The Joker in Vegas

[Big Club]

Nice cash Joe and vwp... Finally someone I"ve staked this year winning me some money in Vegas! Hope you"re having fun.

Simon

[Joker161]

Day 5 - Thursday 2nd July

Woke up at 4.30am. Fairly standard. Perhaps I should just get pissed as a sort of more fun sleeping pill? I decide to go the the Golden Nugget early at about 10am, register and then have breakfast. A good idea because the registration queue is massive at the 11am start. There"s still a queue an hour later.

Half hour levels and 20k in chips. The levels rise to 45 mins after the second break (so after eight levels). It"s the first break, so we"ve had four levels and there"s not much to report. No hands, as usual. I"ve raised to steal occasionally with mixed results. With about 20 minutes to go I get 88 on the SB. There"s a raise and a call so I re-raise and the initial raiser calls. Ace high flop and I check/fold. The very next had I get 77 and just call the raise. Ace high flop and I fold the C-bet. So I"m down to about 17k, but then with five minutes to go there is a limped pot, which is unusual, and I"m in the BB with 86. Flop comes 763. Interesting. We all check. Turn is a 5 for my straight draw. The SB bets and I just call. Everyone else folds. The river is an ace and the SB bets again. I almost folded, but I sensed he was bluffing. He was one of those players capable of doing it. So I called with my pair of sixes and he had Q9. So I"m back up to 19k. Half hour levels fly by after the last two days, so the next two hours could be lively.

[Joker161]

Next four levels. Not much for half an hour and then, at last, I get aces. I"m in the BB, so I"m obviously hoping for lots of action before it gets to me. UTG calls, then everyone folds to the button, who calls. Hmm. I raise and UTG re-raises. OK, so he"s probably got kings or queens. Button folds. I re-raise and he goes all in. Snap! He has AK, which is a bit odd. Surely he should avoid getting it all in? Anyway, a slight sweat with a king on the turn, but it"s fine. So I"m up to nearly 40k.

Then the very next hand I get AQ in the SB. There"s a raise, then a re-raise and I just call. Then the BB who has 3400 left after the previous hand goes all in. The re-raiser calls. Flop has an ace on it and I check, so does he. I bet the turn and he calls. I bet the river and he folds. So I win another decent pot and am up to about 50k. Nice!

A bit later there"s a hand with the bloke on my left, a new one who"s replaced the AK man. I raise with TT and he calls. Flop has two aces on it. I know nothing about him but I bet and he calls. Does he have the ace? We check the turn and then I put a small bet on the river. He calls. He has JJ. Hmm. I win a few small pots, then I have a bit of a nightmare just before the break. It"s folded to me in the SB (that"s rare on this table!). I call with A9s. The JJ man raises (blinds 75/300/600) to 2,500. I should just call here, but I decide to raise and plan to raise to 7k, but I have the wrong chip in my hand, and so instead of raising to 7k it ends up being 12k. If you"ve ever played at the GN you"ll know that the colours are similar, but there"s still no excuse. Schoolboy. Anyway, he goes all-in with 24k total. I almost have to call here but I fold because I know I only have three outs. He shows JJ (the JJ man obviously!). So I"m now on 35k, which is still pretty good. Nice that my first relationship with AA worked out so nicely! It looks like there are over 700 runners today, and there were at least 200 on the other two days, so we"ll have a prize pool of over half a million.

[Joker161]

The blinds are now 45 minutes. I"m on dinner break now after levels 9, 10 and 11. Still a bit card dead. The only two hands of note where (i) KK UTG, I get two callers, I bet the flop and they both fold; and (ii) AK, I get one caller - JJ Man - and the flop comes JJ7. I C-bet and he calls. Turn is a seven. It all over for me. I check/fold and he shows a jack. He tells me after that he had KJ, so I was all over him pre-flop! Otherwise, it was a real grind with lots of stealing with mixed success. One costly attempt was when a loose bloke raised and another loose bloke called so I re-raised and the first bloke went all-in. Oops! That cost me 6k. Anyway, I"m down to about 18k now and we will be 300/800/1600 after the break, so it might not last much longer. By the way, we are down to about 300 nearly 800 runners, which surprised me. So the average is around 50k.

[Joker161]

