Solid Win Update and Summer Open (6/5/2011)

I finally logged a big win last night, up +$2500 in 11 hours.  To put in perspective, I lost -$700 for the month of May combined in 160 hours.  About $1300 was won last night during one of my final hands.  With a $1400 stack I got AA all in pre-flop against KK.  It held up, so I guess I can stop complaining about running bad for a week. 

The hand started as a maniac opened to $20 from EP.  This guy was pure LAG opening about 40% of his hands pre-flop.  And not a bad player.  Actually one of the most scary 2-5 regulars to play against in Atlantic City.  He is the only person I won’t sit on a table with if he has position on me, it’s just not even worth the variance.  Anyway LAG opened to $20 pre from EP.  I 3-bet to $65 from MP2 with AA, MP3 cold calls behind, the button then 4-bets to $350, LAG gets out of the way, action on me.

I thought about just flatting and pretty much shipping any flop without a king or queen on it, but I elected to 5-bet ship my $1400 stack all in here.  It’s just so fucking deep at this point that I didn’t want to mess around, even if a king or queen flops can I really get away from this hand heads up?  Against this guy probably not.  Even though I’m 90%+ sure he has QQ or KK.  The only flop I can really get away from is a flop with both a king and queen on it.  I don’t know his range well enough here, he could have QQ or KK, maybe even AK.  Additionally, if a king flops and he has QQ I’m really not getting any more money out of this hand.  And if he has KK I don’t think he is folding pre-flop anyways.  I would have been fine just scooping the +$400 without a showdown there.  Villain snap called anyways. 

Here is a secret: I’m pretty much never 5-bet shoving my 300BB stack all in with anything other than AA here.  This was the first time I’ve played with the villain, but previously he shipped a thousand dollars in playing his over-pair KK on the flop (pre-flop was 3-bet to $120).  I’m pretty sure he was an exclusively limit player and out of place in the deep-stack no limit environment.  

I won around 1300 on the last hand thanks to the mega-cooler.  Over 2.5 buy-ins in one hand.

I think there is an important point from the cooler hand.  Immediately after the hand I calmly tried to put myself in the villains situation with KK and ask what I would have done?  I can honestly say I would have folded the KK there.  He had been playing with me for over an hour and I hadn't 3-bet one time.  I had been playing aggressively when I was involved in pots however and seemed like a decent TAG player.  My 3-bet could have been lighter than normal because there was a super-lag opening from EP.  However once I 5-bet I think it's safe to say "game over", your kings are not good here.  And in the not so distant future there will be a time where I'm holding KK in the same situation, and I'm confident that I will be able to make the lay-down.  And I will lose about $1100 LESS than 95%+ of my opponents in that situation.  Another question, what would I have done if one of the better TAG regulars in the city was making that same 4-bet from the button?  I think the answer is just assume he has KK and FLAT.  Then basically auto stack off on any none king flop.  If a king comes you have to fold.  The only way you stack on a king flop is if he has PROVED he can 4-bet light with AK super-deep.  I can count the regulars in the city on one hand that are capable of such a play, so it would be a fold the majority of the time.

Off to a good start for June, I really feel the pressure is off for the time being.  The break even stretch in May had me on a life-tilt

Upcoming Borgata Summer Open (June 8^th- 24^th)

Borgata has a series of tournaments for their summer open coming up:

Borgata Summer Open Main Schedule

As anyone who is reading this probably knows, I’m pretty much an exclusively cash game player.  However, I’m feeling a burn to take a shot with some of these tournaments.  There is massive value to be found in these live tournaments.  Also, there are countless pros who got to that next level by taking a shot in a live donkament and placing deep.  This is a well known way to get ahead.  I’ve talked to a few pros in AC who placed deep in a tournaments early in their careers, which immediately gave them the freedom play profitable 5-10 games.

The problem is my bankroll.  I don’t want to damage my live 2-5 cash bankroll in anyway by failing in live tournaments.  I don’t want to ever drop back to 1-2 and I am a huge bankroll nit.  I have around 25k ready for immediate 2-5 use at any given time (only 15k of it is in my room and casino drop box).  I also have a separate account for living/rent expenses (around 10k which I add a percentage of my winnings to each month).  And I also have a separate account for long term investments such as stocks, retirement, etc (around 15k).  I can pull from the other two accounts to put into my immediate live bankroll, but I haven’t done that since I’ve turned pro, and I don’t expect to do that.  However, I WILL DO THAT before I ever go back to corporate, but pulling from my other accounts to replenish my live “working” bankroll would be a desperation move.

I’ve targeted 4 tournaments during the summer open that I would want to play in:

1)  Deep stack NLH 100k Guarantee (Re-entry).  $400 Buy-in + $350 Re-entry, 6/8-6/9

2)  No Limit Hold’em 25k Guarantee.  $450 Buy-in, 6/10-6/11

3)  Big Stack NLH 74k Guarantee (Re-entry).  $230 buy in + $200 Re-entry, 6/15

4)  NLH Championship Event (500k Guarantee).  $2700 buy-in. 6/19-6/22

Total: $4330.00

Notice I want to focus on deep-stack tournaments as much as possible.  They are less bull-shit and I have more time to gain advantage by use of skill.

The problem is I don’t want to put up $4,000 out of my own working bankroll.  So I’m going to talk to family members who have a lot of money and hopefully they will be interested in buying a percentage of my action.  If someone put up a full buy-in for the championship event I would have no problem giving them 80%+ of the winnings.  I’m still working out the details and the right way to present it to my family members.

I don’t know if I’m going to get any backing for this.  If I don’t I may just cut the championship event and go for the other three tournaments which would total around $1600.

No matter what happens the cash tables should be awesome during the entire summer open and I’m looking forward to the action boast during every day of the week.  I will keep updated especially if I go for some of these tournaments.