I believe blinds will be $3000/6000/1000.

Update (1:00am): Well, I thought they were going to play the entire Level 15 this evening, but apparently players were getting knocked out faster than the television schedule allowed, so they cut the night short halfway through this round. In other words, it’s over for tonight. Jason had a boring half-round (no good stories that he told me), and is at $205,000 in chips at the end of the day. The remaining 337 players will return tomorrow for a noon start time (as will I with my blogging). All remaining players are now guaranteed at least $39,445.

GOOD NIGHT…

Follow-up on Jason Heidema, a good friend of mine playing in the $10,000 WSOP Main Event…

Jason started Day 2a (there are two second days — Day 2a and Day 2b) with around $72,000 in chips. Much like the first day, the second day turned out to be quite a roller coaster. Here’s a brief overview of the round-by-round action (each round lasts 2 hours), as I got it from Jason throughout the day…

The tournament officials announced early in the day that they’d be playing a total of 5 rounds, or until the Day 2a field was down to 350 players. This means play would likely end between midnight and 2:00am.

Round 1: Early in the first round, Jason dropped down to $40,000 at one point, but rallied and finished the first round at $82,000, stronger than the start of the day. It was a tough round, as apparently the competition wasn’t very strong, and it was obvious Jason was a bit frustrated that he couldn’t put together a strong run of hands.

Round 2: The second round was a bit less stressful; at one point, Jason had built his stack up to $140,000, but ended the round at about $90,000 (he’s still not quite sure where $35K of those chips went ).

Round 3: The third round, Jason ran into two big hands against the same player. The first, he was outplayed by his opponent’s weird play with AA, and the second Jason took a bad beat when his opponent hit a 4 outer on the river. He ended Round 3 with about $58,000 in chips, and had to spend the 90 minute dinner break stressing over his short chip stack going into Round 4 (where the blinds were $1000/2000/300).

Round 4: Happy to report that after dinner Jason went on a nice run, at one point taking his chip-count up to $150,000 and finishing the fourth round with a respectable $143,000. Not many details on this round, but I did get the impression that there were a number of big stacks at Jason’s table during the evening, and for-the-most-part, play was relatively tight.

Round 5: The fifth round started with 384 players, only 34 from the end of Day 2a play. Based on what I got from Jason, a single hand defined this round. Under-the-gun limps, and folded around to Jason in cutoff with 64s. Jason calls, as do the blinds. The flop comes K64, under-the-gun bets, Jason raises big and gets called by UTG. UTG bets out on the turn when the Jack hits, Jason calls. 9 on the river (board of KJ964), UTG checks, Jason bets, and UTG calls. Jason shows his two pair, and UTG mucks, indicating that he had AA.

In summary, at the end of Day 2, Jason is doing very well with $212,000 in chips.

The top 621 players will make the money in this event, and assuming Day 2b plays down to 350 players like Day 2a did, Day 3 will start with 700 players (and likely average chip stack of about $190,000). I imagine they’ll be down to the money within a couple hours of the start of Day 3.

Day 3 is on Thursday…I’ll have another update at some point during or after that…

As mentioned previously, my good friend Jason is playing in this year’s $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event. He played day 1 — along with 1500 other people — last Friday.

After a roller-coaster first day — roller-coaster for both of us, as I was getting the updates every two hours — he finished the day solidly. For the most part, he hovered around his $20,000 in starting chips for much of the day, though at one point he took a big hit when his AQ ran into AK on an ace high uncoordinated board, dropping him to around $2000 in remaining chips. After that he went on a tear, building back up to over $23,000 by 2:00am when the final round started. By the end of the final round of the day, the $23K was up to over $70K, and Jason is now ready to enter day 2 in the top quarter of the field.

Day 2 starts tomorrow, and the approximately 2500 remaining players will likely approach, but not hit, the money by the end of the day.

