PardoG's Annual WSOP TR (6/16-6/22)

First big hand which comes up....

Hero ($950) MP (KdKs) - Open to $25, folds to BTN, younger guy with one of the shorter stacks ($700 ish) at the table makes it $125, we 4 bet to $300, he calls.

Flop ($600)

764xx, We bet $125, he ships for $400 ish, we snap he has JJ and we hold on the clean runout for a nice $1400 dollar pot.

Second Big Hand.....

Hero ($1550 or so at this point), AdQh in the CO raise to $25, Drunk Asian guy calls, folds to Indian guy in the BB and he calls.

Flop ($75)
KsQc3c

BB checks, we $50, BTN folds, and Indian guy calls.

Turn ($125)

Kd

He checks, we probably should be checking back here a lot, but this is one of the lunatics and he's playing many hands including draws - still hate my bet here though.....we go $75, he makes it $200, and we call. As we call, he has a concerned/confused kind of look.

River ($525)

5h

He leads out for $300. I think we have to find a lot of calls here, but I go back to his confused/concerned look and I am trying to figure it out if he just thinks I don't have a king and he's on a flush draw so he was concerned, or confused because he has a King, and is worried he's out kicked. I end up folding.

The Asian guy SHOUTS "OH MY GOD, You just got bluffed AGAIN but the worst player at the table!" the Indian guy (still has his cards in his hand) "Shut up, I have way more money than you and I am not bluffing. I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER." "Oh you swear on your mother? show it then? you do not have more money than me" Indian guy wings the cards at the asian guy lolllll and (K9 of clubs flips up), he then says "you see, Seat 1 is a gentlemen, I tell him the truth, you are just an idiot".

At this point the temprature is for sure starting to rise lol. Floor is called over and they both get a talking to. The issue is, we all want both of them in the game. The asian guy has been starting to spew.....

Now let's go to hand three involving our asian friend.....

Hero ($1100 ish) AsQc in the CO again we make it $25.....Drunk Asian on the button makes it $100, folds back to me and we call.

Flop ($200)

A63x rainbow

We check Asian guy bets $200, we call.

Turn ($600)

Qx

We check Asian guy jams, we snap. He is disgusted to see our hand.....lol, he starts shaking his head and loudly mumbling to himself.....the Indian guy throws a $5 dollar chips to me and says "GREAT JOB!! YES!" (I give it to the dealer lol) but this sends the Asian guy into orbit, he slams his cards on the table but before the dealer can grab them and muck them the INDIAN GUY GRABS THEM AND FLIPS THEM UP.....revealing 63 soooooted LOLLL.....

This starts a huge yelling match with tons of swearing and brings the floor over yet again. Both of them get what isn't actually said as a final warning (in the meantime while John? the floor is over, we are all trying to say it's not big deal, calm them down because now also Indian guy is on his 23rd appletini...no joke), they are both loaded, spewing and playing crazy...so John gives a sturn warning then walks away.

Forth Hand

Hero ($1850 ish at this point) is dealt 55, and we raise the button (now ASian guy and Indian guy are sitting next to each other lolll the indian guy moved over next to him after this guy between them got felted lol...)

We raise to $25 and at this point, the Indian guy is actually stacking a huge pot from a 2K effective all in he won with AA vs KK (ouch). and before he even looks at his cards he just takes a pile of money (it's like $145 dollars lol) and slams it on the table....

Flop ($290)

A24ss

He bets $100 (lol he hasn't even looked yet). We call.

Turn ($490)

6x

He now checks, thank god, and we check.

River ($490)

9x

He finally looks at his cards and just grabs $400 dollars and flings it in the middle? LOLLLL SO SICK.

We toss in the call and get the bad news - he has ACE FOUR. Wooooof.

Part 2 coming later.

My goodness, what a game!

Okay so by now things have gotten very tense. In addition to all of the trash talk which was previously going on, now we are onto Indian guy telling Asian drunk guy he has papers published by NASA and Asian guy calling him 16 year old “Appletini girl” also every time Indian guy is in the hand, Asian guy is talking to him in his ear like Hannibal Lechter is to his cell mate. I’ve been playing poker for along time, and this was one of the craziest dynamics I’ve seen.

At this point the latest dealer has also threatened to call the floor back if anything else happens, but before he or anyone else can, Indian guy calls the floor over and says , “I would just like you to tell this guy that he can not talk to me anymore at the table” at this point floor is beside himself and said “you guys are acting like children - I’m going to force you to move and he finally moves the Asian guy over to another table” - in addition to being ridiculously drunk, the Asian guy has lost his pile of chips from 3.5K down to like 400 dollars all in the span of two hours I’ve been there. Brutal decline.

My last hand of note involves a very big bluff against the best player at the table (young Asian guy with about 5K in his stack).

