Spencer Lawrence

It’s official. After more up-and-down than a rollercoaster heads up, Spence is through to round 3, AKA his second final table of this series. WHOOP! His was the second-to-last table to finish so he won’t get too much of a break. An hour after the final table of round 2 wraps up, he’ll be in his chair again.

Good luck and take it down, babe!

It’s break 2 and Spence is sitting on 145,000 in chips. With the blinds going up so slowly, his table still has 6 people left, as do all the others. People have started dropping, but very reluctantly.

According to him, it’s a tough table but he’s feeling good and his game is solid.

Spence has 73,000 at first break which is very good. According to pokernews chip-count tracker, his stack his been moving up and down in the past two hours (as it does) but he seems to be on the right track now.

My starting table had Alex Kravchenko and Johnny Lodden. I was glad to see Alex as although he’s a fine player I know his game well and beat up on him a lot in the $10k LHE. I’d rather have him there than some aggressive random simply because knowing where I am against a player’s range is a large part of my edge (obviously I’d rather a dribbler was in the seat tho). I reserved judgement on seeing Johnny until I saw which of his poker personas had turned up.

It turned out to be the maniac who spewed chips to everyone else on the table but won two huge pots off me with two river gutshots. From a high of 9k fairly early, the 1st Johnny gutshot started a collapse.  So after losing the customary flip to alex and twice being forced into calling off chips on draws after getting free looks from the bb I went all the way back down to 3k before Johnny finally busted. I was glad to see him go as I was still struggling to rezone and the experience made me feel better about missing the 25/50 NL 10k buy-in cash game at DTD over the Norwegian championships. I didn’t sit because I felt a little off (good decision because it was actually the start of an illness that kept me in bed for 3 weeks), but really really wanted to sit for 30 mins and see if Johnny Fantastic was there (when he’s on form he’s amazing and you really don’t want to tangle with him) or the spewmonkey he often degenerates into. I wouldn’t sit with him now anyway tho, as I recognise he has the capacity to send me on full blown tilt and one sick beat in that game could open up my whole bankroll. So I guess I’ll save the Lodden hi stakes rollercoaster ride until I’m a little closer to Enlightenment and can be more sure I won’t tilt.

Back to the tournament and the hand of the tournament for me.  We’re 5 handed and I have 4k. KsQx in the BB, utg raises. He’s not horrible but he made a few errors early on. I have 5200 ish at 300/600 and he has about 5k. I 3 bet to 900. He calls. Flop Ts 3s 2x. I bet he raises.

Sexy. We’d played a hand last orbit where I folded AJ after this same sequence on a K hi board. I’m clearly not folding here tho with backdoor flush and straight draws giving me extra equity to my ocs.

Turn 6x.

I check-call. It looks a little odd, but I also played a hand against him earlier where he floated a J hi board with K6 no pair and double-barreled a miss when checked to and Ive also him fold to river bets twice, so I figure on top of my 6 (prob 5 discounted) outs I also have bluff equity on a spade.

River Js.

I briefly consider checking but decide he calls me too wide and as he’s likely to bet most of his range on river (including a lot of hands he should check behind) I can create more equity with an insta-check-raise.

I’ll have less than 2k left if he calls but after 2-3 minutes thought he folds.

Boom. I’m back in the game with that play and at that point pretty sure it’s my round.

I run over the table 4 and 3 handed and go into HU with a 3-1chip lead and extend it quickly. I have a little scare when he hits a gutshot on my top pair and then turns 2 pair against my Kings. It gets scarier when I realise 25mins into the hour long heads up match that the guy despite looking like a hobo who’s been up for 72 hours straight can actually play HU pretty damn well and now he has a 4-1 chip lead on me.

I find 2 smallish holes in his game tho and run well enough to be able to exploit them in taking the match.

so 7pm finish on table 1, guaranteed just over $5k for winning that table and restart at 10pm. Pretty sweet to actually have time for a real dinner, the hour they normally give us is worse than useless.

Dinner at Pearl was especially pleasant as my friend Sasha also won his table to give him his 1st WSOP cash.

Table two had Terry Borer two to my right and John Myung across from me. I started well again and was up from 30k to 52k at 1st break. the 3rd level was a little more turbulent when I had Kings and Jacks cracked back to back on hands 3 and 4, but depsite the ride being rockier I finshed the day (and level 4 of the 2nd round) on 65500 (out of 300k total chips on table). We’re 7 handed and restart at 2pm tomorrow.

