This is super long, but there are some kind of funny anecdotes. probably not worth reading but if you want to read about how the tournament went... here it is....

I couldn't bring myself to post this last night. I'm still pretty tilted about the whole thing as success was within my grasp if it wasn't for running so bad against this russian guy...


who, believe it or not has either tied or broken the record for most cashes in a summer at the wsop with his cashing yesterday in this event. This guy... let me just say that in my humble opinion, I felt like this guy's play was "sub-optimal" in just about every hand I saw him show down. I'm trying really hard to not type anything more than that.

So how did it all go down? On day 1 I ran really well because the times I got sucked out on were when I was deep with a guy and was in position and could control the size of the pot or I was out of position and it was easy to see the guy had turned/rivered a monster so it didn't cost me much. I got dealt AA 3x and got action on them twice. I got KK twice on day one also and managed to stack a short-ish stack who had AK. I flopped a set against an overpair to win a very big pot to skyrocket me to second in chips at the end of day 1. The rest of the 12 hours or whatever we played on day 1, I mostly won small to medium uncontested pots. At one point after the day 1 dinner break I had about 35% of my stack in preflop against a short stack where my 99 held against ATo.

A funny anecdote of Day 1, when I got moved to the last table I'd play that night, I was of course decked out in my DeucesCracked gear along with the loveable DC rubber ducky. So when I sit down, seat 4 says to me "DeucesCracked, huh?" and I said "yep, that's right." He gave me a grin and said "Man that WiltOnTilt makes the best videos" (I could tell he was saying it because he knew what I looked like from the site), so I said "yea I hear he's a pretty smart guy!" Someone else at the tabled asked if that was me and what the site was about etc so it was fun to tell everyone about what we do. It turns out that seat 4 was actually hovadogg on UB, a VERY strong short handed nl player who I think is one of the strongest players on UB. It was cool to meet him.

Towards the end of Day 1, I flat called QQ on the button against a pretty deepish stacked guy who had me covered (I had around 92k -- 500/1000 blinds). I had been winning a few uncontested pots, including a 4bet preflop where villain folded QQ face up to me. Then this hand comes up with the same villain where I flat call his raise with QQ on the button. Flop comes QT5 with 2 diamonds. He bets 5k into 6500 I insta-make it 15k to try to rep a draw. He ships it in without much thought with KK and my QQQ holds to move me into second in chips.

Day 2 was pretty steady to begin. I started bleeding a bit being super card dead for the first 2 hours... I couldn't even get into situations to steal the blinds because I had Fatal_Error on my left (good high stakes player on stars/ftp) 3betting and squeezing me and also a super short stack to his left and anytime I had anything remotely reasonable, there would be action in front of me that made it difficult to play a pot.

It didnt seem to take too long before we were down to 80 players left, with 78 being paid. Fatal_Error and I were speculating as to how long the bubble would last. At first he set the over/under at 1.5 hours and I was going to take the over (but we never officially bet). Then they introduced hand for hand play and it was clear that this would be taking a long time. I think it ended up lasting almost 2 hours at hand-for-hand to get the people to bust. They gave us a few breaks and kept the blind levels the same until the final two busted.

The bubble boy was a german(?) guy by the name of Johannes Strassmann who apparently made 2 final tables at the European Poker Tour this year. Johannes was sitting on my right telling me how he knew he would be the bubble boy (self fulfilling prophecy anyone?). He was constantly complaining about how bad he ran etc.

Funny anecdote about him. I was card dead early, folds to him in the sb and he completes. I have T3o and check. Flop is 7 9 Tr, he leads 2k into 3k and I call. turn is a K, he checks, I bet 6000 into 7000 and he calls. At this point I have him on A8 or pair+8 exactly. River is a blank, he checks, I check and win the pot. He shows me 98o, which is right where I had him, and tells me how lucky I am he didn't hit and also tells me how it was such a "cooler" (lol?) . Earlier he also berated a guy who "could have stacked him" when they both flopped top pair in a blind vs blind battle and Johannes had the worse kicker. Pretty hilarious... so his final hand he open shoved AKo utg 14 blinds deep, Fatal_Error reshoves AJ and spikes the J to eliminate the guy. Surprisingly Johannes walked off without a word and I couldn't believe it, but then not to disappoint, he came back and let Fatal_Error have it, again talking about how awful he runs and how reshoving AJ there is a terrible play etc. I thought FE had a nice comeback when he said "I wish I could run as bad as you and final table 2 EPTs in 1 year."

