Spencer Lawrence

Razz last night was another torrid, frustrating session where I couldn’t get anything going.

Took most of today off from poker, skipped the PLO event and spent a few hours cooking some irish stew instead.

Playing the 8pm 8game at the moment – doubled starting stack.

Amusing hand from scotty fischmann (emptyseat) here:

PokerStars Game #32453317623: Tournament #200909005, $100+$9 USD 8-Game (Razz Limit) – Level XII (160/320) – 2009/09/04 21:05:45 ET
Table ‘200909005 54′ 6-max
Seat 1: RILFT (2752 in chips)
Seat 2: leonydos22 (1245 in chips)
Seat 3: spence79 (6629 in chips)
Seat 4: Wink_wink (2343 in chips)
Seat 5: AJSuited16 (1832 in chips)
Seat 6: emptyseat88 (10304 in chips)
spence79: posts the ante 32
Wink_wink: posts the ante 32
AJSuited16: posts the ante 32
emptyseat88: posts the ante 32
RILFT: posts the ante 32
leonydos22: posts the ante 32
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to RILFT [6s]
Dealt to leonydos22 [Td]
Dealt to spence79 [7c 4d 3s]
Dealt to Wink_wink [9h]
Dealt to AJSuited16 [Ac]
Dealt to emptyseat88 [8s]
leonydos22: brings in for 48
spence79: raises 112 to 160
Wink_wink: folds
AJSuited16: raises 160 to 320
emptyseat88: calls 320
RILFT: folds
leonydos22: folds
spence79: raises 160 to 480
AJSuited16: raises 160 to 640
Betting is capped
emptyseat88: calls 320
spence79: calls 160
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to spence79 [7c 4d 3s] [2c]
Dealt to AJSuited16 [Ac] [4s]
Dealt to emptyseat88 [8s] [Qh]
spence79: bets 160
AJSuited16: raises 160 to 320
emptyseat88: calls 320
spence79: raises 160 to 480
AJSuited16: raises 160 to 640
Betting is capped
emptyseat88: calls 320
spence79: calls 160
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to spence79 [7c 4d 3s 2c] [Th]
Dealt to AJSuited16 [Ac 4s] [4h]
Dealt to emptyseat88 [8s Qh] [2h]
spence79: bets 320
AJSuited16: raises 200 to 520 and is all-in
emptyseat88: calls 520
spence79: raises 120 to 640
emptyseat88: calls 120
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to spence79 [7c 4d 3s 2c Th] [Jd]
Dealt to AJSuited16 [Ac 4s 4h] [Tc]
Dealt to emptyseat88 [8s Qh 2h] [9s]
spence79: checks
emptyseat88: bets 320
spence79: calls 320
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to spence79 [7c 4d 3s 2c Th Jd] [Ks]
spence79: checks
emptyseat88: checks
*** SHOW DOWN ***
spence79: shows [7c 4d 3s 2c Th Jd Ks] (Lo: T,7,4,3,2)
emptyseat88: mucks hand
spence79 collected 880 from side pot
AJSuited16: shows [5c 3h Ac 4s 4h Tc Kd] (Lo: T,5,4,3,A)
AJSuited16 collected 5640 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6520 Main pot 5640. Side pot 880. | Rake 0
Seat 1: RILFT folded on the 3rd Street (didn’t bet)
Seat 2: leonydos22 folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 3: spence79 showed [7c 4d 3s 2c Th Jd Ks] and won (880) with Lo: T,7,4,3,2
Seat 4: Wink_wink folded on the 3rd Street (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: AJSuited16 showed [5c 3h Ac 4s 4h Tc Kd] and won (5640) with Lo: T,5,4,3,A
Seat 6: emptyseat88 mucked [Ah 2s 8s Qh 2h 9s 9d]

