The Aria WPT 500 — The Sardine Tournament

OK, time to resume talking about the tournaments that I played while in Vegas this past trip.  I refer you to the 4-part epistle that started here. In telling that saga, I made it clear that tournaments drive me crazy.  And I said that even after winning over $1K in that tournament.  But I did point out that although, at the end of that day, I felt like I should stop playing them….I didn’t (stop playing tournaments, that is).

About a week later, I returned to the Golden Nugget to play in the $350, $100K guarantee tournament that I mentioned in that earlier post.  Yes, that meant I had to get my ass out of bed early to be downtown for the 11AM start—which I did.  I lasted around 10 levels.  The most notable hand was when I had pocket Kings around the fifth level.  There was a raise and a call in front of me.  I three-bet.  The original raiser four-bet.  I shoved.  He called and had me covered. He turned over pocket Jacks.  I saw a King in the window.  Also nice, the third card on the flop was a King as well.  Tip: flopping quads, especially when you’re all-in, is a good play.  Even I can win with the dreaded hand by flopping quads.  Just to piss my opponent off a little more, he caught a Jack on the river, so his Jacks full lost to my quads.

Alas, that was the high point for me.  I lost most of my chips calling a shove with Ace-King.  The shorter stack had Queen-Jack and of course hit a Queen.  A few hands later, crippled, I shoved Ace-7 off and got called by pocket Jacks.  This time pocket Jacks was the winning hand.

A couple of days I returned downtown for Binion’s $160 tourney. I recognized one of the players at the table as a dealer there.  The funny thing was her shirt.  She had obviously come in expecting to deal, and I guess based on the turnout, was allowed to play instead.  But she must not have had a “normal” shirt to wear.  Dealers can play in the room they work (on or off the clock) but they can’t be in uniform.  Right next to the tournament area at Binion’s there’s a store where the sell cheap t-shirts and jackets, mostly touristy type things that say “Las Vegas” or have Vegasy type designs. The lady dealer must have had to have bought a t-shirt to play—and for whatever reason the one she got said, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”  All her fellow employees were cracking up at this, and teasing her mercilessly, because no actual Vegas resident would ever wear such a shirt.  It’s strictly for tourists—first time tourists at that.  Unless she had someone to give it to, she probably burned that shirt when she got home.

At one point, a middle-aged woman was moved to our table directly on the lady dealer’s left.  On the dealer’s right, a gentleman shoved and the action was the new player.   She asked to get a better look, so the dealer/player, who wasn’t in the hand, gave her an estimate of the guy’s stack.  But she insisted the lady dealer move out of the way, and before she could explain further, she actually put her hands on the lady dealer and shoved her back in her chair, explaining that the lady dealer was blocking her view of the guy who had shoved—she wanted to see his face to determine if he was strong or weak.  That bought new meaning to the term “shoving” in poker (and yes, I used that joke at the table).  The lady dealer was surprised but didn’t say anything, although we had a good laugh about it later.  Anyway, the shove didn’t work—she called and lost the hand and was done.

For me, the most notable hand was when I doubled up a few rounds in with set-over-set. My set of Jacks took down a set of 9’s.   Then I made possibly a bad play based on an exposed card.  I had about $37,500 at the level where the blinds were 200/800/1600.  A guy raised to $4,500.  I looked down at the dreaded Kings.  But as the dealer was dealing, he had exposed a King.  Hmm….I probably wouldn’t have shoved there ordinarily, I would have just made a three-bet.  But knowing the odds of me hitting a set if I need to were halved, I decided to shove.  Not sure if my logic there is any good or not.  Anyway, the raiser had a slightly short stack than I did and called with Ace-Queen.  Can you say Ace in the window?  And, for good measure, there was also a Queen on the flop.  I needed to hit my one-outer (or go runner-runner Jack-10) and of course I didn’t. I shoved my few remaining chips with King-9 a bit later and was done.

Suddenly my final weekend in town was approaching and there were a lot of big tournaments coming up right before the Main Event at the WSOP.  Even before I got to town—when I was entering the details on PokerAtlas—I started thinking of playing in the WPT 500 at the Aria.  The buy-in was $565—a little steep for me, though the same price as the Colossus which of course I had played in at the beginning of my trip (see here).  This was an unusual tournament design, the second time they held it at the Aria.  I didn’t play last year, but I did mention last year’s event in the post here. 

