A trip to la-la land

FTOPS XIII came and went without too much excitement. I played 4-5 events and ended up with one cash, in the 2500 no limit event. The first hand after we hit the money I shipped 99 with my short stack and got called and beaten by AK. Another min cash. It’s turning into a pattern.

I haven’t played many 6-handed tournies lately, but the 2500 ftops event was a 6-handed event, and I started to remember how much I used to love the 6-handed tournies. I should start trying to find more of them to play.

I was planning on heading to Russia for the EPT in Moscow, but with the tournament moved to Kiev, Ukraine, I changed my mind. Somehow the lure of Kiev can’t quite compete with Moscow. Instead I decided to head to the Legends of Poker in LA.

I flew down the day before the event, and had an amazingly bad trip. There were so many screw-ups and break-downs along the way, that I don’t even want to get into it. Let’s just say by the end, I rolled into my hotel at 2am, 6 hrs late and with no luggage.

The tournament itself started out much better. I was able to pick up and few good hands early and built up from 30K to 45K in the first few hours. I was playing a lot of pots, and even though I hadn’t got paid off on my larger river bets I was feeling good. I had a pretty soft table, and a nice loose image.

The middle few levels of the day I was pretty card dead, and was slowly blinded down to 30K by the end of level 4. Luckily in level 5 I started to hit a few hands. First off, I flopped top 2 with A9s and was checked called all the way down, with what I can only assume was top pair. That pot almost doubled me up, and with a few more small pots and one big bluff (I have to toss in 1 of those every day), I ended day 1 at 71K.

Day 2 started off fine, as I had good position on my table sitting behind the two aggressive players at the table, Jeff Madsen and Joe Serock. I was able to build up to about 80K in the first level without taking any real risks.

The table was broken and I was moved to a new table, which seemed to be a little tougher than my first table. Not long after wards Madsen was moved to my table again, but luckily I still had position.

With blinds at 400-800 50 ante, I got into this hand. Under the gun, and I had raised and taken the blinds the last 2 hands, so was looking pretty loose. I had A10 and made a standard raise of 2200 with my stack at around 80K. Madsen, the big blind, is the only caller. He has about 45K. His defending range from the BB is pretty wide.

Flop is Q98. He checks and I bet 2400. The temptation is to make a larger than normal raise with my big draw, but I like to keep my bet size standard here to disguise my hand. He thinks and then raises to 8000.

Folding is not an option with this big of a draw, so the choice is call with position to see a turn, make a smallish re-raise of 10,000 or move all-in for his last 35,000.

I usually would just call here to see a turn since with my crazy image there are few hands that a check-raiser here would lay down here to my re-raise. And calling would often scare people into checking the turn even if a blank comes. But with Madsen as my opponent I think he will actually lay down alot of hands here to my re-raise like pair and a straight draw, top pair, or a smaller flush draw. Plus I know he won’t be checking the turn if a blank comes.

So the choice is small re-raise (which totally commits me to the hand, unless I was on a stone bluff), or move all in. I think the small re-raise actually shows a lot more strength than the all-in, so that’s what I choose. I re-raise to 18,000.

Madsen thinks for awhile. We both know he can’t just call the raise and leave himself with less than 25K more. It’s all-in or fold time, and unfortunately for me he moves all in. I insta-call of course getting more than the right odds to call with draw.

He shows Q9, and when the Q comes on the turn the hand is all over. A 100K pot goes his way, and I am left with less than 35K.

After losing a few more small pots I eventually move my short stack all in with Q10 and get snapped off by aces. And that was all she wrote.

The next day I still hadn’t got my luggage from United airline so I was stuck in LA for one more day. I decided to go to Commerce to play some cash games. I took 4000 with me and was planning to play some 10-20. I saw there was a 2000 NL game, and wrongly assumed that was a 10-20 game, so I sat down. It was actually a 20-40 NL game which means I didn’t really have enough on me to play. But I’m a big believer in fate and taking whatever life hands you, so I put in 2000 and decided to play with the short stack.

I doubled up on the first hand I played and was off from there. The table had a few good players at it, but also 2-3 pretty terrible ones, which is a nice ratio in my mind. I ran pretty hot all day with only a few small set-backs. After most of the weaker players had been busted and been replaced by a bunch of sharks like Lee Watkinson and Issac Baron, I saw that this table was getting out of my league, so I high tailed it out of there. Profit for the day 8K, which almost paid for my losses at Legends.

I guess all I can say is thank you United for losing my luggage for 4 days.

Next up is Cannes, France for the Partouche Poker Tour main event starting next Monday.