Prior to the tournament starting, I was pretty excited about my table as it looked like lots of short stacks and I was hoping it would be people trying to eek their way into the money. Ideally I was going to try to steal lots of blinds on the bubble to chip up, but that was before I found out that the people at my table could actually play, for the most part and most of them were not very concerned with just squeeking into an 8k payout which made my initial plans a no go. I was getting 3bet and squeezed a few times and opted against some possibly slightly +EV but high variance plays. Overall I was pretty impressed with how most of the people played on day 2.

So after some bleeding and after the bubble broke, the man pictured above had been donking around and sucked out to double up, he had around 35k in chips and I believe the blinds were 800/1600 at this point. Folds around to him in the sb and he completes, I look at JTo and consider raising but I'm afraid this guy could limp/shove a lot of stuff (he had been playing really spewy/awkward) so I just checked. Flop came Td 9d 5x, he bets out pot and I shove it in and he snap calls. When he calls so fast I thought I was cooked, until he turns over T7o so life was good, until he 3 outed me with the 7 on the river. Life was not so good then. I was down to 120k in chips or so (still a lot, way above average but now down 33% of my stack from where I started).

So a bit later, I had chipped up and down a little, but back to around 120k. I looked at 88 in the sb. Bryan Pope, who apparently "makes lots of money on UB" as he was telling us opens UTG to 4500, folds to me I make the call with 88. Flop was a BEAUTIFUL Qh Th 8c, I check, he bets 8000 into about 10k pot, I make it 30,000 to go. He thinks for a little bit... I can tell he's considering a reraise, asks for a count down of my chips (have about 80k more), then he finally calls. I'm literally praying for a blank card to roll off on the turn since there are so many ugly awkward turn cards. Turn is a fantastic 7d. I think for about 10 seconds and announce I'm all in for like 80k into a 70k pot. He goes into the tank for a bit, but I really think he's calling. He shuffles chips around, counts and recounts my stack, and finally he makes the call with KK and I scoop the massive like 250k pot. JoeTall, jalexand42, and my student/friend Al were there on the rail witnessing it and giving high fives. When I was stacking those chips I really thought "man I have a legitimate shot at this" Unfortunately... Nikolay Evdakov (pictured above) had a different donktastic plan.

Funny anecdote about Bryan Pope. So my friend Al was on the rail watching and overheard Pope talking to one of his friends on the rail. The friend asked Pople "Is he any good?" (referring to me) and Pope replies something to the effect of "I dunno but he can't possibly be a pro, no pro would bring a rubber duck to the table" When Al told me that I died laughing, it was so awesome. I heart ducks.

At this point Nikolay had been playing bad, sucking out, and chipping up to about 100k. Some instances of him playing bad.... folds to him on the button, he open shoves for 100k, both me and Fatal_Error fold suited broadway cards, he triumphantly shows 44. Another hand, he defends from the sb with 48s. Flops a gutshot and gets there on the turn against a 40bb stack or something. Another time, he defends something from the blinds, flop is A 3 6r, he open shoves his stack in, they had like 50bb effective, the other guy is clearly confused and just mucks the hand. Nikolay didn't show. So basically every play this guy makes is just clearly insane.

So fast forward he opens to 6k on the button, we're almost 100k deep, I make it 20k from the sb with KK, he thinks for like 2 seconds and calls. Flop is J 9 5 rainbow. I bet 25k into 45k, he thinks for probably 30 seconds, then announces he's all in. I snap call. He shows 78 offsuit (yes, 78o for 20% of stacks pre, expert) for the double gutshot. Turn is a 7 and i cringe. River is an 8. I'm proud of myself in that I only asked how much it was, gave him the chips and said nice hand and nothing else. There were definitely some groans from the rail though :-/ At that point I was back down to like 130k in chips. Still OK.

I end up losing a few more small pots so I'm at like 105k in chips. Folds around to Nikolay who opens again for 6k in the CO (1k / 2k blinds), I look down and see KK (then the star spangled banner goes off in my head haha ;-) and make it 20k again. In hindsight this was a mistake, I saw him call 78o for 20k before, he's likely to call with whatever trash he has for about whatever price I make it. I should have made it 25 or 30k just because he's never folding anything. So he calls.

Flop is awful Ah 8h 3c. I have KK with K of hearts, he checks and I check behind. The turn brings a 5h, so I've got the backdoor flushdraw, he bets 15k into 43k I call. River is a 6o, he bets 20k and I fold and I'm left with like 70k in chips now. The blinds go up to 1200/2400 with 300 ante, I fail at stealing some blinds so I'm down to 60k in chips.

Bryan Pope had been opening lots of pots, he opens again to 7500. Folds to me and I look at AJo and decide that this is the time, since I expect to take the pot down a lot preflop (7500 bet plus the 4800 in blinds/antes) so I jam it in, he has KK and my 30% equity doesn't come through, so I'm out of the tournament.