Anyway, this was a big tournament with like 10 starting days and a cool $2MM guaranteed prize pool.  In order to win, you actually had to play three days, a full second day to get down to the final table then the final table on the third day.  Some of you may therefore wonder why I would consider playing it, since I complained so much about the Golden Nugget tourney I cashed in being a two-day event.

But there are a lot of differences.  For one thing, Day 2, if I made it, would be a whole day (potentially), not just a final table.  Another thing is that, since I was staying in the Strip area, returning to the Aria for Day 2 would be a lot more convenient than heading downtown.  Not to mention that the potential payoff from a $2MM prize pool (at least) could be a lot more money than anything I could have earned from the $150 Golden Nugget tournament. 

Also, they were paying people off each Day 1.  If you made it to the last 12% (I think) of any particular Day 1, they’d give you something like $800 even if you busted before making it into Day 2.  Plus, if you did make it to Day 2, at the end of Day 1, they would actually give you some prize money after you bagged and tagged (I think it was like $1K, but don’t quote me on that).  So, if I made it to the end of Day 1 with say, just one big blind left, I could take my money and not bother returning the next day to play my one remaining chip, if I wanted to.

Then there was the fact that I’d never played in a WPT event, and I thought it would be kinda cool to do so.

And then I looked at the structure sheet.  It was pretty damn good.  A different “style” of a great structure than the one Sam used at the Golden Nugget.  The antes kicked in at level 3, but what a slow progression of the blinds!  I’d never seen so many levels.  There were 75/150, 150/300, 250/500, 500/1000 levels, etc.  And the first level was 25/50, not 50/100.   The first 8 levels were 30-minutes, then 40-minutes after that (60-minute levels at the final table). The starting stack was $15K.  Since Day 2 was a full day, I didn’t object to such a great structure, I assure you.  And if I was “forced” to come in for just the final table on Day 3, well, even if I were to bust out on the first hand of that day, I’m pretty sure the money would have been more than worth my while.

So, I figured I’d give it a shot.  The tournament started at Noon and I remembered from last year that the last few Day 1’s were total mob scenes.  This was on a Thursday and Day 2 was on Sunday.  It was also the start of the July 4^th weekend.  I tried to get there as early as I could and left my temporary headquarters at around 11:15AM.  I got into my car which was like an oven.  Not only was it very hot, there was a ton of humidity in the air (it was unseasonably muggy).  The car never cooled off in the short drive over to the Aria and by the time I parked, I was sweating profusely.

Now, I should mention that whenever I go to the Aria, I never park there.  Parking at the Aria (self-parking, anyway) means driving on the Strip, something that I try never, ever to do if I can possibly help it.  So I park at the Monte Carlo.  The two are connected so that you never have to go outside to get from one to the other.  Actually, it’s probably not really any longer a walk from the Monte Carlo parking structure to the Aria poker room than it is from the MGM parking structure to the MGM poker room. 

I parked before 11:30 and walked at a rapid pace towards the Aria.  I knew there would be a long line to register and I sure didn’t want to be an alternate.  The registration for the tournament was not at the poker cashier as usual but in the Sports Book—more walking.  By the time I took my place in a rather long line to register, I think I had left a trail of sweat all the way back to my car.

I didn’t stop sweating the entire 30 minutes or so I was in line.  There were only three cashiers taking entrants, plus they had everyone sign a TV release (not sure if/when the event is/was being shown).  I finally got my entry ticket a few minutes before Noon, and then raced over to where the tournament was.  I missed all the pre-tournament announcements and probably missed the first hand or two—not bad. I was mainly concerned with not being an alternate.

But I have to say my seating assignment was probably the worst in the entire tournament.  I don’t mean because there were tough players at my table.  No, I mean the actual location of the seat itself.  When the Aria Classic began, they had added a bunch of tables of course across from the actual poker room.  Then I saw that there were bringing a whole slew of additional tables for the final few days of the WPT 500.  I was in one of the newer, newer tables.  And these last added tables were really, really packed in tight.

And unfortunately, I was in seat 5, right in the middle.  Everyone else was seated when I got there, and there was no way I could squeeze in without asking a couple of folks to stand up and let me slide in.  And once seated, my chair was practically jammed up against the dealer’s chair from the table directly behind me. So the dealer would bump into me on occasion, and every half hour when a new dealer pushed in behind me, I was sure to get clobbered. We were packed in like sardines.

Ever since I started playing poker, when I play in a room that doesn’t have a lot of space, where the tables are packed in, I realize that I have an ever-so-slight case of claustrophobia.  It’s not like I get sick, I just find myself real uncomfortable whenever I feel like I don’t have the ability to come and go as I please.  I pretty much knew there was no chance that I’d be able to get up and use the restroom, should the need arise, until the breaks.  That alone made me uncomfortable.

