The Best In The Business

[marcro]

Fun start to the trip. 30 minutes into the taxi journey to the airport I realise I've left $50,000+ on my window shelf at home and not only need this for the trip but the cleaner was due in 30 minutes who i don't know nor trust. Inform confused taxi driver we have to turn around. Get back, I get the money, say bye to the cleaner on the way out and change into trousers from the shorts I was wearing.

I get back into the taxi, money hidden obviously and the taxi driver looks at my trousers as if "are you fucking joking met?" I can only smile in response and he was pretty tilted.

I am guessing you wired your tournament entries directly to the Rio?  Would have been a blow leaving your "spending" money at home.

[mulhuzz]

Did you change pants so the taxi driver didn't realise you had $50k on you?

Glglgl in Vegas bud. Get the fucking lot.

[pleno1]

Good day, friend I haven't seen in ages picks me up at the airport, switch on phone to see horse is heads up in Super Tuesday and ends up winning with no chop for 80k. Vegas upswonggggs.

Check into apartment and its really great, so happy I have this place, almost perfect for what I want, so I'm extremely happy.

Went for dinner with Matas (who will stay with me for abit) Rob Tinnion and my friend Jason. Won the dinner flip and back home with a perfect body clock ready for Vegas.

Morale is high. $5K no limit tomorrow, lets fucking go.

[vegaslover]

Good day, friend I haven't seen in ages picks me up at the airport, switch on phone to see horse is heads up in Super Tuesday and ends up winning with no chop for 80k. Vegas upswonggggs.

Check into apartment and its really great, so happy I have this place, almost perfect for what I want, so I'm extremely happy.

Went for dinner with Matas (who will stay with me for abit) Rob Tinnion and my friend Jason. Won the dinner flip and back home with a perfect body clock ready for Vegas.

Morale is high. $5K no limit tomorrow, lets fucking go.

Even when Pads takes a day off to travel he's still winning at the pokers!

Good luck in Vegas, hope you scoop the lot

[FUN4FRASER]

Run Good  in the 5K mate , maybe get a few moves from Matas

[UgotNuts]

Fun start to the trip. 30 minutes into the taxi journey to the airport I realise I've left $50,000+ on my window shelf at home and not only need this for the trip but the cleaner was due in 30 minutes who i don't know nor trust. Inform confused taxi driver we have to turn around. Get back, I get the money, say bye to the cleaner on the way out and change into trousers from the shorts I was wearing.

I get back into the taxi, money hidden obviously and the taxi driver looks at my trousers as if "are you fucking joking met?" I can only smile in response and he was pretty tilted.

What a life!

[pleno1]

 Finished day 1 of The 5k with  50,600, longggggg day.
Feel very good though, some fun hands for the blog later in the week. Had wcgrider and Martin Jacobson at the table.

Day 2 tomorrow.

[rfgqqabc]

Live play videos seem to be pretty useless at actual coaching, but do provide some light entertainment and allow you to pick up how other people think, seem hard to do well. Post session reviews of tourney wins inevitably involve a bunch of, this is close, i decided to peel before the coach flops the world. I wasn't a huge fan of the Grafton/Trigg video we spoke about before but I'm certainly starting to rate it higher as it certainly made me think about poker more instead of mindlessly nodding along watching people flop pair +fd every hand. I think self review is definitely the way forward, and grinding out HRC/Icmizer and full reviews are a much better way of studying. Agree?

Gl in vegas, excited for some reports. Don't win too much!

[Tractor]

One of many people that I'm looking forward to following, and hopefully seeing get the gold.

Best of luck out there!

[pleno1]

Vegas days 1-3

I got here in Tuesday, checked into our really great place in Panorama Towers, went out for dinner and then prepared for the first event $5000 no limit.

Things started kinda slowly dwindling from 25-18k over the first two levels. Previously this was the biggest danger zone for me. I often played levels 3-7 poorly after starting badly. I kept that in mind and tried to grind through it as much as possible. I was playing a pretty conversative style that i would carry on throughout. I was 3betting 0% a against regs and a 10+% linear range vs the weaker players. I think regs see this and expect that you still have a 3bet strategy and fail to adjust.

It worked to my advantage half way through the day. A good German reg opened from mp1 and I flat Kk in the big blind. I would say my image was semi loose/semi aggro. The flop was t77 and it went check, check. Turn was t77t and I checked again. Players will often mistake here by betting turn, but i don't think it's a profitable spot to bet with my range vs his. It's close at least I guess.

River is T77TT and this player knows I'm very tricky. I 3x pot and he starts laughing, I tell him nuts or air to really try and make my range almost none existstant. He called and I got off to a great start.