I was very disappointed with how this tourney ended up... if I win that pot against Nikolay vs his 78o I'm rocking with 350k in chips and probably in the top 3 in chips. Instead I'm out in 59th place for just under $10k.

I'm thankful and blessed to do as well as I did but it's clearly disappointing as I was in a good spot to make some noise in this tournament. The truth is though even if I did win that KK vs 78o hand and have 350k in chips, I would have still had to dodge a lot more bullets and win some more big hands to make the final table. I'm happy with how I played in the tournament, and glad to finally cash a WSOP event, but of course I'm still massively disappointed and perma-tilted by the russian phenom who has cashed 8x now this summer (lol).

Aaron

I wasn't even going to play this one but I won a decent amount online the night before so I said what the heck… glad I did.

There was one internet pro that I play against often that recognized me from my DeucesCracked.com picture. It was kind of funny when I sat down (wearing my DeucesCracked shirt etc) he said "man WiltOnTilt's videos are the greatest!" (I could tell he was saying that because he recognized me etc). anyway it was kind of funny.

I never really "got lucky" against anyone on day 1, but I managed to not get "unlucky" several times, so that was good.

Here's the final end of day 1 leaderboard:

day 1 leaderboard

Click here for updated hands/stats from the tournament (might have to look for a place to click on day 2 i dunno)

Day 2 updates

there are 96 players left, top 78 get paid… hopefully I can not get unlucky and not make bad decisions and have a decent shot at making something happen in this tournament!

there were quite a few funny hands and situations i'd like to post but i'm so tired and I need to get some sleep... pool your luckboxes for me one time!

action starts again 2pm vegas time.

wish me luck!
Aaron

blah... played pretty damn well all day. final hand was my 8400 stack goes into the middle (300/600 blinds 75 ante) open shove from the CO, small blind wakes up with QQ and that's it for me. argh

was going to play the 5k 6max event tomorrow but i'm not sure i have another long day of poker in me. i really thought today was going to be my day as the very first hand of the tournament i bust a guy with my AKss winning the flip vs QQ when i squeezed/called preflop

oh wellzzzzZZZzzzzZZzz

hard to believe i've already been here a week.

I had a good, relaxing day today in Vegas... slept in, took a nap, ate some awful phad thai (what is it with this town and awful phad thai? was even worse at bellagio last year) then around 6pm I met up with one of my local students, Al, and we went to see Iron Man (very good movie, if you're a fan of super hero movies like I am) then we went back to his place for a long night of coaching. We ran so cold and played some donks 1 tabling HU 1/2nl for like 4 hours or something and ended up -$100. Besides 1 $200 stack where we won AQ > AT on Axx board, our next 3-4 biggest pots of the night were on bluffs. It was pretty ridiculous.

Al is the one who is hooking me up with these rooms at the rio because he's a video poker baller. The rio sent up 2 gift bags filled with all sorts of goodies ranging from dried apricots to summer sausage to crackers to chocolates and tons of drinks. It's one hell of a spread! jalexand42 from 2p2 is coming into town today so I'm sure he'll help me eat a bunch of it. Pretty awesome that I get to reap the rewards of his comps, thanks Al!

The plan for today is to hit the bank and get some cash so i can buy into some more events and play some higher stakes live poker and then hopefully do some more relaxation. I'm a bit burned out on the poker front as most of last week I played HU online all day and night. Wednesday is the $1000 rebuy event so I'll probably play that, and hopefully not rebuy too many times lol... then thursday is the $5000 6max event and assuming i'm not still in the rebuy event I'll probably go ahead and start that one... then this weekend Missy gets in town and the main event is the following week.

A bunch of my students are coming into town this week so it'll be fun to meet up with everyone. Be sure to send me an IM or email or something if you want to get together. I'll be at the Rio until thursday then probably back at the DC house after that then at the Venetian then back to the Rio, so i'll be all over the place.

will post an update if I manage to get into a fun live game tomorrow.

later
Aaron

Hard to believe it's already Sunday and my last post was Wednesday. Seems like simultaneously nothing and so much has happened in the last several days.

If you're a 2p2'er or a DC'er, surely you've heard about KRANTZ accepting Patrik Antonius's challenge to all of the online high stakes players. It was pretty exhilarating to be ringside to watch them battle. Jay got one nice setup in his favor with AQ > Q9 on K J T however the rest of it was pretty much krantz domination. It'll be fun to see some future matches. That was all on Friday.

After the match Jay and I jump into the BMW convertible and hit the road to grab a bunch of In-n-Out burger for everyone in the house so they could eat something before heading out to see the cirque de solei show "LOVE" (I was planning to stay in and grind online, Friday nights and all. yes i'm a loser even in vegas) anyway as we were driving through Vegas with the awesome weather, sun setting, mountains in the background, on the high of seeing him win $122k vs Antonius, it was just a pretty sweet reminder that "life is good." What an awesome summer this is turning out to be.