And I was still sweating like the proverbial pig when I took my seat.  It took about three levels, minimum, before I stopped the sweating.

All told, it was probably the most uncomfortable I’d ever been playing poker.  The entire time I was there, I kept praying for them to break the table so I could move anywhere else, it would have had to have been roomier.  But they took registration for 8 damn levels and of course they didn’t break any tables during that time—there was a steady stream of alternates the entire reg period, constantly filling up the empty seat. 

Since I didn’t cash, I’m not going to give a detailed accounting of hands.  So let’s fast forward to the end of level 11. That level had blinds of 200/600/1200 and my stack was around $55K.  Not great but not bad. I seem to recall the average stack was around $44K.  I thought I was playing pretty well and at that point, had never been all-in with a risk of busting out.  My tournament “M” had never gotten below 10.  It was just a few minutes before the end of the level which meant the 1 hour dinner break.  

And I was really looking forward to that break.  Not only was I quite hungry (I had had a very early lunch before heading to the Aria), but I really had to go the restroom.  Before the previous break, I had gotten lucky and was able to sneak out mid-tournament when the player to my right busted—I made a mad dash to the Men’s Room before they filled that seat.  But this time I caught no such break.  There was a time when I was waiting for the button to pass so I could ask the guy on my right to move so I could get out.  Unfortunately, there was a hand where he raised, I three-bet him (with pocket Queens, I think) and he folded.  I thought that asking him to move so I could hit the head would be adding insult to injury, so I just suffered.

When I was able to stop thinking about how badly I needed to pee to think about the poker, I was pretty happy about the way things had gone and was looking forward to a long run after the dinner break.  I was starting to indulge in the fantasy of making it to Day 2, possibly with a decent stack.  There were just one or two hands to be dealt before that dinner break.

And so….I looked down at pocket Aces.  A player in early position opened for $3K.  It folded to me and I made it $9.  The raiser shoved, which was fine by me.  He had a bit over $20K, but I didn’t bother with a count, I of course snap-called. 

He showed pocket Jacks.  And of course, there was a god-damn Jack in the window.  I took a big hit—over $23K.

I was stunned.  Yeah, that’s poker.  But I was thisclose to going into the dinner break with a decent stack.  And if my Aces had held—and I was like a 80/20 favorite—I would have a very nice stack indeed.  Damn it.

Very next hand, which was definitely going to be the last hand before the break, I got Ace-Queen.  I hadn’t had a chance to count or confirm that I was in desperation mode, so when a big stack raised in front of me, I just folded.  One of my motivations was that I didn’t want to stay at the table any longer than I had to because I needed to hit the bathroom so bad.  Anyway, had I shoved and been called, I would have lost to pocket 9’s.  I made a mad dash to the Men’s room on the way to dinner.

This flight of the tournament had over 800 entrants, and there were still quite a few left (I didn’t make a note, but probably at least 200-300, maybe more.  I didn’t want to bother trying to find acceptable food at the Aria (cuz I’d want to use my comps and that would take long and everyplace would be crowded with all the tournament players on break).  So I headed over to the Monte Carlo food court and ate at the world’s most overpriced Subway.  Because it is in a Strip hotel, the once $5 foot longs are like $10.   

So I ordered an overpriced tuna sandwich.  I left my soda at the table and just needed a cup of water to take a pill with after dinner.  So they charged me $10 for the sandwich and I asked for some plain water.  They said they didn’t have any water!  What? Every Subway I’ve ever been to that has a soda jockey (which this one does) has a lever for plain water.  Not this one.  She said I could buy a bottle of water.  For what?  Three bucks?  Are you kidding me?  I told the girl it was probably against the law for them not to make plain water available to their customers.  She said she could give me some tap water and I said fine. 

I was not a happy camper.  I couldn’t get that Aces hand out of my mind.  By this time I’d figured out that with a $31K remaining stack, I basically had one move left.  Find a hand to shove with.  And I was pissed that I had to have an overpriced dinner where I had to beg for water and was likely to return to the tournament long enough to bust out possibly with minutes of the tournament resuming.  Grrr…..so frustrating.

Back to the tournament for level 12. The blinds were 200/800/1600.  The very first hand back from break, I was on the button with Ace-Queen of clubs.  The big stack raised to $4,500 in front of me.  Since he opened most posts with his big stack, I didn’t put him on a big hand.  I shoved.  Unfortunately, the small blind behind me shoved too. He had me covered. The big stack folded, and the small blind flipped over pocket Kings. They were definitely dreaded to me.