Hero ($1200 ish) AsKc UTG open to $25, Indian guy calls, Villian on the BTN 3 bet to $65, hero four bets to $200, folds, Villain calls.

Flop ($425)

533hh
Hero bets $125, Villian calls.

Turn ($675)

7x

Hero $375, villian folds. (Whew)

Later I run AJ into Ak for a loss of 300 and I end the session actually down about $143 dollars from my 1200 buy in. Shame we couldn’t capitalize on this game.

Even people who were drinking heavily at my WSOP tournament tables treated their opponents with respect. I never saw anything like what you encountered. Asian Drunk guy at your table sounds brutally annoying.

Oh yes for sure, he was horrendous. WSOP events a different vibe for sure. In the 1500 NL Super Turbo we had a great table all day.

Okay so after last nights reign session, and the failure of max late registering the $200, we get back to the room, eat our to go sandwich and pass out.

We get our average 4.5-5 hours, and it’s time for coffee and Blackjack! We go in for $500, and book a nice $500 dollar win. Finally.

After we go to breakfast at Jardin, and it’s steak and eggs - 8.5/10!

Okay guys. I haven’t had a chance to catch you up on the day. But let me just say, it’s 2am and we are still playing, and not in a cash game. Cliffhanger. Details will come tomorrow so I can lay this out. Let’s gooooo

So before getting into the events of last night/this AM, let’s finish out the day recap.

After breakfast at Jardin we start up a new 2:5 NL game at the WynnCore, and buy in for 1500. The game is mostly what you expect for a new table in the morning but it is Friday, and it is WSOP time so it’s not terrible. We make a couple of very nice hands (several sets and over pairs) which we get value on and hold on.

We end up +800 or so on the session which is quite nice playing from about 830 to noon. We then go outside and check out the scenes of the young wild party animals lining up for Encore beach club while we enjoy some catnip. Then it’s off to Charlie’s sports bar on the Wynn sports book for some food. As you all can tell, I’ve been on a real health food kick this week lmfao , could be least healthy I’ve ever eaten in Vegas generally but that’s okay - it’s good to do that sometimes, you gotta enjoy it and we do. We grab a Kona draft, and two apps (the giant pretzel and the sliders). I can’t finish the pretzel and eat the slides but leave most of the fries to minimize the damage. This is a great spot to go with your friends or family. Food is awesome and good to share.

After lunch, we decide to go get a little rest in the room. Even if we can’t sleep , lay down, watch some poker vlogs, take a shower, and try to charge up a bit. We do the best we can while getting ahead start on starting to get the room organized for our pending departure within 24 hours. While I do rest for a bit, sleep has just not been there this week, and on a Friday afternoon in Vegas on my last full day, that’s gonna be a big ask. I decide I’m going to change gears a bit and see if I can get into 2/5 at Resorts World because of how good the games have been. There is a list a mile long, and they are packed to capacity with one of their bigger daytime tourneys they are running. We sign up ok poker atlas, pack up and head downstairs for a nice big ol ice coffee and take a quick cab over to RW because there is no way in hell I’m walking in this heat, especially on practically no sleep all week etc.

We arrive to a really great vibe in RW, which is a nice change. I feel like most of the time I am there, it’s always super nice, but kind of empty, quiet, boring etc - I always compare it to a high end shopping mall - nice, but no personality. Today seems different. Lots of noise, action, and good energy. The list is taking way longer than I’d hope so we mess around on video poker for awhile unsuccessfully, then decide to go throw some dice. The session starts of great and we get out of the gate hot hitting 3 points pretty quickly and some of our bought six’s and eights’ , unfortunate as soon as we up our pass line bet to $50, things start to turn and the profit is gone quickly in a couple of quick seven and out’s and even some of our buy in. I seem to rarely have success with craps. Honestly, it ends up always feel like a more complicated version of blackjack to me. Win one, lose one. A streak here, a streak there. Sure there are all the props and no doubt it’s a fun game, but I guess I always imagined it to be different prior to playing it for the first time 5 years ago. We rack up a small $225 dollar loss, and lose another 170-190 or so in video poker. We still haven’t been called for 2:5, and it’s now getting kind of late on the day….its almost 5PM. I’m also getting hungry.

After some deliberation, I decide I want to go watch the Stanley cup game for at least a period or two if not bet on it, and I also could go for some dinner that’s filling but not too heavy and sushi sounds good. In the back of my mind there is always the 6PM 1100 turbo at the Wynn. That’s a daily consideration for me as I love the format and it runs most days.

So with that, and being unsure of what to do next, we head back to Encore and we head to Wazuzu for some sushi. Grab the Crystal Dragon roll, a usual favorite, and then a shrimp tempura roll. Both are very delicious. 9/10.