Speaking of "life is good" aka "LFISGD", I saw Brad Booth walking down the hall at the rio. I had already busted from the $1500nl tournament (JJ loses to KK ai pf, getting 3.5:1 when the BB cold 4bet me, ugh) and I was playing some 5/10 at the rio since I had yet to play any cash games. When I was on my way to the bathroom I saw Brad there and as some of you might know we've been playing quite a few HU matches against each other at 10/20nl on FTP. I had asked him during our last match if he minded if I introduced myself if I saw him at the WSOP, and he said sure. So I caught his attention and shook his hand. He was extremely friendly (I had heard as much) and we had a short chat about whatever. He asked me:

"So life is good?"

and I said "yes, just like your old screen name"

he replied how much he missed it.

Anyway, it was fun to meet him even for a minute or two. Super nice guy and he even reminded me of what he told me once before "you know the only note I have from our matches says 'class' " Definitely a cool compliment.

I had kept playing the 5/10nl ($20 straddle on the button often) and had a good time at it. I had a hilarious hand that I must share.

Effective stacks are $1100. New euro guy sits down a few hands ago. $20 straddle on the button, utg+2 raises a limp to $90, New Euro Guy (NEG) cold calls, folds to me in the sb and I raise black QQ to $310 (yes, smallish raise, but the stacks were so shallow that it leaves me about a psb left on the flop). So original raiser folds and NEG calls in the middle. Flop is 9h Th 4x, with like 700 in the pot and about $800 left in the stack, I feel like checking here is pretty good just because I feel like he's going to have a small/medium pocket pair a lot which likely won't call if i shove, and if he does have a hand like a big ace that slowplayed twice then I give him a chance to jam it in as a bluff. After all, europeans are crazy right? :-) Anyway he looks like he wants to bet, so I check to him, but he checks it back.

Turn is a 6h, so the board is 9h Th 4x 6h. I decide this is a pretty good opportunity to represent AhXx so I announce I'm all in. He goes into the tank and finally after a minute or two makes the call. The river is a 2x, so I triumphantly flip my queens up expecting to scoop the pot when he sheepishly looks at his hand, looks at the board, shakes his head, then flips over 35 offsuit. lol.... ya 35o. I started dying laughing right there. He starts apologizing profusely, "i'm so sorry, so sorry" and I just laugh and laugh. Everyone at the table is stunned how well I'm taking this beat but I can't stop from laughing. But this is the best part, after he tells me about 5 times he's sorry, I continually tell him to not apologize and he says:

"i am just sorry, the reason I called is because I thought I had pocket 3's. I didn't think I was on the draw, I thought i had a pair of 3's that is why i called" hahah... I mean ya i guess it makes sense, and that's what I was going for, rep'ing a big AX with a heart, but still it's pretty funny that he put almost a third of his stack in pre with 35o or 33. Anyway it was pretty funny and he left shortly after. That's how good the games were at the rio, especially if you can get into the 5/10/20 on the button, the game plays like .50/$1 online but the stakes are closer to $10/$20. Great stuff.

Saturday I got together with one of my friends Bill (Wild Bill I call him) who lives here in Vegas. We had a good time hanging at his place and talking about general poker stuff and went for some really good chinese food. Mongolian beef was killer.

Today I'll be checking out of the DeucesCracked house for a few days and checking into the Rio so I can be a little closer to the live action. Also 2p2's jalexand42 is coming to stay with me for a few days. I'll probably get into a little live cash game pokering as well as another tournament or two. The only two tournaments I'm thinking of playing next are the $1000 rebuy NLHE event on Wednesday and also the $5000 6max event on thursday. I haven't decided if I'll play the 5k event yet, it will depend on how I run in the live games and online. I really want a shot to do something in one of these tournaments though since my tourney results have been so shitty at the wsop.

Anyway I guess that's about it for now. More during the week.

Aaron

Not a lot to report but it's been a couple days so I figured I'd go ahead and throw an update on the blog. For the past couple days I've pretty much stayed in put in the Team Israel aka DC house and played online. I ran kinda bad in typical "blog brag curse" fashion after posting that graph, but today I seemed to pull out of it posting a solid win.

Krantz/flawless/whitelime have been playing a decent amount so it has been fun/educational to sweat them.

They have hired a private chef to come over and fix some meals every day around lunch time. there's usually so much food that we snack on it/eat for dinner too. The food has been amazing. So freaking good... chicken and shrimp fajitas, bbq ribs, fish stuffed with crab, i can't remember what else. The chef's name is Robert and he's from Kansas City so we had something to talk about. His skills in the kitchen might outmatch our skills at the poker table, if that tells you how good he is ;-)

I haven't played any more events, but if I can catch a ride tomorrow I'll play the $1500nl event on thurs at noon. If not, I'll probably stay in and play/coach online. Eventually though I want to make it up to the Bellagio and play some of the 10/20nl there or the 10/25nl at the rio.