But what a flop.  Jack-10-x, two clubs. I had all kinds of outs.  And sure enough, the turn was a King, giving him a set but me Broadway.  I was one card away from my desperately needed double up.  And then a friggin’ 10 on the river gave him the boat.  I was done. 

I’d had that crappy, overpriced dinner to play one more hand after an hour break. I could have saved myself from the overpriced dinner by shoving the last hand before break! I had sat in that sardine tin all day, doing really well until the second to last hand before dinner where I went in as an 80/20 favorite.  And now I was finished.

Pretty sure there was steam coming out of my ears as I walked to my car.

As I said before, poker tournaments make me crazy.

Vegas Poker Scene (August Ante Up Column)

Here's my newest column for Ante Up.  The link for it on the Ante Up website is here.   Remember, my contribution is embedded in the entire West Coast report.  So below is just my Vegas report.  The magazine should be in your local poker room sooner, rather than later.

VENETIAN: The $5K main event for the Deep Stack Extravaganza finished July 17 with nearly 550 players generating a prize pool of more than $2.5M. The top three were Samuel Bernabeu ($537K), Doug Lee ($330K) and Hans Winzeler ($240K).

Venetian hosted the Mid-States Poker Tour on June 1-3. The buy-in was $1,100, the prize pool was nearly $2M and there were close to 2K players. Angelina Rich won $215K in a chop, becoming the first woman to win an MSPT event.

DSE 3.5 runs Sept. 10-Oct. 4. The series offers more than $1.7M in guarantees. The championship event has three starting flights beginning Sept. 25 with a $1,600 buy-in and a $400K guarantee. Most of the noon events are priced at $250, $300 and $600. The 7 p.m. events are $200 or $300, with a mix of bounty, survivor and rebuy tournaments. Several Omaha/8 or PLO tournaments are sprinkled throughout the schedule at 4 p.m. All events have guarantees.

ARIA: The second WPT500 completed July 6 as more than 5,100 entrants competed over the course of 10 flights that started in late May. It was the largest field in WPT history. The final three finishers were Craig Varnell ($330K), Lucio Antunes ($223K) and Alexander Lakhov ($150K). The prize pool for the $565 buy-in was more than $2.5M.

Aria also hosted the Senior Poker Tour on June 17-18. The $350 buy-in event had a field of 325 with a prize pool of $97,500. Top prizes went to Jerry Zickert ($15K), Konstantin Novoa ($12K) and Wayne Clarke ($11K).

Aria’s Super High Roller Bowl ran July 2-4. The $500K buy-in drew 43 players for a prize pool of $21.5M. Brian Rast ($7.5M), Scott Seiver ($5.1M) and Connor Drinan ($3.2M) took home the biggest prizes but, honestly, there weren’t any small prizes.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD: The PHamous Poker Series Goliath Main Event was June 25-28 as more than 1,600 entrants paid $1,150 to compete for more than $1.6M. The top three were David Schultz ($278K), Jonathan DiMatteo ($172K) and Phillip Mighall ($130K).

The LIPS National Championship ran June 27-28 and had 430 players for an $83K-plus prize pool from the $250 buy-in. Top three prizes: Persia Bonella ($18K), Cindy Kerslake ($11K) and Kimberley Kilroy ($8K).

WYNN: The main event, played July 3-6, had a $620K prize pool for its $1,600 buy-in. The field was 400-plus players and the top three were: Raymond Rice ($103K), Fadh Hamad ($95K) and Dan Larson ($89K).

HOLLYWOOD POKER OPEN: After a year-long qualifying process that spanned the Hollywood Casino properties across United States, Kevin Stammen captured the $2,500 Hollywood Poker Open Championship title at the M Resort on June 26-28. The event sported a prize pool of $1.5M as Stammen earned $347K, followed by Joe Serock ($214K) and Alex Keating ($140K).

BINION’S CLASSIC: The $1K main event on June 18-19 drew 150 players. The top three prizes from the $137K prize pool went to Paul Vacchio ($28K), Rueben Hoang ($31K) and Timothy Acker ($14K).

The Masters Poker Series, for players age 45 and older, ran June 21-22. The buy-in was $400, the field was 320 and the prize pool was $105K. Top three: David Klutchman and Norman Hall ($20,360 each) and Scott Yeates ($10K).