After dinner, we head on over to the sports book and grab a seat. The game is exiting but mostly one sided for the Oilers who take a big 3-0 lead through the first two and end up going on to win to force a game 7. I must admit, I vastly underestimated them. We know it’s our last day and we are down a bit as you know…..so there is only one thing left to do…..

It’s the Wynn 1100 Turbo! Letsss gooo!!!

We show up in level 4 (200-400) and receive our 25k starting stack. We off to a bit of a slow start calling off 20% of our starting stack to a short who jams over our late position open with Q10ss. He has AJ and he holds.

We also defend our BB a couple times unsuccessfully and bleed of some small pots of no consequence until the following hand comes up.

Hero BB (16,500) AsAd
Blinds 400-800/800

Btw, this is literally, and no exaggeration, the first time I’ve been dealt AA all week, in any Hold ‘em or NLHE format.

Folds around to the BTN who is a pretty active guy, opening about of pots, playing mostly well, but you can tell he’s a rec enthusiast with money who has a clue about basic strategy but truthfully isn’t very good. He opens to 2K, SB folds, we CALL in the BB and the flop:

Flop (5200)

993cx

We check, he bets 3500, we call.

Turn (12,200)

Qh

We check, he jams, we call, and he turns over KQ. We hold and get the full double to 33K.

A few orbits later, we get the good fortune of a late registrant to jam his entire stack into me with JJ and we snap him off with KK and hold.

We also win a small race when our Pocket sixes finish off another shortish stack for 9K.

We then make some hands in some standard, open, Cbet the flop and take it down, we make a few bluffs in multi ways including a nasty check raise flop , continue the turn in a 3 way raised pot when we are in the BB and the flop contains two tens. We are playing good running good, and after Level 8 and going into the second break, we buy up the black chips and have a pretty nice stack of about 82.5K going to 1k-2K I believe at that point.

Gogogogo!

In most of the summer turbo formats, levels 9-12 are the make it or break it levels. You typically play 800-1600, 1k-2K, 1.5-3K, and 2K-4K. This is where those still hovering around their original 25k (or whatever venue you are playing at gives its usually 20 or 25, sometimes 30) but anyway, it’s moving time. People either double or bust, and this is where those solid above average stacks like mine go into Bob the builder mode.

Right now I’ve got what? 55-60 bigs. Pretty good, but in a turbo and especially if you want to go deep, you can’t rest on that. You’ll be back down to grinding a 18-25 BB stack by the next break if so, and if you’re lucky so it’s time to build. We start to look for spots to attack the more passive players, and start to utilize a thee betting range against those we are thing to do the same thing we are but are opening two wide and we know don’t have that extra 4 bet gear, and who we are confident we can navigate post flop.

Interestingly enough in this particular tournament, while I’m able to do that a bit for the next four levels, it’s a couple of pretty big hands that really help turbo charge is.

After building to 100K, we stack a guy for 50k when his TT runs into our QQ.

After bleeding back down to 113K with some failed 3 bet, c-bets, and single raise, cbet fails, we also dominate a guy who playing about 35K when our AK holds a giant his AQ. So while we are playing fine, we are getting dealt, and in spots where we are getting action.

We also make a very important lay down after flopping top two pair with QJ but a terrible runout

160K ish on the 3 break and we build accordingly by any means necessary. 160K going to 2000/4000

Nice start. Keep it going.

When we come back from break, there are 57 of 207 left. 27 will make the money, and there is 46K up top with a min cash being worth about 2100 hundred or something like that I can’t exactly remember. The play to the bubble in a 1.1K like this is a grind. Very few hands going to showdown, lot of awkward pre flop spots and the need to have some serious courage to fight for chips in the pot. We arrive on the bubble with 225K. No big pots of consequence for me during that last 120 minutes. The biggest one was making top two with AQ and getting three streets of value from AJ. The rest was blind stealing and one three bet with J9ss from the button against the HiJack who was veryyy active and I got that one through. Levels at this point were 6k-12k

Fortunately the money bubble bursts quickly when a shorty has to jam pocket fives and gets run down by a big stacks AJ. WE ARE ITM! FINALLY A TOUNREY CASH! Is that champagne ?! No, it’s just very refreshing perriers the Wynn provides. We have just about double our buy in locked up and now it’s eyes on the prize time.

We navigate very well down through the post bubble burst shoves, picking off a 80K stack with A9dd in the BB vs. their J10 BTN shove, and a 100k stack when our AQ holds vs KQ to help us grind our way down to 12 players along the way. At this point we have about 300k with blinds now at 10K-20k/20k so fifteen bigs and an absolutely HUGE spot comes up that allows us to continue in a BIG way. It folds around to us in the SB and we look down at the beautiful

As10s

We announce all in expecting just to pick up the valuable 50k in the pot to increase our stack by 20% but we get snapped (yikes!) or yikes? V fortunately “only” has 88 and we are off to the biggest race I’ve had in quite some time

Flop comes down and while we don’t pair, two spades show up giving us the a lot of outs , a gorgeous beautiful black ten of clubs peels off the turn and we double through our neighbor to about 630K!!!! Yes!