Yesterday, Chuck (danzasmack) and I went to sweat Chris (deathdonkey) at the final table of the 10k LHE championship event. He ran bad and got knocked out in 9th place for $51k. After that we were bored so we decided to hit the rollercoaster at NY NY. It was $14 for one ride or $25 for an "all day scream pass." We opted for the single ticket and were glad we did. The coaster started off pretty cool but after the first upside down loop it got pretty boring. Afterwards we hit up the arcade and played 2 busto shoot-em-up games where the first one refused to take more quarters so we couldn't continue our game and the second one had the screen go black and flashed "no signal" about 5 minutes in. So crappy.

That's about all for updates. Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll play some live cash and have more interesting things to report.

Aaron

I got to vegas on about 2 hours of sleep and Al, my student who lives here in vegas, came to pick me up and took me to breakfast as the Green Valley Ranch buffet. I ate a bunch of breakfasty-food which was delicious and not so nutritious and afterwards we went back to Al's place to do an impromptu heads up session. We were card dead the entire time but managed to steal some pots and book a buyin win for him at 1/2nl hu.

After that Al took me to the Rio where I got signed up and played the $2500 6-handed Event #31. I only made it about 3.5 hours in and busto'd when I got short stacked (15bb) and had a 3 way all in with AQo vs AJo vs 99. The nines scooped and it was game over. For the most part I'm fairly satisfied with how i played, but I definitely tried to run the table over a little too much. I'd say the table line up was probably better than average, but certainly there wasn't anyone there that was a real force. Most were either tag or lag preflop and calling station postflop... so when I managed to try to fire barrels into them when they flopped trips.... well you know how well that worked out.

Anyway whatever, I'm looking forward to the next event I'll play. I'm not sure which it will be, perhaps the $1500 event tomorrow at noon or the $1500 on thursday.

Ok so enough tourney donk stuff... My "Run Well" Challenge (60 miles ran, $60k, 6 weeks) ended on June 15th, although really I didn't put any hands in since the 13th or so. I ended up completing the 60 miles ran (barely, had to cram in a lot of 3 mile runs toward the end...). Here's how my playing results ended for those 6 weeks. I think the graph speaks for itself. The only thing I'll add is that this was by far the sickest heater I've ever been on. Not all of the results here are me outplaying people... I ran very, very hot in some of the matches and well... it feels good to write a blog about how I'm running above expectation instead of whining about running awful which is more frequent on the blog.

Here's the graph for the 6 weeks since April 28th when I started the challenge:



I'm hoping this good run will carry over to the Vegas cash games and the donkaments :-)

I ran into a few DC members today at the Rio too. It's always good talking to you guys so if you ever see me please say hello!

Aaron

On my way to Vegas

I’m on the plane now heading out to Vegas where I’ll be there for about 3.5 weeks or so to see everyone, play in a few wsop events, hit up some cash games and just be a part of the excitement. DeucesCracked has had an amazing showing so far as Vanessa won a bracelet and came damn close to winning a second one, as 5 DC coaches completely destroyed fools in the 10k HU event that many of you know I was considering playing in. I’m really bummed I didn’t decide to go out there and partake in the event as it seemed like having the rubber duck was all they needed to get into the money in that event. I’m sure being some of the sickest HU NLHE players on the internet didn’t have anything to do with it :o)

Fast forward to today though and I’m facing one of the hazards of being a poker professional. Usually I’m able to stay in my own little world of sleeping and working and it great. Unfortunately when I have to adjust to the real world schedule I get hosed. A good example of this is today when I schedule a flight that leaves KC at 6:30 am when my normal bed time is around 4:30am or so. I had a hell of a time trying to fall asleep last night, and maybe caught 2 hours of zzzzz. Maybe. So the alarm screams at me at 5:05am and I somehow get out of bed and shower and head to the airport where it’s a mad house. I have the bright idea that maybe I’ll go for a window seat this time so I could have somewhere to lay my head and maybe sleep on the plane a bit (which is something I typically can’t do). Because I’m pretty tall (6’4” ish) I usually opt for the aisle seat and commandeer some extra leg room. Foolishly, I get my ass stuck by the window next to a dude who is probably an inch taller and 20 lbs heavier than me who is snoring like a freaking freight train. UGHHH. He also likes to do the folded arms on his gut sitting style which means I got an extra elbow on my right and the wall of the plane on my left. In order to type this out I’m like a cirque de solei contortionist or something.