The day progressed pretty sloely, I was between 30-50k for most of the day. One pot I was very uncomfortable with was very early.

I opened 425 in the hijac. Cut off calls and pokerguru made it 2000 on the button from a 15k stacks. He picked up the button and announced squeeze instead of raise. He was playing very very loose/aggro and it was a spot where if I fold here vs him he's definitely exploiting me, but decided to pass up this edge, something I would never have done previously.

After level 6, wcgrider came to my table. He was opening/3betting always every hand. Absurdly aggressive. He opened utg to 1150 and I and the bb called.

Flop was a36 he bet 1800 and I called with jacks in the button. Turn was 5 bringing a flush draw and he bet just over pot. I was thinking he was trying to get my relatively weak range to fold. I called very quickly to stop him from bluffing the river as much. River was T and he shoved for 1.5x pot. Now  how do I play against the best in the world? Play as close to gto as possible and get crushed. He either thought I was a tourny donk who couldn't fold the river or a tourny donk who couldn't call the river. I was confident that he was bluffing but one evaluated the situation. This is a tournament with a lot of weaker players. I don't need to try and guess against the best player in the world with a hand that is way down in my bluffcatchers. I don't need to try and expoit wc fucking g.

I got moved tables to Martin Jacobsons table. We have a lot of history live and he thinks I play way more aggressively than I actually do I think.

We played a pretty interesting hand where I raise q2dd in the button and he defends bb. He c/r 842fd 1500->4200, I decide to call. On reflection we could say I could check back but I think my hand warrants protection in some form. 3betting the flop would be an option i would have taken a year ago, maybe I'm just getting fucking old.

Turn is 842j double flush draw and he bets big. I think he c/r a lot of back door flush draws so this is actually a good card for me as it's less likely he has just hit jx. I call and river is

842j7 flop flush draw completes.

He checks and I decide to think for a while and then turn my hand into a blur betting 60% pot it's very possible he riveted a hand like 76,75,7xcc etc and when he checks river he is very unlikely to have a flush as my range will often be strong enough to check back rather than turn into a bluff. He folded after a while and that gave me great confidence.

The day ended and I would come back at 600/1200/200 for day 2 with 171/460 players left.

My morale was huge. I hadn't been the most gangster player in the room, I hadn't 4bet any flops, I hadn't got into a single pre flop war. I wasn't the most gangster player in the room but I certainly played as good as anybody else that day.

Day 2..

[Tal]

After level 6, wcgrider came to my table. He was opening/3betting always every hand. Absurdly aggressive. He opened utg to 1150 and I and the bb called.

Flop was a36 he bet 1800 and I called with jacks in the button. Turn was 5 bringing a flush draw and he bet just over pot. I was thinking he was trying to get my relatively weak range to fold. I called very quickly to stop him from bluffing the river as much. River was T and he shoved for 1.5x pot. Now  how do I play against the best in the world? Play as close to gto as possible and get crushed. He either thought I was a tourny donk who couldn't fold the river or a tourny donk who couldn't call the river. I was confident that he was bluffing but one evaluated the situation. This is a tournament with a lot of weaker players. I don't need to try and guess against the best player in the world with a hand that is way down in my bluffcatchers. I don't need to try and expoit wc fucking g.

I'm genuinely curious, here. What makes you think WCG doesn't know who you are? Your name - your real name - will have been in the poker rankings alongside your screen name for a while, you've both been mentioned in articles about your successes and about the weekly results online. You know who he is. You were the best in the world not long ago.

He might not have acknowledged you, but it would be either supreme arrogance or supreme stupidity not to Google image the main online players before playing a series of big live events where you know they'll be dotted around in a field of recs.

Or not?

[bagel]

has to be less than 5% chance that all these high rollers dont know who they are playing against.prob nearer 1%. they may not acknowledge people in person, but to think they dont check who is on their their table, and other tables left in the comp seems ridicoulous.zero chance imo that he does not know you are BITB.

advent calendar prob got sent 2nd class.

[cambridgealex]

I'm not sure thats the case with WCG tho, he's a cash game player, and the top cash guys don't really respect the tourney guys (obviously I don't know that for sure, but that's the impression I get and I think pads would agree hence his use of "tourney donk" twice in that description). So I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know especially the online guys.

[pleno1]

Yesterday was the craziest night of my life and without going into details it did involve meeting WCG at around 5am and we definitely spoke about a lot of stuff and I definitely don't remember any of it.

[GreekStein]

I don't like the turn call with jacks. In retrospect were you kinda thinking that it would be great to 'own' WCG?

I also don't see why he should know Pads. It's not like he was on his starting table. He got moved and likely doesn't know anyone's named.