"The Face of Panic"

Why oh why didn't I take a picture of this joker?

You guys would surely love looking at the face of this jackass, which is exactly what I was about to call him when the floor showed up, and caught myself...saying "You little.....you little!"

Yeah, I just went Quentin Tarantino on you guys. Starting with the end of the night and working my way back.

12:56pm. Check out of the Amazing Bally's. Make way to Ceaser's Shanty. Buy into their $340 at 1:20. Just in time for the end of Level 2. Mike picks up AA and gets some fool to put his whole stack in preflop with AK. Nice. So he starts with 32k. I am chatting my face off. I have a Heidi Klum look-a-like from Canada, who we find out is dating the guy in Seat 3. We also find out she is jonesing bad for weed, claiming to have been out for 4 days and going through withdrawals. Not sure if that is sexy or not. Maybe so, maybe not. Depends on your zip code.

I win a couple, lose a couple. I have a fairly aggressive table so I am using a more conservative approach. Then I hit big. I limp in early with 88. Ends up being 6 in the hand. Flop comes J-5-6...two diamonds. I check. It checks around. Hmmmm. 8 of diamonds hits the turn. Wow. But so many draws out there. First guy bets out 1200. Fold, Fold...a CALL..(by Heidi's boyfriend) and folds to me. Hmmm. Player #1 has 12,000. Player #2 has 8900. I have 17,000. How to play this.......

I decide to go ahead and find out where I am and put pressure on someone with a draw. If the first guy folds, I don't care what the second guy does, I will call and have to live with the outcome. But if the first guy pushes I have a real decision. The first guy PUSHES all in. Ohhhhh boy. The second guy GOES ALL IN too! Shit. I have to put ONE of them on a made flush already. But now I am getting a ridiculous price to call, and if I can fill up maybe whack two players and get a huge pot. I make the call. Turns out I am up against 555 and 666. Wow. Sweet. It holds, I drag a gigantic pot, and become chipleader at the table.

Later I flop a set of 7's and totally misplay it, trying not to lose TOO much, keeping the pot small, and instead letting this guy suck out on me for a 7k pot. Hated that hand.

Limp with Q10d. Call a guys late raise. Flop comes Jd-7h-9d. Nice. Guy bets out. I raise. He re-raises, and I just shipped on him. He thought about it for a minute and finally folds. Nice pot.

The next big hand would come when I limp in for 400 with 22. Guy behind raises to 1500. Next guy smooth calls. Hmmm...obviously I'm behind! :) But what the hell, I have chips. Let's gamble. I call. Flop comes 10-2-7. Nice. I check. First guy bets out 2500. Next guy raises to 7500. Well, if he has 10's he has 10's. I go all in. First guy folds (QQ he told me later) and next guy calls with JJ. It holds. HUGE POT.

Cute little German chick shoves for 9800 with the blinds 400/800. I have over 100k and look down at AK. Shit. Whatever, I call. She has QQ. It holds. Damn.

Short while later, she shoves again, this time for 14k. I have 105k. This time the blinds are 600/1200. I look, again, at AK. I call again. She has Q2 this time. FLOPS THREE CLUBS! I have none, she has one. Great. Ah on the turn, Ks on the river. She leaves.

We go to dinner break. Mike makes it to a dinner break finally. Which increases his share from 5% to 10%. We go with another guy from our table (who would take the grossest beat when we got back from dinner, button limps. He has A2 in BB. Flop comes AA2. It all gets in with the guy in the SB who has A7. 7 on the river makes that guy chipleader and takes my buddy OUT), his friend, and Heidi (real name, Rose, from Vancouver, BC). We have great pinot noir, I have oysters and a Rib Eye, that was AGAIN over cooked, just like the last time Me, Allie Prescott and Joe Cutler ate here last year on a dinner break. That would be Nero's. At the conclusion of dinner we agree to play credit card roulette for the bill. I of course LOSE. Nice. The bill was, uh...ridiculous. I need to make it to the next payout level to cover that bill.

We go back. I just pretty much hover around 130 to 160 for three or four levels, always about 20 or 30k above the average. We are getting closer and closer to the money. Mike has busted out...seeing his AQ go down to 9d10d. So he is again relegated to 'sweat buzzard' for this tourney.

Then IT happens. Everything all day was going just fine. Then the twerp in the five seat, who I am quite certain is trying real hard to play Bubble Exploitation poker has raised my BB again, 2.5x. I look down and see QQ. Hahaha, gonna get this asshole. That's when the guy on the button moves all in, which he has done more than a few times. But something about this one...two from the money, and with about 5 short stacks living in my neighborhood, tells me that I may be in bad shape, up against either KK, or even AK...which I really don't want to be up against. I ask for a count. He has 152k. I have 167k. I ask the Pakistani-looking punk how many he has, he hesitates to tell me, then finally relents. I have him well covered, and judging by his body language, he isnt even THINKING about calling. Its pretty much all on me.