PokerStars Game #32396832484: Tournament #200909001, $200+$15 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level I (10/20) – 2009/09/03 14:31:38 ET
Table ‘200909001 662′ 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: limoni (5000 in chips)
Seat 2: jmenfou2 (4980 in chips)
Seat 3: adkaf (5010 in chips)
Seat 4: mattg1983 (4970 in chips)
Seat 5: spence79 (5010 in chips)
Seat 6: camfoote (5030 in chips)
spence79: posts small blind 10
camfoote: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to spence79 [Ks Kd]
limoni: raises 40 to 60
jmenfou2: folds
adkaf: folds
mattg1983: raises 140 to 200
spence79: raises 500 to 700
camfoote: folds
limoni: folds
mattg1983: calls 500
*** FLOP *** [3s 6s Qs]
spence79: bets 1000
mattg1983: raises 3270 to 4270 and is all-in
spence79: calls 3270
*** TURN *** [3s 6s Qs] [Jc]
*** RIVER *** [3s 6s Qs Jc] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
spence79: shows [Ks Kd] (a pair of Kings)
mattg1983: shows [Ad Ac] (a pair of Aces)
mattg1983 collected 10020 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 10020 | Rake 0
Board [3s 6s Qs Jc 4c]
Seat 1: limoni folded before Flop
Seat 2: jmenfou2 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: adkaf folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: mattg1983 (button) showed [Ad Ac] and won (10020) with a pair of Aces
Seat 5: spence79 (small blind) showed [Ks Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: camfoote (big blind) folded before Flop

Only a few hands in. I’m pretty sure I can’t get away in 6max despite it being early and 250 bb deep.

Guess I get to focus on the razz.

Uneventful flight, 13 hrs sleep and ton of borscht later I’m ready for the first wcoop event kicking off in just under an hour at 1430 EST – the $215 NL 6max.  $215 Razz starts at 1630.  In theory the razz is one of my best shots at a bracelet during the series, so fingers crossed for some 60/40s to start panning out for me again.

Any event can be watched live online simply by installing the pokerstars client and selecting the wcoop menu from the events tab.

I turn up 65 mins late becuase I had a feeling they’d play 5 levels and I wanted to be fresh for 200/400 50 (the only meaningful level of day – nice big antes)
I get the 600 back check-raising a kid with 75 on Q44 after  defending my bb.
Kid raises utg I call btn J6hh, bb calls, flop J82 w/2 clubs.  Kid bets 600 we both call.  Turn off 3 check around.  River off 5 check to me I value for 1100. bb calls.  I say Jack no kicker and turn over my nizzles (vs his range).  He tanks for close to a minute frowning then turns over QJ.  I honestly think he was just retarded and half blind rather than slowrolling.

I make it 500 utg at 1/2 with 33 same guy cc from emp.  Flop J62.  I cbet 800 he calls so im done.  Except turn is a king.  booyah.  I bet 1500.  He calls after a few seconds.  While I’m considering firing a 3rd barrel, im  worried he’s a station. River comes a K anyway.  Sigh.  Ch ch.  He has AJo.  Nice play sir.  I prob give up even without the K river, but I’m not sure.  Couple hands later he checkcalled two streets of big bets (2k and 5k) on AQTK board then mucked when shown AJ – so I probably shouldn’t fire a 3rd barrel on river unless its a Q.

I raise and fold to 3bets a couple of times.

I open to 550 in lmp w/ KTss.  BB makes it 1700.  His playback range is probably wide as I’ve been raisefolding so much.  I take a flop with 22k behind.  Flop Q75 all spades.  He checks,  I bet 2k he makes it 8k.  Now i know im golden as he’s just about good enough to know he should lead the nizzles – and if he doesnt hes checkcalling not checkraising.

I consider just calling but i dont think he  fires again with his air range so I just ship now after a minutes thought to max value against As, lower flushes and sets.

He INSTA calls, tables AsQx like its the fucking nuts.  I flip my near nizzles
Turn 8s.  And I’m $10k down in about 85 minutes of play

As part of the pokerstars WSOP ME package we got entry to their $1m summer spectacular.  First stage was a 6 seat live sng at the Palms.

3rd-6th $100, 2nd $300, 1st $500+ entry to online freeroll with $800k in prizes.   Top heavy is the correct description.

2k chips to start.  15 min blinds.  25/50, 50/100, 100/200, 200/400.  Top heavy turbo crapshoot.  Sounds like my domain.

Table looks old for internet players (ie mostly my age) so I make one cute 3-bet at 25/50 btn vs co and otherwise sit tight planning to resteal allin at 5/1 1/2  over opening ranges I assume will be incorrectly wide and 3bet calling ranges incorrectly tight.