We start 8 handed with the 5 and 10 seats empty and waiting to fill from late entries.  I scowl when i see the table set up 10 handed but i should probably have expected it in ahuge field event.  10 hand will be soporific to a large extent (assuming i tighten my ranges to drop a lot of the marginal hands as I should) but 8 handed to start at least lets me play a few hands in 1st half hour and build a crazy loose image – although this isnt something i often struggle with anyway

Humberto Brenes sits down in the big blind as we start and 1st hand I get JTo in mp.  I make it 125.  We start with 4k at 25/50 so 80 big blinds – while tournament players view this a big stack it really really isn’t.  So the plan is to play like a cash game, if anything a little looser because once i get a stack i can play a lot of hands against people who are going to be scared of going broke and having to put in chips worth more than mine to match my bets – a sexy combination.  I’m not that pleased to see Humberto in the big blind as a lot of tourney pros are willing to gamble very wide early to get a stack.  He’s an older player tho and I’m assured by friends who have played with him extensively that he’s “horrible”. (although they tend to be elitist jerks and “horrible” is a generic term applied to any live pro, and while fair in some sense it doesn’t tell a complete story – they are usually good in specific areas but simply math retarded)  So I almost certainly have the required fold equity post flop on 3 bet all ins to be able to play for stacks when i flop a draw.

Button (late 30s) cold calls.  Don’t love it but its not unexpected.  Humberto throws in the extra chips.

Flop 983 rainbow.

Booyah.  Humberto checks, I bet 225 and the button cold calls after a moments thought.  Humberto shows his cards to his neighbour and folds.  I was hoping for a raise from someone so i could three bet all in, but this is ok.  the cold callers range is likely a weaker draw than mine or a pair (T9, T8 type of hand) it could also be a monster set obviously but you can;t be scared of these situations and its equally likely he has some random overcard/underpair float.

Turn Td putting a flush draw on board.  I shuffle for a couple seconds while i absorb the feeling that im going home this hand.  I consider check-calling for control but the stacks are too short.  I bet 400.  He raises to 1200 pretty quickly.  I insta-shove.  He thinks for a few seconds, sighs and calls.  I flip my cards, say “gg”, stand up and tuck my chair in.  He flips 33, clearly relieved.  Dealer burns and turns another 9.  Humberto gives me a what-can-you-do shrug and smile which i’mfeeling sangune enough to return as I stroll out of the room and back to the cab stand.

While people’s first reaction is often “wow – u lost ur $2k buyin on the 1st hand – that sucks” I disagree.  Busting 1st hand is the most awesome thing in the world, closely follwed by busting on the 2nd hand.  Busting early ups your hourly rate – assuming u dont alter your play to reduce your ev.  And while tourney players are often preoccupied with roi, hourly rate should be the guiding light.

Next tourney $1500 LHe shootout on 1st July

Lots of complaints in the room about the structure on this one as the limit levels were playing way bigger than the equivalent NL levels. The LHE blinds were double that of the NL blinds. So we’d play 200/400 LHE (1/2 blinds) and then 50/100 NL. It’s defnitely the fastest tournament I’ve played yet at the WSOP but that seems more to do with them skipping blind levels than anything else. They used the NL structure they’ve been using to get 2200+ NL player fields down to the FT at end of day 2 as the base, when with only 700 ish entrants they could have used the limit structure sheet as a base. Indeed only 98 people survived day one, which is about as expected as upon starting i thought there was a genuine chance we’d actually reach the money before close of play.

Having drank way too much the night before I turned up 20 mins or so late, and started with 2850. Spewed a few hundred while finding my feet before eventually deciding that I was going to feel the same wherever I was so I may as well ignore the general omg-im-dying nausea and pain and try to win this anyway.

Interesting hand in level 4 against Theo Tran, who’d been typically aggressive. Oh yeah, i still run good at table draws, as I managed to get aggressive skilled internet kid on my left, theo on his left and another internet guy on his left. All the older (and probably softer) were on my right. Which is fine if i can find a way to actually play pots with them without running into a wall of pain from the sharks on my left.

Theo and the kid on my left had both squeezed me once. I start hand with 3200 ish, theo has 2900 ish. utg raises to 125, I cold call on button with T6 clubs. theo calls from bb. Flop 7c 6d 4d. Utg bets 225, I call, theo raises to 825 I push. He tanks and folds as expected.