Good luck Jason…hopefully this post will have many sequels…

Poker Tip of the Day: Jason’s situation above (losing a lot of chips with AQ vs. AK) reminds me of an important tip that should seem obvious, but oftentimes is not, especially to players just starting out. I know a lot of people who believe that they’re just plain unlucky; they continually get knocked out of tournaments when their AQ runs into AK, or their flopped sets get run down by runner-runner draws after getting all-in. They wonder why some players never seem to get knocked out of tournaments on bad beats like this, and assume that it’s just because other players are “luckier” than they are.

Believe me when I tell you that these kinds of beats happen to everyone (and everyone pretty much equally). The difference between those that seem “lucky” and those that seem “unlucky” is that the “lucky ones” recognize that this type of situation is bound to happen during the course of a tournament, and therefore they are very diligent in trying to build a big stack early.

If three hours into an event, you still have the same number of chips you started with, and you find yourself on the losing end of set-over-set, it’s likely the end of your day. But, if you were able to take down some early hands, and build your stack up, you likely have more chips than that opponent who cracks your aces or runs you down on the river, and are not out of the tournament after that “bad beat”.

In other words, the “lucky” players create that luck by preparing for the situations where the cards don’t fall their way. While tight, conservative play is always a good starting point, don’t fall into the situation of constantly letting the cards play you; if you can’t build a cushion into your stack early in an event, you’re risking ending your day on a single unlucky situation.

Case in point — the AQ story above was an interesting footnote in the first day of play for Jason; for a lot of players it would have been the end of the story. I guess that just makes Jason “a lucky player.”

I mentioned my weight-loss bet in a previous post, and the competition is now over…

As I mentioned, a bit over two weeks ago, I still had 12 pounds to lose to hit my goal weight of 175 pounds. As of yesterday afternoon, I was down to 177.5, within two and a half pounds of the goal (yes, I lost 10 pounds in less than two weeks, mostly by cutting out carbs). While I still had a couple days to lose the remaining two and a half pounds (official end of the bet is next Tuesday), I had the option of weighing in early if I hit my goal weight, and ending my side of the bet.

While I normally would have just waited a couple days to lose the rest of the weight, my birthday is tomorrow and I really want to be able to eat a nice dinner (perhaps some dessert too) on my birthday. So, I decided that after work yesterday, I was going to lose the last 2.5 pounds and end this ridiculous bet.

It took about 3 hours of some ridiculous dehydration tactics I remembered from my high-school wrestling days, but I finally dropped the final 2.5 pounds by 7:00pm last night. I did my official weigh-in (exactly 175.0), and then the girlfriend and I went out to celebrate with sushi and fat-free yogurt!

I’m (not really) happy to report that Jason, my co-participant in this bet, also did his official weigh-in yesterday, coming in about a pound below his goal. So, neither of us have to pay up on this particular bet, and we both are 15 pounds closer to getting back into shape for the rest of the summer.

My next goal is 165 pounds and a body fat % in the 15% range in time for my best friend’s wedding in the Bahamas in October…

On a side note, good luck to Jason who starts playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event today in Las Vegas. It’s the first year in quite a while that I’m not there playing, and must admit that I’m a little jealous. Though I do have a 5% stake in him, so if he wins the $10M first place prize, I can buy a new Ferrari to go with my new body…

In my last post, I wrote about Expected Value and how it pertained to making decisions in poker. After writing that summary in response to a question on one of Microsoft’s email distribution lists, a friend of mine from Tellme sent a tremendously insightful follow-up geared towards more advanced players who might use EV to specifically make tournament decisions.

Here is the response from Michael Bodell:

The other main thing that comes up with tournament versus cash games that is generally over estimated in multitable tournaments (especially early) and underestimated in single table tournaments (or especially underestimated in large satellite events [where everyone who gets the prize will get the same prize – I.e., a flat payout to those “in the money”]) is the difference between cEV and $EV.

[1] – One thing to note is meta-game. Most of the time people analyze EV (chip or $) a hand at a time. But really one move may be slightly EV for that hand but significantly affect your future EV (negatively affect your table image or adjust the strategy of your opponent to a more correct one). But this is a second order effect, and for most people most of the time doesn’t apply.