We’re only half way through the flight right now. I spent the first half of the flight listening to some random podcasts (joel osteeen and some poker podcasts) as well as trying miserably to fall asleep but it just isn’t happening. When I get to Vegas, one of my students (Al, who lives in LV) is picking me up and we’re going to hit up some breakfast (leave KC at 6:30am, get to Vegas at 7:30am local time) and then get a coaching session in and then head to the rio where I”ll be playing in the $2500 6max NLHE event. I’m pretty happy that my first event this year will be a 6max event, even though I don’t think I’ve played a hand of 6max nlhe in like 3 months (been focusing solely on HU) but I coach so much 6max that I clearly am feeling good about my edge in this tournament. I checked out the structure last night and it looks like we start with 100bb and have 60 minute levels. Hopefully I can build up a stack early and try to bulldoze some people, but I suspect there will be a ton of online players playing in this event. It’ll be interesting to see if I can spot who is who.

Last year I was on one of the worst runs of my life in may/june and it carried through to the wsop events where I basically did nothing in the 3 events I played. This year though, I’m coming off one of the best runs of my life, as you’ll see when I post the results for my run well challenge. I’m hoping the fact that I’ve been running sick hot and have a real confidence boost thanks to some HU NLHE success that I’ll be able to carry that over into the wsop events. Ideally, of course, getting heads up for a bracelet and a nice chunk of change ;-)

I’m going to try to avoid the week long lapses between updates that typically occur with my blog. The goal will be to update at least 4x per week while I’m in Vegas, so check back often. I’m also planning to have Missy do some updates if I can manage to luckbox my way deep in one of these events.

That’s it for now, I’ll probably post my Run Well Challenge results either today or tomorrow. As a preview, I managed to run the 60 miles and totally smash my $ won goal.

Come say hello if you see me at the rio!

Aaron

We all thought we were just cash game players lol....

DeucesCracked coach Vanessa 'fslexcduck' Selbst brought home the first bracelent for DC by winning the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha event for a cool $230k + the bracelet. Congrats Vanessa!!!!

BTW check out the sick Duck she had with her. Look familiar? :-) You'll be seeing these everywhere soon enough!



Here are some other DC coaches who have cashed in various events so far:

Event 4 - $5,000 Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No Limit)
23rd - $12,483 - Ariel Schneller (FoxwoodsFiend)

Event 6 - $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better
22nd - $6,367 - Joe Tall

Event 11 - $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout
34th - $16,920 - Ariel Schneller (FoxwoodsFiend)

Event 13 - $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em
34th - $14,137 Vanessa Selbst (fslexcduck)

Event 17 - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout
9th - $9,828 - Alex Triner (AMT)

I can't wait to get out there Monday and hopefully bring home a bracelet for DeucesCracked!

Aaron

So it all started last week when MacDaddy34, a strong mid stakes regular on FTP who I talk to every now and then on AIM, sends me an instant message explaining that his girlfriend is Dion Lim, of KMBC Channel 9 fame, and she wants to do a story about online poker and the World Series of Poker. He suggested that she interview me for the local news and I could talk about poker, DeucesCracked.com, and give a personal story about how I became a professional poker player.

I was obviously thrilled to do this and couldn't wait to set up the interview. We scheduled it for Tuesday morning and Dion and her camera man drove over to our house to film the interview. It turns out they took about 40 minutes of video including some general talking about what it takes to be a professional poker player and they filmed me 4 tabling 5/10nl heads up. The focus of the story ended up shifting towards my battle with cancer and how poker has allowed me to donate some profits to the hospital that cured me: St Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Here's the video on youtube of the news story:



Here's the news article on KMBC.com where it also has the video and a short write up about it.

Also if you liked the story, it would be cool if you gave KMBC some feedback using this link (choose "News Director") saying you liked the story. I think there was some concern from the news station about airing things about online poker, so any positive feedback you could give them would really help the reporter, Dion Lim, and potentially land me another interview. :-)

I think it turned out really well. I gave quite a few shout outs that didn't make it past the editing room (can't blame them I guess, considering they had to take 40 minutes of video and slim it down to a 1.5 minutes), but overall I'm very pleased with how it all turned out. It was a pretty awesome experience.

The thing that just blows my mind a little bit is that here I am a year and a half into being a professional poker player and somehow I land on the news. Granted, I wasn't chosen because of any remarkable feats I've done or tournaments I've won, it's simply that I knew a guy whose girlfriend is one of the main anchors on the local news channel...but to think that 2 years ago I was sitting in a cubicle being a code monkey 8-10 hours a day and now I get my ugly mug on the news for gambling every day of my life... it's just really, really bizarre to me...but in a good way.

