so after a long week of work, my much anticipated poker vacation started on friday, which i scheduled around the heavenly hold'em series at commerce. here is the schedule: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_tournaments/tournament_detail.php?t_id=90. i plan on living out my fanatsy of living as a poker pro (albeit small time). this means not waking up at 7 am everyday to the annoying buzz of an alarm to go drive through LA rush hour traffic to go work for the man and be a corporate whore (imagine michael bolton from "office space"). this means setting my own hours and playing poker all nite and sleeping in all day and basically doing whatever it is i want to do. the ideal ending to my fanasty will be to improve my skills where i can consistently crush the cash games, take down a couple tournaments in the series, win the all around best player award for the series, bring my bankroll to the 6 figure range, walk into my boss's office in two weeks and announce that im quitting immediately to play poker for a living and watch the priceless expression on their face. then go off and win the WSOP main events followed by some WPT events and retire to an island by the end of the year. but this is of course a far far fetched fantasy and i will most likely go broke on my hump early on my vacation forcing me to eat off the $0.99 menu at jack in the crack, and return to being a corporate whore. so anyways, let the journey begin....
i woke up pretty early, still used to work time. after lounging around for awhile watching 1992 WSOP from espn classic on my new tivo and reading harrington on hold'em, i finally got my ass up and made it to commerce at noon. i couldnt find the satellites going where they were being held all week in the high limit section so i sat on the $200 game. i was up $100 after 30 minutes when the floorman informed me that satellites were being held upstairs in the tournament area. so i went up there and played two $120 tables and one $70 table and didnt win any of them. no stories here. i also attempted four satellites on wednesday and didnt win any of those either. so i invested a total of about $700 in 7 satelittes so far for heavenly holdem and didnt cash any of them. i think ill give up on the satellites and win my entry the old fashion way, cash games. anyways, i really wanted to play in the first event tonite as it was $200K guaranteed but my folks called me for dinner and i couldnt make it on time. so after the satellite debacle, i had to head off to dinner.
after dinner, i headed straight back to commerce by about 9pm and met up my good friend eddie. we both hopped on a new $200 NL game. i was card dead for the first hour or so and decided i needed to loosen up. i made a small raise to $15 with 5-6 suited from the button and got 4 callers. flop came out 5-6-7 rainbow and i was certain no one could put me on 5-6 as i had been playing pretty tight before. BB bets out $30 and everyone folds to me and i go all in just in case he accidently hits a straight. i thought he just had a medium over pair like 9-9 or so. well i was wrong, he turns over 7-7 for the set and i was drawing dead. so i lose my first buy-in.
a couple of seat changes later, i started getting hit by the deck. no genius playing on my part, just a rush of great hands. here are some of my major hands:
- i had grinded my way up to about $400 and picked up KK. UTG raises it to $20 and i reraise right after him to $50. all fold to him and he calls. flop comes down K-J-10. Im loving the top set but deathly afraid of the straight potential. UTG bets out about $30. this looks real fishy to bet $30 into a $100+ pot. but i put him on AK and didnt want him to hit a straight so i raise to $100. he pushes all in rather quickly for about $250 more (we are about equal in chips at about $400 each). now im thinking, maybe he has AQ for the nut straight. i mean he raised preflop and called my reraise preflop then bet out a "please call me" amount on the flop and immediately went over the top of my raise for all in. but then again he could have AK or a lower set. even if he has the straight, i can pair the board and make a full house. anyways, there is no way im throwing away top set so i call and he only has K-J, top two and is drawing dead. so i double up to about $800.
- a lil while later, i have about $900 and i pick up 6-6 in middle position. BB (with $800) raised to $20 and i call and its heads up. board comes down 8-6-2 with two diamonds. BB bets out $30. now i would love to slow play but he has a ton of chips too and i dont wanna even fuck with the possibility of a flush draw so i raise it to $100. he instantly goes all in for about $750 and i barely have him covered. all im really scared of is 8-8 but doubt he would have played it this way so i call and he flips over KK and i have him dominated. but with this much money at stake, i sweat it out fully expecting the K to come on the river and steal this monster pot away from me but the poker gods were on my side today. woohoo!!! so now im at like $1700.
- a lil while later, i pick up 2-2. the guy to my immediate left raises preflop to $20 with 3 callers, including me. flop comes down J-9-2 rainbow. i slow play a bit and check to the original raiser who bets out $40 but the next two guys call!!! so much for slow playing with this many players in the pot. so i check-raise it to $140 total. after much thought, the original raiser mucks (he later tells me he had AJ, nice laydown), next guy mucks, but the next guy calls. turn is a 9 giving me a full house. but im afraid the other guy mite have called with J-9 or something giving him the higher full house. but he checks and i put him all in for his last $170. he thinks for a long time and now i know i have the best hand and praying he will call, which he does. i dont know what he had since he mucked after i showed my hand. in hindsight, i should have slow played even more since 1 guy had AJ for top pair, top kicker, the other guy had 9-X and woulda hit his set on the turn, and the guy who paid me off had whatever he had. it coulda been a monster pot!!! instead i scoop "only" $740.
man, i did pick up some monster hands today but somehow managed to get paid off on all of them. there is nothing worse than having a well concealed monster and only picking up a $15 pot. well i guess getting bad beat on your monsters is worse. luckily i did not suffer a single bad beat all nite. the only time i had a slight bad beat was when i held K-Q and flopped K-Q-X. i bet out and got a caller. turn came K giving me a full house so i checked giving him a free card to make his straight or flush. but apparently he thought he was slow playing me with K-10. i was bound to get paid off by him with his top set vs. my full house but the freaking river came Q giving both of us the same full house!!!! so we split the pot after getting it all in. dont i get anything for having two sets!??!?!
so after a while of loosely calling off some chips, i decide to be smart this time and leave while im ahead when my friend decides to leave at 2 am instead of pulling an all niter and losing it all. by this time, a very loose maniac has built up a sizable chip stack at the table and i can just see a massive bad beat coming from him for most of my chips. so i cashed out $2200 for a profit of $1800. not a bad start to my vacation. tomorrow, i plan on sleeping in all day and getting to commerce about mid afternoon and either play some satellites or cash games before the nite's $200 limit event. so here is the running total for the vacation starting today:
+$100 earlier cash game- $300 satellites
+ $1800 nite cash game
$1600 profit for the day
to be continued.....

on a side note: i saw this crazy pot on the $400 table next to me. i wasnt involved but it is just too crazy not to post. im not sure how it all developed since i didnt see it from the beginning but the flop was 8-6-3. but there was about 4 guys all in for about $1000 each making a monster $4000+ pot, which looks ENORMOUS in $5 chips. so all the money is all in on the flop but none of the players are showing their hole cards. the turn is a K and the river is a K and this lil old man turns over K-3 for runner-runner full house!!!! wtf was he doing in there with a pair of 3's on the flop for that much money!!! he must have bluffed all in and got called by some slow playing sets. but still.....crazy man!!! half the damn casino was crowded around the table watching the hand and everyone erupted when he turned over his ridiculous hand. the other players in the pot mucked their hands in disgust, i can only imagine that it was set over set over pocket AA. so shit like that doesnt just happen on party poker....