BELLAGIO CUP: Held July 10-14, the $10,400 event had 301 players and a prize pool of almost $3M. Top three players: Sean Winter ($562K), Dominik Nitsche ($429K) and Byron Kaverman ($409K).

ORLEANS OPEN: The $540 main event finished May 27 with 89 players and a $43K prize pool. Winners were Ethan Wermer and Brandon Setzer ($11K), followed by Joshua Takesky ($6K).

FLAMINGO: New promotions include an hourly $50 high hand between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Only one card needs to play to qualify. Between 2-9 a.m., there is a flop-a-flush promotion that pays $100, $200, $300 and $500 as each suit pays until all suits are hit. The weekly freeroll is worth $6K with 30 places paid and 12 hours of play are required to be eligible. The new single-table bad-beat jackpot pays $1,500 to the loser, $599 to the winner and $150 each to the other players at the table. High hands remain $50 for quads, $100 for straight flushes and $300 for royals.

EASTSIDE CANNERY: The four-table locals room on Boulder Highway just added a $45 HORSE tournament. It runs twice a month on the first and third Thursdays. With an optional $5 dealer bonus, players receive 8K chips. The second and fourth Thursdays feature a $50 Beat the Boss tournament that has a $400 bounty on the boss and a $10 bounty on the other players. The starting stack is 5K.

Every Tuesday there’s a $45 Omaha/8 tournament. Fridays at 7 p.m. is a $45 deepstack (10K stack if you take the optional $5 dealer bonus). Saturday and Sundays at 7 p.m. there is a $25 tournament (2K stack, 15-minute levels). All other tournaments have 20-minute levels.

The room offers plenty of promotions, including $50 for Aces Cracked between 2-5 p.m. and 7-11 p.m. Royals earn $500. There’s a cash award for at least 25 hours of live play during the month; minimum $50, maximum $400.

STRATOSPHERE: Mark Selby is running the poker room. He formerly managed the rooms at Westgate and the Riveria. He replaces Rick Luksza, who retired.

The Strat recently added several promos. In addition to $50 Aces Cracked, the room is offering high hands three times a day and flopped high hands between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Players who flop the high hand get double the normal payout.

WESTGATE HOTEL: The property, formerly known as the LVH, closed its three-table room in June.

The Accidental Slow Roll

Everyone hates to be slow rolled, right?  Well, yesterday I was slow rolled and didn’t mind very much.  I even got a chuckle out of it.

Once again I spent a Saturday afternoon at Player’s Casino in Ventura.  This was the first time since I started playing there that I was able to get a seat right away into the 2/3 game. The place was the least busy I’ve ever seen it.  It might have been due to the gorgeous Southern California weather encouraging folks to engage in outdoor activities. But we have that about 335 days a year. So I suspect it was more due to a lot of folks taking their summer vacations. I took the last available seat they had—there were 3 tables of it running the entire time I was there.  I didn’t recognize anyone at the table.

After going through an orbit and a half without playing a hand, I looked down at the the dreaded pocket Kings  in middle position. There had been a limper so I made it $15 and had 3 callers.  When it got to the guy on my immediate right, the original limper, he tanked and actually asked for time. He had a fairly smallish stack, around $40-$45 and I wondered if he was considering putting it all in.  But he folded and later volunteered that he had Ace-Queen—and was only thinking of calling, not shoving. 

It was a rather nice flop, King-9-4, rainbow.  The first two players checked and it was on me.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  Pretty safe flop for my hand—should I slow play it?  That might have been my default play.  But then I remembered the latest Ed Miller book, where he talks about “streets of value” and if you have a hand that’s worth three streets of value, you want to have a plan to get it all in by the river if you can.  Actually, I got a comment reminding me of the “streets of value” thing on a recent post.  So I thought that I should bet.  After all, the pot isn’t going to build itself.  And I hadn’t been at the table long enough to have a read on anyone—like anyone who might try to steal if I checked, or might overplay a mediocre hand.  With no information on the players, and having been the preflop aggressor, I went ahead and put out $30.  But no one bit and I didn’t get much for my set of Kings.  OTOH, any kind of win with that hand is a huge win for me.

And then—stop me if you’ve heard this before—I went card dead.  Completely and utterly card dead.  For a good 90 minutes, I got virtually nothing to play.  A few suited Aces I called raises with which whiffed every flop.  No Ace-King or Ace-Queen or other playable Broadway cards.  The next biggest pocket pair I got was pocket 10’s, when I was in the small blind.  It folded to me and we chopped.  I did get pocket 3’s an inordinate amount of time—maybe five times—called raises with them and never hit.  It was weird how often I was getting 3’s and no other pockets.