I'm super thankful for the opportunity given to me by Evan, Dion, and KMBC TV. It was a fun experience and hopefully I can luckbox my way into a bracelet this year at the WSOP so that I can get some more face time :-)

Too funny.

Aaron

On Saturday, my friend/student Jared and I, along with 2 of his buddies went to the biggest concert that comes around Kansas City: Rockfest 2008 at the Liberty Memorial. It was a sold out show with 50,000+ fans, 2 stages, 15 bands, beers, burgers, blunts, and of course: breasts. It was an insane time... they opened up the park around the Liberty Memorial around 11am, but we knew there's no way we could last that long so we got there around 2:30pm and stayed until the Stone Temple Pilots finished out the show at 11:30pm. It was a looooong day. There were plenty of people who didn't have the foresight we did. Tons of people were essentially passed out in the mud since they didn't pace themselves with their drinks.

Pictured here is one such soul:



Pretty damn hilarious. Also note how much general trash is around. That's because they didn't have any trash cans in the area except right next to the beer tents, which I found a bit odd. Once you got packed into a place to stand to hear the band(s) there was literally no other choice besides to dispose of your trash under your feet. It got pretty nasty towards the end but what can you do? 50k people are consuming beer after beer and pizza after burger after sub sandwich after funnel cake... At the end of the night on our way out, I couldn't take 2 steps without touching some sort of trash. I guess that's how you know the party was rockin'. ;-)

Let me hit the rewind button and talk a little bit about some of the bands. I think we all agreed that Sevendust put on the most consistently good show of all the bands we listened to. Chevelle was also very strong as was Shinedown (probably the band I cared most to see). Shinedown finished their set VERY VERY strong, probably the best 2 songs of the night, but the middle where they were doing their new stuff seemed well... awful. So that was a bit disappointing, but nothing compared to the biggest disappointment of them all which was Saliva. They were so weak, I can't really begin to describe why. The lead singer was not on his A game I guess... STP was a good way to finish out the night, but after 9 hours of standing I think we were all ready to head back to the car. I'm far from a Rock snob too... if I recognize the song from the radio, and I'm hearing it live, chances are pretty good I'm going to dig it. And I really had a great time listening to everything except for the middle songs of Shinedown and pretty much all of Saliva.

To try to give you an idea of how many people were around, here's another pic that Jared took with his celly. Keep in mind this picture is facing AWAY from the stage, and we were probably a good 60+ yards away from the stage. So these were all people behind us, where a lot of the food/drinks/"porty-pots" (lol buckaments ;-) were located.



You may notice, as I did, that generally speaking the amount of skin shown was inversely proportional to the level of attractiveness of the females. There were a few notable exceptions to save the day though...and Kessler managed to spot every single one of them out of the 50k people lol...

All things considered, a freaking amazing time and I'd definitely do it again next year if the same bands were back. The only thing I'd really change is that next year i'd get-me-a funnel cake. yummmm



Tuesday morning I'm being interviewed about poker by one of the local news stations. I'll post a trip report on that sometime after the interview airs. I'm pretty pumped about it though.

holla
Aaron

Here's a recap I posted on my students-only forum where me and two of my friends/students from the KC area went to play some live low stakes nl hold'em at the KC casinos (2/5nl $500 buy-in). This was from last thursday night. Yes I suck at updating my blog:

i had this whole big thing typed out and my comp crashed so blah...

here are some highlights i remember

there were 2 games, one "main" game and one "feeder" game... both were ridiculously soft. no one had any idea what was going on.

so I sit down, stack my chips, and whip out my card protecting duck (sorry for shitty image quality - if you cant tell it has the DeucesCracked logo on the front):





and we ordered up plenty of this:



and this



so the night was off to a plenty good start.

jason was destroying everyone making hands, winning flips, and taking pots down w/o contest including some massive preflop raises... but i dont i saw him show down a losing hands once? was pretty awesome. he was the big winner of night... pulling almost $1800 out of that game.

I had 2 goals for the night... show a big bluff and challenge someone to a HU match. I sorta failed on both goals... but you be the judge

some highlights i remember, hopefully in roughly chronological order:

I raise anything reasonable and never make a pair and check/fold a bunch.

i pick up 68o after folding forever (20 mins?) and raise it up after a limper, this guy who is the spitting image of joey knish



calls me out of the small blind, and older guy in an orange shit who is clearly terrible (but probably wealthy) calls in the big blind, limper folds.

flop is 6c 4c 3c, check check, i bet 60 into 80 or so, knish calls, other guy folds.