I especially like Michael’s inclusion of the well-known situation where it’s appropriate to lay down AA pre-flop. While most people will never experience this situation, I know someone who was presented with this exact scenario (as the small stack, he picked up AA against his remaining two all-in opponents, both with big stacks; the top two finishers received equal prizes) just a couple weeks ago during an online satellite for the WSOP Main Event. Unfortunately, he wasn’t familiar with the strategy discussed above, and without enough consideration, he pushed all-in as well. He lost the hand, and the entry into the WSOP; had he laid down pre-flop, he almost certainly would have won a seat.

I know that there are a lot of friends and aquaintances of mine who read this blog and are very interested in poker. And, as mentioned earlier, the Microsoft poker distribution list has some very good discussions about poker strategy and related topics.

While I don’t want to post other people’s comments without permission, I thought I would post something here that I wrote the other day on the MS email distribution that some of my more novice poker friends might appreciate. Someone had asked what “EV” was, and how it related to poker. Here was my response:

What is EV

EV stands for “Expected Value”, and is the amount of money you can expect to earn in the long run by making a specific decision in a specific circumstance.

Using a non-poker example, imagine flipping a coin with two betting scenarios:

1) You bet on the outcome, and receive even-money (i.e., you bet $1, you will win $1) on your bet.

In this case, if you flip the coin 100 times, you can expect to win 50 times, and expect to lose 50 times. Overall, you win $50, and lose $50, to break even. You have neither won nor lost any money (and in the long run you will not expect to win or lose any money), so your EV is 0.

2) You bet on the outcome, and receive 2:1 odds (i.e., you bet $1, you will win $2) on your bet.

In this case, if you flip the coin 100 times, you still expect to win 50 times, and expect to lose 50 times. But, the 50 times you win will earn you $100 (50 * $2), and the 50 times you lose you will still only lose $50. So, over 100 flips, your profit will be $50, or an average of $.50 ($50 / 100 flips). Your EV is the average win/loss per event, or $.50. For every time this event occurs, you can expect to make $.50.

But remember, EV is the expected value in the *long run*. EV doesn’t relate to short-term results. In the coin-flip example, even if you’re getting 2:1 odds, you still may lose money on just a couple flips (if you get unlucky). You may even lose money on 100 flips (if you get very unlucky). But, in the long run (i.e., over thousands or millions of trials), you can expect to earn $.50 (the EV for this situation) per flip.

How is EV used in Poker?

The most common use for EV (“Expected Value”) in poker is to determine the long-term value of making a specific decision at a specific point in a hand. Generally, it’s not important to know the exact EV of a situation (in fact, with all the variables and unknown in poker, it’s generally impossible), but it is important to know whether a situation is +EV (i.e., you’ll make money long-term) or –EV (i.e., you’ll lose money long-term). It’s also generally helpful to know if a +EV situation is very +EV (i.e., you’ll make a lot of money long-term) or marginally +EV (i.e., you’ll make a little money long-term).

Here’s a simple example of figuring out if you’re +EV or not…

You’re in a hand, and on the river, you have two pair. Your opponent bet $100 into a $100 pot, and it’s your turn to call or fold (let’s ignore the raising situation here).

You know that you are getting 2:1 odds on making a call (if you call $100, you can win $200), which means long-term if you call, you need to win more than 1 out of 3 times to be +EV (if you do the math in example #2 above where you’re getting 2:1 odds but you only win 1 out of three times instead of 1 out of 2 times, and you’ll see that in that case your EV is 0, so if you win more than 1 out of 3 times, it’s +EV).

So, you know you need to win more than 1/3 of the time to be +EV, so how do we calculate that? This is where poker skill at reading your opponents comes in. Let’s assume you believe your opponent has one of four possible hands (flush, straight, one pair, or a bluff), and you think the likelihood of each of these possible hands is as follows:

Based on those numbers, you know that if you call, you believe you have a 60% chance of losing the hand (to a straight or flush) and a 40% chance of winning the hand (over a pair or a bluff). You believe you will win the hand 4 out of 10 times (or about 1.2 out of 3 times). Since you previously determined that you needed at least a 1 out of 3 chance of winning the hand to be +EV, and you now believe you have a 1.2 out of 3 chance of winning the hand if you call, making the call is a +EV decision.

