Poker, poker is so fun...after an hour you need a gun

Im literally at a loss for words. Im quite sure by this point that someone is manipulating all that occurs in my life and is having quite the time doing so. The last message proved to go unheard as everything continues along the same beaten path. I don't believe much in a higher being so im not even sure who I think is listening...I guess this is all for myself anyway.

Well on to the fun stuff. Im going to try and make this as painless as possible as I don't really want to relive the misery for much longer. The first instance occurred in a game at the palms where I limped with aces under the gun. The cutoff begins to reach for his chips and I see he's excited...he makes a big raise and im sure he probably has kings or queens. The button goes all in for the exact amount of the raise. I then announce im gonna isolate and I make it 200 more. It goes back to the original raiser and he's like well ill put you all in...well surely no problem sir. I turn over the aces and he goes ahhh I need help. Well no sht sir and help you will surely receive. I look to the dealer and I ask if I can hold up for once in my life. Everyone turns up their cards, the original raiser has kings and the button who went all in for only 40 has 9s. As the dealer begins to put out a flop I see the window card is a 9. I think to myself sweet well if he flopped a set what are my chances the other guy will hit one too...oh hold onto your shorts batman because the fun doesn't stop here. Sure enough behind the window card is a king and that's all she wrote.

Now moving onto my escapades at the bellagio with our wonderful oversea language sharing friends the british. I raise preflop with ace jack and get a couple of callers. The flop comes 10 8 2 rainbow and its checked to me with our british pal behind me. I check and so does he. The turn pairs the 8 and its checked again to me. I decide to put out a small bet of 40 because I honestly think ace high is the best hand and I even welcome a raise. Well my brit pal was rather happy to oblige as he makes it 150 more. I know that of course he has either complete bollocks or a flush draw which hit the turn. I call looking for a blank on the river. Its a queen and I put a bocker bet of 100 out becaue I know if he missed he just can't raise. He ends up calling and I say well nice call I thought you missed...oh no he didn't miss at all...his queen 6 offsuit hit just beautifully on the river when he had no pair no draw. Bloody brilliant.

Now all of this sets up the culmination of the nights escapades when our pal straddles for 20. Its folded around to me on the button and I pick up kings. I know if I make some gross raise he just won't be able to help himself. I make it 100 more and he ends up calling. The flop comes King 10 9 and he checks. I bet 110 looking for a reraise since I probably look weak. Sure enough my buddy is rather happy to oblige when he states he'll put me all in for the other 500. Ok buddy no problem...he of course has king queen and of course the turn is a jack. Does the river pair the board? No no I don't have that magical ability.

Fuck this game and my inability to somehow pull through when im time and again an 80 percent favorite. You'll find me sucking down the exhaust pipe of my car. Good night.

punching babies and kicking the elderly

ive had it up to here and im fuming. i think this is the first time poker has actually had me feeling like i want to break things and hurt those around me. its quite possible that this really is just a culmination of my past year here in las vegas and how unlucky i have often found myself. yes yes, im aware that i gamble for a "living" and that variance will often be involved...but honestly enough is enough. every single time that i find myself involved in some big hand where I am an overwhelming favorite, and i mean mathematically, over and over i see the money being pushed in the opposite direction. this feeling leads me to believe that perhaps someones trying to tell me something about the choices i've made and what i ought to be moving towards. i literally wanted to strandle someone today and worst of all it was against an acquaintance. of course this entry wouldn't be complete without a bad beat story so here goes nothing...