The last hand at 25/50 I defend KJs vs a 40-ish local. Flop T9x with one club.  I check-shove over his bet and he tank/folds.  He mucked a little hard, obviously frustrated,  and one card flipped.  A ten.  The asian kid in seat 2 sniggers and I try not to giggle.

A couple more shoves over lp opens and I fold A9s 5 handed on btn vs CL utg open at 20bb eff.  He’d been fairly tight and I saw a K as he passed cards to dealer.

100/200 3 handed.  I shove A7o from sb over CL btn raise to 575.  He calls after a brief hesitation with K8o.  He had almost 8k vs the local and me both around 2100.  Flop T98xJ.  Ship it.

Local doubles 99 vs 66 vs CL.  He has 5k, I have 4k, previous CL 3k.

1st hand of 200/400.  KJo on btn.  Sweeeeeeeet.  Ship.  Local insta all-in.  bb folds A5o face up.  Local obv has aces.  FML.   Flop 234 and bb looks ready to kill himself.

Sigh.  Still a free benjy for 45 minutes play is ok.

33rd/4203 $1850

Must learn to flip better when deep in majors.   Busted Million on pre-bubble and didn’t enter anything else.   Will play the $1500 NL WSOP 2morro as it fits my sleep schedule better – got up at 10am for the warmup.

Remembered the moment during the LHE shootout hu where I realised a bracelet was unlikely to be forthcoming this year.  I have AA and 3bet from bb – dan calls, he calls on random board and then looks about to raise the turn when the waitress brings him his drink.  After fiddling for a $ and taking his cup he shrugs and says he should probably fold now.

Had a recovery day today as although I wasn’t feeling particularly down after the HU loss in the 1st rd of the $1500 LHE shootout (natural swings don’t really affect me anymore) I was physically exhausted.  My plan to be in better shape for this year’s WSOP didn’t come to fruition and even my “light” schedule is taxing.  At least I can rest assured in the knowledge that my current health decline cannot continue unabated or next year I’m more likely to be in a body bag than attending the series in any capacity.

So in the spirit of healthy(-er) eating, tonight was spent at shibuya – a restaurant everyone attending vegas should visit (if u really can’t stand sushi book the grill).  Feeling rested and good.  Tomorrow will probably be spent playing a limited sunday schedule while I try to decide whether to play the $1500 NL as planned on monday or the $2500 limit triple draw.

Everyone tells me how soft the $1500 NLs are, and I kinda want to get in on the value.  The flip side of that is that NL is extremely boring as a tournament game and locking myself into 3 solid days of it before the ME is almost begging for burnout.  Deuce will be FUN.  However my experience is limited.  I’m probably +ev by some way, and I will almost certainly destroy the early stages against weak competition.  But I may be overestimating my edge against more skilled opposition – especially shorthanded.  Late in a tournament is when most of the equity is decided so if you don’t handle that part well you’re burning money.  I’m completely torn on what to play.

exhausted going into day 2 of the O8.  Not a fan of plauying till 3:30 because the 5pms never start on time, having to get back to the hotel, wind down befroe sleep etc and then restart at 2pm.  Not having a 12 hr break is bullshit.  Whats worse is for day 2 they say you play till 3am and if the ft isn’t reached u restart at 1pm.

sash looked to be struggling even more than I was, sleeping through his alarm and turning up half hour late.

I only lasted 65 miutes past the restart, but play seemed fairly standard.  In review there’s not much I would do differently.  At least I got a sweet anecdote to tell about Rob Hollink calling over a pokernews guy to bitch about how bad I was for raising on the river with the nut low and a nine high flush.  It obv has to be bad cos we got quartered.  Results oriented anlysis FTW.  I gave him the  benefit of the doubt last year when he sucked out on me hard with 3 tables left of the $10k LHE to leave me crippled and him with a chip lead he went on to win with, but these old live “pro” monkeys are tilting.

took a day  off today, chilling, drinking, meeting a ton of new people so I’m fresh for tomorrow’s LHE shootout.  Improving onlast year’s 6th would rock.