Keep in mind that doing this one time will likely result in losing money (you are not favored to win the hand), but doing this lots and lots of times will result in profit (the times that you do win, you will win more than enough money to offset the times that you don’t).

So, what if you wanted to figure out the exact EV of this situation, instead of just whether you were +EV or not (this can be important, because in some situations – like tournaments – you may want to pass up a marginal +EV situation if you think a bigger +EV situation will arise later)? Here you go…

You know that in the example above, over 100 iterations, you will win 40 times and lose 60 times. The 40 times you win, you will win a total of $8000 ($200 in the pot * 40), and the 60 times you lose, you will lose $6000 ($100 that you call and lose * 60). Total profit over these 100 trials is $2000, or $20 per trial.

Your EV is therefore $20 if you call.

One big thing to keep in mind is that your ability to calculate your EV is only as good as your ability to estimate your likelihood of winning, which in poker is only as good as your ability to figure out the likelihood of your opponent holding a specific hand. If it turned out that our opponent above never bluffed, that 20% likelihood that he was bluffing would more likely contribute to increasing the likelihood you were beat, and could easily turn your EV from positive to negative.

One of the nice surprises about being back at Microsoft is the sheer number of poker enthusiasts at the company, and level of knowledge they possess. When I left back in 2004, there was no company-wide email distribution list specifically to discuss poker. Today, there are at least a half-dozen different lists, and the most comprehensive one (called “Poker Players at Microsoft”) boasts over 500 members!

Discussion topics range from home and company games (I believe the laws in Washington State permit non-raked poker games, so games often legally occur on the Microsoft campus after work), to hand analysis and strategy discussion. Some of the more common contributors are tremendously insightful, and I only wish I worked on the main campus and had the opportunity to play with some of these guys and gals.

As some of the discussions on the distribution list are quite insightful, perhaps I’ll post of the more interesting stuff here in the blog (with permission from the writers, of course).

A couple people have asked why I haven’t been playing nearly as many WSOP events this year as I have the past couple years. While there are a number of reasons (what most of my friends would consider “bad” excuses, like wanting to spend time with my girlfriend and the puppy, not having extra vacation time at work, etc), there’s one more reason…

In order to avoid losing a bet against my friend Jason (I won’t go into details, but the stakes are much higher than just $$$), I need to lose 15 pounds before July 10. Considering we made the bet back in April, you wouldn’t think it would be too difficult; I’m a guy, so losing weight is easy, and I also have a few extra pounds that make this a reasonable goal.

Unfortunately, I stepped on the scale last week — three weeks before the end of the bet — and found that I was only down 3 pounds. So, I needed to lose 12 pounds in three weeks, or I was going to be very not-happy. After spending a couple days pondering a reliable weight-loss strategy (sadly, I tend to eat while I ponder), I was left in the unenviable position of having to lose 12 pounds in just two-and-a-half weeks…

Which brings me to my point about not heading back to Vegas. I’m not sure losing 12 pounds in 2.5 weeks is reasonable, but I’m certain that it’s not reasonable to do in Vegas, where I can’t remember hitting the gym more than a few times, and big elaborate meals are the rule, not the exception. Luckily, my very supportive girlfriend is doing a great job of threatening me with a taser-gun every time I step near the fridge, as well as dragging my butt to the gym every once in a while. Thanks Carol D!!!

On the bright side, this is a two-way bet, and my friend Jason needs to lose 15 pounds in the same time frame. I’m not sure exactly how close he is to losing the weight, but I do know that for the three weeks prior to our weigh-in, Jason is on vacation in Vegas. Hopefully he hasn’t given up on the tradition of big Vegas meals…

After some good play and a cash on Saturday, I was excited to play again on Sunday. Unfortunately, the Venetian event on Saturday went late, so I didn’t get as much sleep as I had anticipated. Regardless, I was up at 10am on Sunday, and headed down to the Amazon room in the Rio to register for the WSOP $3000 no-limit event (Event #28).