im playing the 5, 10 nl game at the bellagio. i've been trying my best to play as tight as possible and really stick to my reads. one hand where i flop trip tens leaves me in the hole for a good 700. i decide to switch tables since my game is rather tight and noones really giving me any action if i do pick up a hand. i switch to one where this kid i know is playing who always has a way about him to loosen up a game. eventually I work my stack up to 1100 when the usual charles debacle occurs. the kid i know straddles for 20 and then my other "friend" limps under the gun. preflop i jokingly tell the straddler that i'll have to make it 80 since he keeps raising my big blind. of course i have to wake up to aces on the button...anything else just wouldnt make any sense. he tells me to make it 80 and im like naw man its gonna have to be more. i make it 120 and the small blind and big blind folds. he folds his straddle as well and then the one kid thats my friend calls the 100 more. now some background information. the first time i ever met him we got in some arguments because i beat him in two pots where i legitimately had the best hand. he always told my other friend that he wanted to play each other straight up so i always played my best hands aggressively against him. his issue is that he always thinks everyones out to get him and that we're trying to make moves to make him fold the best hand. anyway back to the hand. so he calls 100 more and the flop comes 7 8 9 rainbow. he checks and i decide to bet 100 as a feeler bet. if he has ace king he'll most likely have to fold unless he wants to make a play at me. if in fact he calls i can put him either on a big hand or draw. i know him well enough that i feel comfortable playing a small pot against him with a big hand. also the bet tends to disguise the strength of my hand since its so small. he immediately asks me wtf kind of bet is that. i respond with well i have the best hand just fold. he thinks for awhile and finally makes it 400 total. this puts me in the tank. my dilemma now is whether i have the best hand and if in fact i do whats the correct move. if he has a big draw i dont really want to get it all in giving him two shots to hit. i figure that he most likely didnt flop a set because he wouldnt have made it so expensive. i know my silly small bet on the flop makes it look like i dont have anything  and he can be playing back at me with any pair from tens to jacks...the only one im scared of is tens. i decide that if i just call his bet there probably arent too many turn cards that i will be happy with. also he will be first to act and im sure his bet will commit him to the pot if i decide to go all in. after about 6 or 7 minutes of serious deliberation i go all in for 600 more. he doesnt call so i immediately tell him ok if you didnt instacall then youre no good, just fold. he thinks for about 20 seconds and says ah well im ready to gamble...fck me. he calls the 600 more and off we go. the turn is a 10...probably the worst card i could have thought of since i figure he must have either 9 10, or pocket tens. the river was some blank and he rolls over pocket jacks. whats sick is that he has 6 cards in the deck that make him a winner which makes me about a 75 percent favorite. time and again i find myself putting my money in very good with terrible results. i think what bothers me most is the fact that i told him numerous times he didnt have the best hand. if he was some tourist then id understand his poor play but since he knows me and how tight i play it just irritates me that he can win with such a bad decision.

alright i hate writing poker novels on bad beat stories, mostly because i know noone wants to hear the boring drivel but i just needed to get it off my chest. its so difficult because as a person who really values his sense of reason i find it inexplicable that the laws of odds and mathematics just dont seem to work out evenly. i just want to puke at the thought of how often i see terrible play become so profitable in poker...maybe it really is just a game of chance.

donkaments

okay so I havent written everyday like I said I would, so sue me. the past weeks been the usual pokerness. dave and tiff visited this weekend for fathers day so it was nice seeing them as usual. I just went through a bunch of my old entries in search of this one...http://www.xanga.com/CzechosChuck/298745752/item.html...as an example of my horrendous airport experiences. the process really brought back some memories. its nice to have this site to remind me of all the good times with good people. I sure have been lucky when it comes to those I choose to call my friends. its been quite the journey so far and how I ever ended up in las vegas is beyond me. either way I'm sure I'll be able to look back one day and say what the hey, you gave it a shot.

speaking of which a short anecdote on my last tournament experience. I played the venetian 340 last week which had 433 people for a first prize of about 40k. I avoided an early knockout when I decided to fold queens preflop to a raise and a reraise...of course I end up having them both crushed but I know better. I keep saying my first poker book will be entitled when youre behind youre ahead...sounds like some sort of prison story I know :-/ anyway back to the hand. this guy I played with earlier raises and then the button goes all in. I wake up to queens in the small blind and decide to fold because I figure most likely the original raiser will call and at best I'm racing for my tournament life. sure enough the original raiser has ace king and the guy who went all in has ace jack. the guy with ace king ends up hitting trip kings and would have taken me out as well. fast forward 3 hours and we're down to about 60 people. im back at the table with the guy who raised with AK. we just got back from the dinner break and I have about 80k in chips. blinds are 1500 and 3k and average chip stack is about 60k so I'm doing ok. then of course comes the hand that leads to my demise. under the gun raises to 9k and then that guy goes all in for 31k. once again I wake up to a big hand, pocket kings. at this point I'm 90% sure I have the best hand though its rather likely that he has an ace and is drawing live. I decide to pull up my skirt and I go all in. everyone folds around and he asks what I have, I show kings and he rolls over ace queen of hearts...sure as poop the flop comes King Jack 10. he flops the nuts and I'm left to hope the board pairs. as is the case with any hand where I'm a huge favorite preflop things dont go my way and I'm left in the cold once again. nothing like spending 10 hours only to leave empty handed