Levels 12-14 were massive. I try a raise with KQ (getting desperate) and there"s an all-in, so I let it go. I"m down to about 14k and decide to push with 98 UTG. I get called by this idiot that I forgot to mention before. He arrived at the table just before the last break. He was on his phone and tried to get back to hit seat before the first card was dealt but didn"t make it. The dealer said his hand was dead and he started to go a bit mad! The floor is called over and he tells the TD that the dealer is a liar! He gets a one round penalty, which extends past the dinner break. So we are all thinking someone will get his chips (he has quite a lot). So he calls by 98 with TT. Fair enough. I hit the straight on the turn, and the flush on the river for good measure. He"s not happy. Then I get AA in the BB. There"s a raise form a loose bloke, I re-raise and he calls. Flop is J44. I push and he snaps with 66. Suddenly I"m on about 60k! The very next hand I get KK! Mad bloke calls, I raise, he pushes and I snap. He has something like 76. Perhaps he thought he could do the same thing back to me, but the difference then was that I went all-in first, and I was desperate. So now I"m on about 130k!! I"m coasting after that. I call a raise with 44 and hit a set, although don"t get many chips. I re-raise with AK and get a caller. Flop is 345, he checks, I bet and he folds after a think. He tells be he had nines. What was he doing not betting? There were other smaller hands but I can"t remember them all. I"m on something like 160k now. No idea what the average is because the clock is all mucked up because they are trying to put all the finishers from the last two days down too. We are about to play two more levels then back for Day 2 tomorrow. Blimey!

[Joker161]

We now play Level 15 and half of Level 16 because that"s what they did for the other two Day 1s. I drop about 20k in the first ten minutes, but then really get motoring for the last half hour. I get three or four steals through then get AK and three callers. Ace high flop, I bet and they all fold. Handy! Then there"s a massive hand where the loose bloke raise, the slightly tighter one calls (but I"ve seen him fold to raises) and I decide to get fancy and squeeze with my 75s. Blinds are 500/2k/4k, the initial raise is 9k and I make it 22k. The loose player folds but the tighter one calls. Trouble! The flop is AT7 and he checks. I bet another 22k. He thinks for ages and I"m SURE he"s going to call, but he folds. He says he has JJ and the loose player says he had TT and would have had a set! Then I win a nice pot at the end raising with KJ with one caller (the other loose player). Flop is king high, check/check, I bet the turn and he calls, I bet the river and he folds. So I end the day on 237k with an average of about 140k. I think about 120 survived today, and there will be maybe 80 from the other two days. Not sure how many they will pay; perhaps about 140? All very exciting!

[ian.ski309]

Great reading Joe !

Keep it going, win it all. Very best of luck  

[Paulie_D]

Great reading Joe !

Keep it going, win it all. Very best of luck  

QFT

[MintTrav]

Nice going Joe.

I was wondering what your plan was here. Aren"t you going to end up losing this hand in the end more often than not?

With about 20 minutes to go I get 88 on the SB. There"s a raise and a call so I re-raise and the initial raiser calls.

[Joker161]

True, but the re-raise is about image too. I hope they fold. If they don"t, I hold to hit. If I dont, next case.

[mylesfdo]

Nice work Joe.....gl for day 2

[Scousebill]

Enjoyable read Joe.... I know what you mean about the chips in the Nugget... I had a nice result is the daily $150 a few weeks ago.. Good Luck for Day 2

[Joker161]

Day 5 - Friday 3rd July

Watched the Watson match in the morning. Amazing that she was so close to 4-0 in the third set, and even more amazing the she came back after Williams won four in a row. Anyway. There are 20 tables and I"m on table 17, so I know I will break quite quickly. In fact, at this short break to colour up I"ve just moved, raised with 33 mid-position (MP) and got it through. For the first hour I chipped up a little. The very first hand I get JJ in MP, UTG raises and I call and the SB re-raises. I decide to get out of the way. I should have raised really, but no harm done. My two main hands are with the bloke to my immediate left when I was SB. First one, it"s folded to me and I raise with A4. He calls. Flop is unpleasant (622), I bet and he folds. The next one was the same situation, except this time I just call with AJ and he doesn"t raise. Flop has an ace on it so I check, he bets 6k (blinds are 500/2.5k/5k) and I call. Turn is a jack! I bet 12k and he calls. River is a brick. I should have bet here but bottle it. It goes check/check and he mucks. So I"m up to about 270k and we just need one more table to break to be in the money. It will probably go quite mad after that because the jumps in payout are quite small until the Final Table..There"s $990 for 135th and you need to get to 35th to make $3k. 9th is about $11k and there"s $118k at the top.

[Joker161]

A good couple of levels. I"ve been moved three times, but I quite like that because I raise a few hands and they don"t know what to make of me. There have been so many hands it"s tough to remember them all, and I only have 15 minutes to get them all down. There were two cases where the board ran out a straight; it helped my one time but not the other. In one of them, I checked the river and the other bloke went all in. I had to think for a bit to check there was no flush! Apparently you have to bet in this situation otherwise it might be collusion. I"d never heard of that before. I"ve won quite a few chips from three-betting and then they fold. A short stack went all in with about 100k and I had AQ. He had K3 and missed. I raised to steal with Jc6c (it"s the hand that knocked me out the first time I cashed in the WSOP) and the BB called. The flop gave me the flush draw, I bet he calls. The turn gives me a jack, check/check. The river is a king and we both check again, but the jack is good. Just before the break I get moved to Table 5, so hopefully I won"t move for a couple of hours now. So now I"m on about 560k and the average is 340k. Only 80 left and I"ve got $1,500 locked up. All very exciting.

[suzanne]

TID Joe gogogo x