Despite strong personal and politico-philosophical reservations regarding the use of twitter and related phenomena, I have temporarily handed in my Neo-Luddite membership card and will experiment with tweeting during live tourneys.  Unfortunately, it is clearly the most efficient method.  And so I am dragged, figuratively kicking and screaming, into the 21st century, less than a decade behind the rest of you.

The spam problem that forced comments to be disabled has also been taken care of.

Onto poker matters. Triple Draw is fun.  I’d forgotten how refreshing it is learning a new game and getting back to the basic joy of poker where you’re  paying attention, hypothesising, adapting.  Before everything becomes routine and the greatest everyday challenge you face is coming out of a semi-somnambulant auto-pilot mode on the too few occasions when you need to.

I’ve gone from not really wanting to play the 8-game event to really looking forward to it.

Initial thoughts after roughly 2 hrs of single table td play.  234 is much stronger than I initially thought it would be.   While I’m snapping light after 3rd draw when I should be, I tend to call down multi-draw pats too light.  This is a general poker flaw I have where I tend to incorrectly assume I’m being played back at more frequently than is actually the case.  Randoms are rarely as creative as I give them credit for.

hand to finish

PokerStars Game #29609273553:  Triple Draw 2-7 Lowball Limit ($5/$10) – 2009/06/21 2:57:54 ET
Table ‘Mieke’ 6-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: Master205 ($111 in chips)
Seat 2: InkeiSinsuke ($103 in chips)
Seat 3: DLP44 ($564 in chips)
Seat 4: TeddyFSB ($215 in chips)
Seat 5: Summit ($204 in chips)
Seat 6: spence79 ($156 in chips)
TeddyFSB: posts small blind $2
Summit: posts big blind $5
*** DEALING HANDS ***
Dealt to spence79 [3c 8d Ad 2c 9d]
spence79: raises $5 to $10
Master205: folds
InkeiSinsuke: folds
DLP44: folds
TeddyFSB: folds
Summit: calls $5
*** FIRST DRAW ***
Summit: discards 3 cards
spence79: discards 1 card [Ad]
Dealt to spence79 [3c 8d 2c 9d] [Qh]
Summit: checks
spence79: bets $5
Summit: calls $5
*** SECOND DRAW ***
Summit: discards 2 cards
spence79: discards 1 card [Qh]
Dealt to spence79 [3c 8d 2c 9d] [3s]
Summit: checks
spence79: bets $10
Summit: calls $10
*** THIRD DRAW ***
Summit: discards 1 card
spence79: discards 1 card [3s]
Dealt to spence79 [3c 8d 2c 9d] [2s]
Summit: bets $10
spence79: calls $10
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Summit: shows [2h 4d 8s 8h 6s] (Lo: a pair of Eights)
spence79: shows [3c 8d 2s 2c 9d] (Lo: a pair of Deuces)
spence79 collected $69 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $72 | Rake $3
Seat 1: Master205 folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 2: InkeiSinsuke folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: DLP44 (button) folded before the Draw (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: TeddyFSB (small blind) folded before the Draw
Seat 5: Summit (big blind) showed [2h 4d 8s 8h 6s] and lost with Lo: a pair of Eights
Seat 6: spence79 showed [3c 8d 2s 2c 9d] and won ($69) with Lo: a pair of Deuces

The river is obviously a snap-call.  I’m unsure of the turn bet.  I’m a card ahead in pos but my hand seems marginal and I don’t feel my FE is high against this opponent.

are appearing, at least in relation to my own fiscal downturn.  It’s no secret that the year has been pretty torrid for me with some large negative numbers from high stakes cash games, a chiplead in London blown early on 2nd day and a general doubt creeping in as to whether I was over the hill.

Newcastle GUKPT last week was encouraging (good positions nearing bubbles) while being cashless (wrack up another -£2k ).  Also the laughter when I suggested that I may not be attending this years WSOP was heartwarming.

I got back on monday and played the $109 horse on stars.  $2k win.  Played again on tuesday.  5th for $400.  Wednesday and Thursday.  Win and win for $1850 a pop. 

Fri and Saturday were busts but not a bad run.  I also busted 2 $216 HORSE tournies and a $700 wsop sat to eat into the weeks recovery, but I guess I can live with that as the $270 bodog sat was a success.  Ship the WSOP seat.