I'm planning on playing tomorrow in the WSOP 1500 nl event, but considering how all over the place my sleep schedule is thats yet to be seen. its a pretty big crap shoot since there will probably be over 2 thousand people playing but I figure its worth a shot. also today concludes the 5k pot limit omaha tourney with rebuys and the final table is pretty stacked with daniel negreanu, david benyamine, phil helmuth, johnny chan, and john juanda so im plannin on going to watch at 3.

lastly I have a heart warming story of how I actually won...yea those stories tend to be few and far between. this ones pretty damn funny considering how it came about. for the past few weeks I've been carrying around a quarter that I keep on the table while I play. the purpose being that if I come to a decision that I'm really not sure of I just flip it and have luck decide. I've noticed that whenever I'm faced with some big river bet I tend to make the wrong decision...with the quarter at least I have a 50 percent chance of not chosing the wrong way all the time I believe the quarter stands at 3 for 3 so far with proper decision making. theres also a second purpose to the quarter but I'll leave that story for a later date

anyway so I'm playing 5 10 NL the other day and this guy raises to 40 under the gun. I'm in middle position and pick up queens. I like to play big pocket pairs differently from most. sometimes Ill reraise for value and other times I'll just call to disguise the strength of my hand. also many times queens may not be good in this spot and I dont want to build too big of a pot with just one pair. the button then decides to raise to 110. under the gun calls the raise and now I begin to think. I know I have the first guy beat because if he had a really big hand at this point he would reraise to isolate. the issue here is the guy on the button and why he decided to raise less than three times the original bet with two guys already in for 40...something smells fishy so I decide to just call. do you hear that? yep thats the sound of angels singing as the window card drops down the queen of spades followed by the 4 of spades and the 5 of clubs...hallelujah hallelujah. if i didnt have the best hand preflop I sure do now. the first guy checks and I'm no fan of slow playing a big hand. I bet out 300 and the button then says wow a set, well its good and he calls which leaves me confused. the first guy folds and we go to the turn which is the 10 of spades, no me gusta. I check and he checks behind me...while doing so he checks back at his hole cards. at this point I put him on aces or king and he can't remember if he happens to have the spades. the river comes off an 8 and for some reason I decide to check instead of putting out some blocker bet of 200 or so.

ahhh now comes the good part, the one where I begin to poop my pants as he grabs his wad of 100s. at this point i jokingly reach out to him and say eaaaaasyyy eassyyyyyyy you dont wanna do thaaaaa.........ttttt as 500 falls onto the table. crap, now what? he's bet 500 into a pot of about 950. what stinks here is the fact that this really seems like a value bet. i tell him i flopped top set and he says wowwww thats a pretty good hand all matter of factly. now if i said this guy was cooler than the other side of the pillow I might be leaving out the fact that he sleeps in an igloo. he was so damn calm it was sickening. he even went so far as to say well I mean maybe you should poll the table, they all think you should call me. at this point I jokingly shouted "damnittt stop talking" because I knew he was a good player and pretty damn adept at the mind games. about now I began to realize I really was taking too long with the decision...I was pretty sure that he had aces because of his silly small raise preflop and due to his checking his cards on the turn. the only other hand he could have was ace king of spades and that had me crushed. now comes the coin, the floor is counting down the 60 seconds before my hand is declared dead and I say well if its heads I call and if its tails i fold. up goes the quarter and down it comes...heads. alright I call, the look on his face was pretty priceless as he shoots forward to look at the quarter to make sure. good call good call and he flips over aces...phewwwww. okay so the call should have been pretty obvious except for the fact that his bet seemed like a value bet instead of a bluff one which in fact it was at the time. he figured I wouldnt have checked a set or flush on the turn and river and decided to value bet the over pair. its kind of funny because if I didnt have the quarter Im sure I would have just called anyway and with the quarter I gave myself the opportunity to fold. the jury is still out on how valuable it is but so far it hasn't steered me wrong yet

well off to the rio I go, hopefully my favorite player takes another one down. wish me luck if i decide to pony up the 1500 tomorrow.