Meanwhile there was a double elimination on the other table! Only 10 left. We are playing 5 handed on two tables at this point , and we are also very pleased to see that we are guaranteed something like $3900 at this point which pails in comparison to the top three or four prizes it’ll allow us to get even on our trip, which at least is a comforting feeling.

FINAL TABLE!!

Way to win a flip. Keep up the rungood! Now you are big-game hunting.

Anticipating .the next update gogogogo

No news gotta be good news at this point!!

Thanks for not posting the result right away. It makes the updates more fun to read. I do hope we don't have to wait too long for the next one, though!

It’s final table time! I would be on cloud 9 if I wasn’t so exhausted. Nevertheless, the adrenaline is pumping as the floor explains a few things, and reminds of the winner getting the coveted miniature Wynn trophy. Now I know this is going to sound a little lame, but I am dying to get my hands on one of those things. The Wynn is a special place for me, having spent most of time in during my earliest trips to Vegas, and it’s been my home base ever since and just love everything about it. Payouts are roughly something like this:

46K
28K
21k
15k
11.5k
9.5k
8.7K
6.5k
5.2K

So and have about 5-5.5k locked up and playing for a really nice prize up top.

It takes awhile but the first elimination happens when the shortest stack, makes an A4 jam and is called by an A9 of clubs and holds. 8 left and it’s great to at least get one off the board. Near the end of the level

We score our first knockout at the final table.

Blinds 10k-25K/25k

BB Hero (AsQc) 575k

Folds to Sb who jams 250k , we wake up with a beautiful AQ and snap immediately. The window card is a 7 ( and we just feel our stomach sink), but the cards are sticking a bit together in the dealers hand and as he finally spreads the flop, that beautiful queen is also revealed. The woman across from me remarks that the blood drained from my face when it happened lol. Oh poker.

And then there were 7.

Wow, congratulations on the deep run. Keep it going!

Another knockout, and now there are six of us left. Play continues for the next round at 25k-50k/50k with just a wild amount of all ins. Leading to chips just kind of being pushed back and forth. At this point, we are a bit discouraged because our previously gained 250K in chips have evaporated via the blinds and antes and no one else has been knocked out and we just haven’t found any additional spots.

Then finally, another elimination occurs to bring us down to five players. Whew. There it is! A five figure score! We now have 11.5K locked up, and while 575k in chips at 50K big is only 10.75 bigs, there is another stack even shorter than me now with 300K/6 bigs and we just went through the blinds so I’ve got a few hands coming at least to try to get something through.

So now here we are. 5 players left, 11.5K locked up, and 15K for the next pay jump. We are 3rd in chips. The distribution is tricky. The two players to my left have the majority of chips, then there are the three rest of us. Of the other two, one has 400K, and the other 225k. So it's tight and we are VERY short. There is not a lot of play right now but it's a turbo and net net, there is still strategy here. The big blind comes around to us.

Hero BB (started with 575K but 50K big blind, 50K ante) so we have 475K behind and there is 125K in the pot considering the SB. It bolds around to the who has (225K). She jams....I pray before looking down at my cards that I have something DECENT at least. We squeeze out a 6c5c and sigh deeply.

We put in the call for only 125K more. She turns over Q10 so we are certainly live. Unfortunately, we can't get lucky and we close our 100K in BB/Ante and anotehr 125K for the call and she more than doubles. Woof.

We now have only 350K.

So, the very next hand we flick in our 25K Small blind leaving us with 325K behind. Folds around to us and we pick up As6d. We shove on the chip leader and somehow, we get it through! he claims to have 32o aka the dirty diaper. and boy are we thrilled to pick up 125K in that spot and chip up to 450K or 9 bigs.

The very next hand it folds down to us and we look down at QQ!

This is tricky. I can min raise 2 bigs, and see if I can draw in some action but these are both chip leaders, and what if they both call? I don't want to navigate here with QQ against two players, with a solid pay jump, and the 125K that's in the middle already being so valuable. I also consider that shoving again into two people who have roughly 2M in chips or comfortable 40BB stacks is likely the best play since I want it to blend in with other weaker hands in my shoving range like the A6 or a J10 that I'm shoving. In the end, they would need to have something to take a flop anyway so we go for the jam and sadly they both fold but we chip back up to 575K.

Now comes an elimination!

The UTG player who was sitting 4th in chips jams around to the big blind who calls. It's a race between 88 and AJ and AJ emerges victorious sending the player to the rail in 5th place and we move up to 15K locked up!!! Let's go!!