Finally, in the small blind, I got Ace-King for the first time.  By this time, my $300 starting stack had dwindled below $200.  An aggro who had just busted and bought in for another $100 raised to $35.  He did like to make big preflop raises.  There had been a number of limpers and when it came to me, all I could think of was how badly I had played Ace-King two weeks earlier (see here).  What I should have done was shove in an attempt to get heads up against the aggro (assuming he would have called).  But with a bunch of other players behind, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I was fighting the last war, thinking about the disastrous Ace-King hand from before.  So I just called.  Everyone else folded behind me anyway.

The flop was low and I checked.  I should have bet the $65 or so to put the guy all-in.  It was unlikely that ragged flop had hit him.  But again, I couldn’t pull the trigger and just checked. He shoved.  I thought about calling, thinking Ace-high might be good, but I gave up.  He turned over one card, an Ace.  I bet my hand was the best when I folded.  Damn.  Gotta get over my Ace-King hang up, apparently.

I found myself down to around $130.  I was getting close to calling it a day, so I didn’t top off my stack.  I got King-Queen off and opened for $12.  One guy called and then the big blind shoved for his last $23.  We both called.  The shorty announced he was playing blind.  The flop was King-9-X, rainbow.  I bet $40 and the other guy called.  The turn was a Jack and I put all the rest of my chips in.  The other guy tanked for quite a bit and then finally folded. So I won the side pot, and then, because of what happened next, I don’t remember the river card.  But I flipped over my hand, and had totally forgotten that the short stack had announced he was all-in blind.

Instead of flipping over his cards immediately, he took just one card and turned it over—not knowing what to expect, just like the rest of us.  It was then that I remembered he hadn’t looked and had no idea what he had.  But the first card he flipped over was a 9 and I had to hope his other card didn’t match the board. There was a dramatic pause and he slowly flipped over his other card. It was another 9.  The guy had flopped a set of 9’s and didn’t know it.  He was excited and happy, but nowhere near the over exuberant jerk the guy I described in this post was.  I’d played with him all day and he was a good guy.  His stack had been up and down the entire time.  But a few people did point out that it was definitely a slow roll, even if it wasn’t intended to be.

In the fact, the guy to my immediate right thought it was just about the best thing he’d ever seen.  He thought that it might be the first time in the history of poker someone ever slow rolled someone because he played his hand blind and didn’t know that he had won.  I assured him that this same situation must have happened plenty of times before.  Meanwhile, the guy with the set of 9’s apologized for slow rolling me, reminding me, as if I didn’t know, that he had no idea what he had.

I actually laughed and said, “Well, yeah, you did slow roll me, but since it was an ‘accidental slow roll,’ I’m ok with it..”  Since it wasn’t a huge pot. that was mostly true.  And actually, I was grateful that the guy didn’t have a bigger stack, I could have lost some serious money running my top pair into his set.

After we finished laughing about the accidental slow roll, the guy who folded on the turn said to me, “I would have won if I had stayed in.  I should have called, I would have hit a straight.  I was open-ended on the turn.”  Hmm….in the commotion about the slow roll, I forgot some of the cards on the board, including the river card.  But I’m trying to figure out what he would have had for the Jack on the turn (which I am sure of, cuz I didn’t like it) to have given him an open-ender—and where it would have made sense for him to call on the flop.  But if he was right, I was certainly happy my shove there got him to fold.  I still had chips to play with.

My stack was around $125-$135 a bit later when I got pocket deuces.  I was in the cut-off and no one had entered the pot yet.  I’m not limping in one from the button, so I made the min-raise to $6 and got three callers.  The flop came Jack-9-2, two hearts.  It checked to me and I made it $25.  The guy on my left, another aggro, called, then another player raised to about $60 or so.  I didn’t bother asking for a count, because as soon as I saw he was going to raise, I knew I was putting the rest of my chips in, which I did.  The aggro folded but of course the guy who had raised called, it wasn’t that much more.  The turn was another 9 and I no longer was worrying about the flush.  But when I flipped over my hand, he just mucked his cards and I had won a nice pot.

I won a few more very small pots from the blinds, both times, oddly enough with trip 10’s when I had 10-7 and 10-3, respectively.  But I didn’t quite get back to even, losing around $50.  Considering how card dead I was for the day, it wasn’t that bad a result.  And I didn’t even mind the accidental slow roll.