turn is a Jc or similar, he stares at the board and checks, so i'm like "might as well bluff," so i bet like 100 into 200 and he thinks for like 20 seconds and mucks. i show the 68o and he claims to have had a bare 5 lol... i don't really believe him, but maybe ?? but because he claims that i had the best hand, i didnt count it for my bluff

so a bit later i get moved to the main game, where most of the players aren't aware of how i was playing at the other table. so the first hand i get is the good ol' 72o, so i raise and get 3bet by a quiet asian kid so i muck face up.

then like a half hour of folding later i pick up A9o on the button, few limps, guy who was playing sort of aggressive (at least for a live game) raises in the CO to 35. at this point i only got like 350 in my stack because i never reloaded to 500, so i decide to either steal this pot or go reload. so i make a small 3bet to $100 and it folds back to him where he thinks for like 30-45 seconds before deciding to make the call. At this point I didn't think he was really acting so i felt like he had a tough decision, something like 99-QQ which is definitely tough when facinig a $100 bet (i mean, $100 can buy a lot of big macs yo!) but he makes the call. So at this point i decide i'lll bluff any Q or K high board and probably play an A high board a little slower to induce action. I get a great flop, K 7 4r, he thinks and checks, i announce i'm all in for my last 250 into a 200 pot and he goes into the tank for probably 4-5 minutes before finally stacking up his chips and putting them in the middle. JJ good. hahaha... owned.

so i go reload and from then on whenever i'm in the pot the action is fast and furious. whenever i raise i get minimum 3 callers and often times 5-8 callers, so it was great, now time to make a hand. By this time jared and jason have made it to the main game. joey knish has been trying to play pots with me and get back for my "non-bluff, bluff" earlier (i still think he folded the best hand btw) so he's been going after me. i think i probably showed a few bluffs before this hand comes up, but i'm not sure exactly. Oh yea I remember. 7 way limped pot, i've got 8s6s in the bb and check (weak tight, i know) i flop huge with the 8h Js 4s, so i lead out for like 30, fold fold fold fold then quiet kid makes it $80, and only has like 200 more behind so i'm like i got the nuts i'm all in. he snap calls and shows J8o so i'm not in nearly as good of shape as i thought hahaha. I didn't show my hand (cant remember why? maybe we were ordering more beer?) and jared's like "spade draw good", turn blanks, river Qs and jared says "spades win" and of course I show and scoop. holla

i'm like 700-800 deep at this point i can't remember. I had folded a few hands so i look down at a monstrous 65o and raise after a few limpers to "thirty-five u.s. dollars" which i think in and of itself was making people tilt using the phrase "u.s. dollars", anyway so i get like 3 way action and the flop is 9 7 4r. so right away i decide no matter what i'm winning this pot either by 3 barreling or just hitting. checks to me i bet like $75, knish calls, other guy folds. turn is a beautiful offsuit 3. (run hot much?) knish stares me down and checks, so i laugh as i bet $150 us dollars. he thinks for like i dunno 20 seconds and makes the call. river is an 8. he INSTA-INSTA-shoves and I snap call obv and say straight and he quietly mucks lol... he claims he "flopped 2 pair" (does he think i was born yesterday?) but in reality i think he had T8 and was bluffing, or he might have had 78 or 98 and rivered 2pair and was value betting. but i'm leading towards bluff because of how fast he did it. pretty funny.

so a bit after that i think we get the 72 game going, wherein anyone who wins with 72 in any way, we all pay him $20. We had 5 or 6 people participating, but i think jared was the only participant to actually win the game (only one other guy even got dealt 72, a medical student named ben who was a super nice guy) except he had it when it was like 6 way action preflop so he couldnt do anything.

only other hand i can remember goes like this. non-72-participant and guy who called jared an "internet donk" raised pf utg and got like 3 callers and 2 barreled a ragged board and showed K2o. so the very next hand I get dealt K2o and obviously must try to one up the guy. I think I was on about my 6th beer at that point. anyway so it's a straddled pot (utg posts a $10 blind and now becomes last to act pre) so there's a limper and I make it 55 us dollars with K2o and I get 5 way action (lol). Keep in mind the average chip stack is probably around $600 at the table. so with like 280 in the pot the flop comes 9h 6h 4x, check check i announce 200 us dollars and get a couple quick folds, the button thinks for maybe 15 seconds and opts to fold, then the rest fold and of course i show K2o and hear some pissed off grumbles coming from the other end of the table... hahaha

2:30am rolls around and it's last call. I think jason packed up as he had to get up for work in a few hours, so jared and i put in an order for a pizza and the running joke for the next hour is "where the hell is our pizza?" since it's taking so damn long. we finally get it and it's cold and the dough is tough, so as i'm trying to rip a bite off this pizza like a lion ripping flesh off a dead gazelle, jared gives me the "lol card-board-aments" and we have a good laugh.

so after the pizza was gone we played a couple more orbits and packed it in at like 4am.

good times, good times.