As expected the field was relatively small for this one, as it was a larger buy-in event and it took place on Sunday. After a couple events not seeing any pros in sight, I sat down at this one with several at my table, including Minh Ly, Greg “FBT” Mueller, and Hoyt Corkins. A tough table, but after several WSOP and WPT main events, it really doesn’t phase me anymore; in fact, I’d rather have a table of “known entities” (even tough ones) than a table of “idiots” looking to prove themselves.

The first half-hour was definitely interesting, as I picked up KK four times (yes, FOUR times in 30 minutes). The first three I won small pots with, but the fourth was more eventful. With blinds still at $25/50, a professional player who I recognized (but don’t know his name) raised under-the-gun to $150, and it was folded around to me in mid-position. Hoping to isolate the raiser, I re-raised to $450, and it was folded by to the under-the-gun player, who hesitated and then made the call.

The flop was: 5 6 8 (rainbow)

He checked, I bet $600, and he raised to $1400. I figured he either had a middle pair between 9’s and Jacks, or overcards looking to push me off AK, if that’s what I had. Assuming he’d wait for the turn to put in a raise if he had a big hand, I wasn’t concerned when I put in the next raise to $3000. Unfortunetly, I suspect he knew I wouldn’t put him on too big of a hand with his flop check-raise, and that’s why he did it, attempting to induce my re-raise. Anyway, he pushed all-in, and as he only had a few chips more than my re-raise, I had to call. He showed 79s for the straight, and pulled down the pot. A horrible flop for my KK, but well-played by my opponent; had he waited until the turn to pounce, I may have been able to get away from it.

About 40 minutes later, and still around $4000 in chips, I once again picked up KK (yes, FIVE times in 90 minutes). With $50/100 blinds, I raised under-the-gun to $300. Surprisingly, I got four callers behind me. The small blind then attempted a squeeze play (a squeeze play is when a late position or blinds player makes a large raise after a lot of callers, expecting that since most everyone was just calling, no-one had a very strong hand. The key is to get the original bettor/raiser to lay down, and the rest generally fold like dominos). Not only was I not surprised by the squeeze play, I was thrilled that the action again opened up to me so I could re-raise to isolate the the field and not have to play my KK against several players.

The small-blind raised to $1300 (too small of a raise into a pot of $1800, in my opinion), and I hesitated in order to give the impression that I had a tough decision to make. Normally in these situations, the player attempting the squeeze play had a hand like AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, etc, possibly down to middle suited connectors. With a small or medium pair, the player would likely just call instead of raise, in order to win a huge pot (implied odds) should he hit his set on the flop.

The reason I hesitated is that I was fairly certain all the callers behind me would fold (if they had big hands, they would have re-raised to isolate me earlier), and the small blind likely wouldn’t call without a relatively big hand like AK or AQ. Even with AQ, the small blind wouldn’t be pot-committed (he was only getting about 2:1 from the pot and still had enough chips to play if he laid down to my re-reraise), so I wanted to give him the impression that I was weak so he’d make the call. I went so far as to comment that I believed he was putting on the squeeze, indicating to him that my re-raise may have been with a weaker hand because I knew he likely didn’t have a big hand.

Surprisingly, he called my all-in! More surprisingly, he called with just KQ!!! I was amazed. If I were him, I’d have to have put me on either a big Ace (AK, AQ — in which case he was dominated), a big pair (AA, KK — in which case he was crushed), or at worst a small/medium pair (in which case he was a coin-flip). I can’t imagine what he thought I might have that he could beat with KQ, but regardless, I was thrilled he made the call.

That was, until I the board came out: 9 T x J x

My KK had been beaten by KQ for all my chips, and there was nothing left to do but say, “nice hand,” and to try to walk away without screaming in frustration. While a part of me wants to cry bad-beat and berate the poor play of my opponent, it’s hard to complain when you get in a situation where you’re better than a 5:1 favorite to double-up, even if the cards don’t fall your way.

After that beat, I decided I likely wasn’t going to play my best game anytime soon, so I decided to forego the Monday event and fly home early to see my two girls…

I imagine I’ll head back to Vegas next week and/or the following to meet the rest of the crew heading out there this week…if so, I’ll write more when I return…