Better late than never

So I said I'd return and well I guess it only took me 6 months to actually get around to writing here again. I began an entry last week but unfortunately what I wrote is now lost since my phone just recently kicked the bucket. Anyway whats important is not only am I back but more importantly the World Series of Poker has once again taken over Las Vegas. I'm rather disappointed that what has probably been one of the most interesting portions of my life has no real documentation. Not that I need some blog to keep track of life but its always nice to have something to look back upon, especially when memory begins to fade.

Well what can I say about the last year besides whats probably obvious? Though I never expected things to be easy, it really has been quite the roller coaster ride. I have a new found respect for anyone who makes a living that has no guarantees. As boring as the day to day grind may be, you begin to take for granted the comforts that come along with routine. If anything the experience here has been eye opening and hopefully I'll have learned one or two things along the way.

Back to the matter at hand...the 2008 WSOP. For those that don't really follow poker it really may not mean anything but being around all the action is electrifying. I've watched two final tables live already and the sight of over five hundred thousand dollars sitting on a table is pretty damn sick. I'm going to attempt to document each day of the next 6 or so weeks, though thats a rather lofty goal that I'm sure I'll fall behind on. For those that can help I'm going to also include some hands from each day that I'll want some feedback on. Every day I'm learning and I sure have a long way to go before I become the player I want to be. I've met some sick kids who literally have millions of dollars from online poker. These kids play 25-50 NL hold em and higher with swings of over a hundred thousand a day.

Ok now to the pictures. I went to the Rio last wednesday night before the events had started to take a look around. It was rather serene especially considering the madhouse the Amazon room becomes once the WSOP starts.

the hallway that leads to the Amazon room

what would the WSOP be without Milwaukee's Beast

the cash game area, the boxed off 4 tables in the middle are where the higher stakes cash games are held

tournament tables for miles and miles

another look

the final table area under construction

On friday began the 10k pot limit hold em event and the pros came out in force.

Lots o people with lots o money

can you spot mr moneymaker?

watched the fountains at the bellagio, thats always relaxing

On monday began the 5k mixed hold'em tourney which came down to a sick final table that will be televised on ESPN

What a nasty table...howard lederer, david williams, and erick lindgren in a row. patrik antonius in the background

unabomber...saw jennifer tilly today playing the shorthanded hold em event and boy did she get large

justin bonomo, who would eventually lose heads up against lindgren for the bracelet

during this time the final table took place for the 2nd event, the 1500 NL hold'em

oooo its jesus

the asian kid, theo tran, on the left with the poker stars cap was at my table for the bellagio tourney I came 27th in...whats sick is he got 400k for his 4th place finish in this tourney :-O

the final two, yea thats over 800k on the table...the final hand the kid on the left raised with 10 4 of diamonds. The british kid on the right reraised as he often did. Grant on the left then decided he would shove all in preflop figuring there wasnt much the brit could call with for his tournament life. Unfortunately he had ace king and there really isnt a way anyone folding that heads up preflop. He insta calls and poor Grant has to show his 10 4. But of course this is poker and what fun would it be if the best hand always held up. Sure enough the flop peels off 10 10 4...yep thats right he flopped a full house. To add insult to injury the turn comes a 10 and Grant locks it up with quads for his first bracelet and over 800 thousand :-/ now why cant i be a luckbox every now and again

The next day resumed the final table of the 5k mixed hold em event and it was stocked with pros which included howard lederer, david williams, rolland de wolfe, erick lindgren, justin bonomo, and more.

It came down to e-dog and zeejustin

more cold cash, drooooool

lindgren celebrates as he finally gets his first bracelet

Anywho thats all I have for now. Tomorrow I'll start with some cash game stuff. I played a Caesars tourney yesterday and did horribly. I was planning on playing today again but considering its past 5 am thats looking a bit bleak. Heres to a great month of June!

Twos always better than one

Figured I'd bring it back...i know xangas dead but I'll be its savior 

czech_it_chuck