Its one of those that I just CAN'T decide what to do, and about two minutes into my thought process the little asshole calls clock on me. You all know my deal with that. Calling clock on a guy, two from the money, for 90% of his chips. I pretty much went off on the guy. He says "I have a date..." after I asked him what the big rush was. I ask him "With who? A hooker?" He goes into this whole diatribe about me "offending him, that I am attacking his credibility and morals" that he would NEVER go to a hooker. In other words, he took it a little personal. He then proceeds to say "Hurry up and act, this is only a $340 tourney and I have a life to get back to..." to which I respond "No, you don't"...which caused everyone within earshot to start laughing. I think that really pissed him off.

This is about the time that Mike, sitting behind me starts on his rant..."Sir, um..whats wrong with hookers? Why do you have to make fun of hookers? Some of them are very nice. You know, they have feelings too...why do you have to talk about them like you are better than them?" It was pretty funny, again..everyone was laughing.

At some point, the guy stands up to try and impose his physical dominance over me. That was funny. He might have been 6'0 190. Thats when I stood up, my 6'3 235 dwarfing him, and I just looked at him and asked him if there was something he wanted to say to me. He freaks out. Calls the floor. They come. He whines. They warn us both. The night ends about 15 minutes later with a nice guy getting busted out with the best hand (of course).

So we bag our chips. I am waiting for my buddies out by the front entrance. When who walks my way? Hadji. He sneers at me as he approaches me. I never even raise my voice. "Well, you again. Now that we are done with the tourney...did you maybe want to step outside of the casino and talk about whatever your issue is with me?" To which he got VERY defensive...and immediately goes looking for some floor person to rescue him. Mike shows up. Listens. Is laughing. Taliban-boy goes to floor guy number 1, "This guy is threatening me...is Jim Pedula here?" "Nope, sorry, he already went home." I tell the floor guy what is going on. He chuckles. Then he goes to the next guy...repeats his stupid story. I tell THAT floor guy whats going on too. "Uh, see this guy has an issue with me, and wants to threaten me, wants to call clock on me, wants to call the floor on me...but when I simply ask him if he wants to talk about it, civily, outside of the casino, him and his tough-guy act seem to fade, and he goes scurrying looking for protection. So, thats his problem. I can see he is just a coward, so I will go ahead and call it a night. See ya guys tomorrow" and with that I cruised.

I can't wait to see this little ferret today. I will definitely take his picture and get it on here. I love these little assholes who show up in Vegas for their ONE poker appearance of the year and want to try and act like they are a seasoned pro. Like anyone gives a shit about them. I am glad he starts at my table. I am going to definitely target his ass. But not in a way that will affect my outcome.

I go into today in worse shape than I would prefer. I have another one of those old guys who sees AK and needs C-4 or a nuclear device to get him off of it. With 175k late in the tourney and still 1 from the money...I raised UTG with JJ. Uncle Fester calls in the SB with AK. The flop comes 6-6-4. He checks. I lead out 35k. After having raised 25k preflop. He calls. K on the turn. He bets out 50k. Jeezuz christ! I literally say to him...."Did you seriously float my flop bet with AK?" He says YES. And I am absolutely certain he is being truthful. FUCK! I fold JJ face up. The other players at the table (who I like) all look at me and roll their eyes, we've all been THERE. Leaves me with around 110k. Average is now 165k.

So I come back today at 2pm a bit below average. For some reason, not really sure why...I am just NOT feeling like something good is going to happen today. I don't mean to sound negative, but sometimes, like the other day when I went back to the Venetian, I just feel like I am going to win. Today, I just don't feel it. Right now we are at $875, which on a $340 buy in is at LEAST worth having put in the time. Still wishing like hell that Venetian would fix their payouts. The money today won't get good until the Final Table. I need to pick up a couple big hands early to have a chance. And get action on those hands. In THREE DAYS NOW I have YET to see AA. Not once. IN fact, its kind of amazing that I made it THIS deep in this tourney. I never had a pair of AA or KK yesterday. And JJ lost the one time I had it, and QQ had to get mucked preflop the ONE time I had IT. So it can be argued that my good hands are yet to come. ???? I hope so.

Got some nice criticism from a fellow player and reader on here. I was encouraged NOT to report my 99 Final Table hand at Venetian the other day when I flatted a 240k raise holding 1.2 million and the blinds at 40k/80k...getting the whole "any good MTT player would never flat a raise with 13bB's in his stack...that was horrible, please dont post that on your blog." See, I guess you are all entitled to your opinion. And sometimes, I won't even say you are wrong. However, I had a certain power over this table that when you have...you can make certain plays. That was one of them. Had I had the inkling of a clue that I was dead (and of course NOT flopped a 9) I could have folded there very easily, still had over 800k, and got those chips back on a near-future hand by simply raising and dragging a pot.

People telling me the ONLY WAY TO PLAY 15BB's or less is to PUSH are players who operate on a completely different plane than me. And that is fine. It's just not how I play. I am a shortstack ninja. If I shortstack myself by taking a gamble and trying to either outflop someone, or making a read, trusting it, and hoping I am right...and have to subsequently play my stack back to average, I will do that. I think I am successful. I trust my game. I trust my reads. And I am patient.

I have to go. I have only half an hour now to get over there. Lets hope I put together a nice little run today and make another final table. Stay tuned.

MONKEY