A few hands after that I raise KK over a limp to 175 get reraised by the sb (kid on theo’s left) who makes it 800 to go. I flat after a few seconds pseudo-thought and ship pretty quickly over his lead on a 442 flop. Jacks no good sir.

And suddenly I’m at 8k on 1st break and looking good.

Next 2 hrs don’t go so well when i get free looks from big blind (LHE) with KT and QT and flop top pr both times. I just call down the 2nd (I folded 1st on river and the predictable old guy flashed me his set) but was coolered both times. Hot. 4k left. We bust theo but the internet player on my immediate left has gone on a huge set flopping rush and now has over 20k. Fun times for me as the speculative hand range i can play shrinks drastically, yet with this structure i need to play something.

After the 30 min dinner break blinds are 200/400 for LHE.

Aggressive older guy (replacing predictable older guy (- yeah yeah i know – when im not hungover i’ll actually get names or note a description beyond the normal horrible old guy/dangerous young guy)) raises from HJ. SB calls. I look down at 96 diamonds. Meh. I call.

Flop Kd 7d 3d. Booyah. ch, ch, bet, fold, I raise. He calls. Turn is a sexy offsuit deuce. I bet he raises I 3 bet and he puts me in for my last 100. 9k in the middle puts me right back in the game, I can damage the big stack to my left now and wil almost certainly get a chance to 3 bet him AI when he’s rasing me light. Life is good. He flips AdAx. Meh. 7 outs.

River Qd.

gg.

trip 9s vs Chau’s flush draw on turn for a 96k pot with no low possible.

sad panda.

I didn’t look at the table draw before I got to the event but yet again i managed to avoid any of the dead money left. I run hot at table draws in 10k events obv. On the plus side it’s going to be pretty much impossible to draw a bad table in the $10k ME.

The initial table got worse when Danny was replaced by Brad Booth and Hasan with degenyamine, both with a ton of chips. This table set up made it hard to play speculative hands and build a big stack but ensured that while short I would pretty much always be able to find a good equity spot to stay alive/triple up.

As i figured a medium stack was worth less than usual with this setup and a short stack more than usual, I tightened up and settled in for a torrid few hours of pain.

I overplayed raggy aces twice, once for 15k against jen letting her freeroll me (she hit, but with only 7500 in pot to start with I had little business being in the hand. And worst of all losing 18k to alex kravchenko making way to thin a value bet on a K828 turn and getting checkraised. The bet in position is far worse than the pay off (AA7x). I’ve said before tho that I make mistakes in 3 way O8 pots, I definitely need to study the game more and get a better technical/theoretical understanding of the game.

Apart from the mistakes with AA as a medium stack, I played pretty well overall, a solid short stack game going in light a couple of times when dead money made equity good.

Again on a positive note tho the mistakes didn’t cause me to tilt at all, which is pretty hot. One of the reasons I push myself hard on theory/analysis (when I’m definitely already ahead of most live pros in this regard) is that making mistakes due to lack of knowledge usually tilts me pretty badly. It just seems like a huge waste. What’s helped is when i make a mistake I count the chips I have left and convert them to an equity figure. While this is less effective in $1500s and $2ks, in the $10k tourney when i got crippled down to 10k a few times reminding myself it was $5k real money base equity and closer to $8k in adjusted equity kept me from throwing the chips away.

day off tomorrow to go bowling/drink/eat sushi/wow/rest – anything but poker. even pushing blind every other hand in the $1-2 game at binions is probably too much poker.

Sunday is the start of the $1500 mixed hold em.

(Table 38)
Seat 1: Karen Longfellow – 52,100
Seat 2: Daniel Negreanu – 14,900
Seat 3: Johnny Chan – 8,600
Seat 4: Spencer Lawrence – 15,400
Seat 5: Hasan Habib – 8,300
Seat 6: Men Nguyen – 29,300
Seat 7: Jennifer Harman – 35,000
Seat 8: Mel Judah – 42,800
Seat 9: John Monnette – 16,500

while this isn’t cause for celebration it is 10 BBs and enough to work with. Need to sleep before day 2 but will flesh out a couple of hands tomorrow.

Just got word that Spence has 18k at third break. He seemed to have been a victim of a bad beat delivered by John Juanda.