FINAL TABLE today at 2pm

Well, here we go, another chance for victory and a 'decent' score. As is the case with almost all Omaha tourneys, there isn't a 'monster' score attached, but with 85 players buying in for $350 each...I would happily take close to $9,000 with a smile on my face. In addition to that...they have a cash prize for the all-around tourney performer for every Venetian Deepstacks event. Some of you might recall, I won the All Around title back in the summer of 2008. 

I have now put up two cashes...a 12th and a 14th this week, and then wherever I finish today...so I would have to think I am at least in the Top Ten, maybe higher. Two days ago, in the $350 noon tourney, with 246 players...I got into the money, then got my QQ to hold up all in, three-handed...and grew my stack to twice the average. Things were looking great. That's when disaster hit. This clown who had been taking out one player after another and growing his stack to about 600k (I had about 160k) was not too big on 3-betting. He was fond of the 'grab a stack of blue chips' and just raise in a fashion that was saying "I'll put you all in!"

I hate these guys. They pay no attention whatsoever to stack management. Nor do they ever give their opponents credit for a hand. What those idiots usually do, is donk off their monster stacks. I see it all the time. So when I raised with AK...and this jagoff start making that motion where they want you to move your arms so they can see your chips...I had a feeling I knew what was coming...and it did. 

"I'll put you all in."  Okay. I called. He turns over AQ. And I never, ever feel GOOD about ANY hand before the flop comes...but at least I had him dominated. Well the flop came Q-10-5....lovely. Jack please? Or a king? No? Not on the turn? Or the river? I'm out? Really? I won how much? $900? Awesome.

So what did I do with that $900? I started walking towards Venetian...which would lead to the street...and then to my hotel. But instead, I see Chris Lindh and his lovely girlfriend Annette at a 1/2 table, and decide to sit and play with them for a little while.

One little problem here. Also at the table is 'Randy.' Randy is, to put it politely, my Dealer-o-Death. It's self-acknowledged. He even encouraged me NOT to sit down at the table with him there. So I have no one to blame for the first hand I played but myself.

Someone makes it $8. I call with K10s. The flop? Oh just a ten...which was top pair...AND a flush draw. There was a bet. Then a call. And another call. I raise it a little. Two callers. Turn is a blank. It checks to me. I bet big. The first guy goes all in. I call. Now I am rooting like hell for a spade on the river. I GET THE SPADE on the river....turn over my hand, and this guy shows AJs. Oh my god. Guess I didn't want the spade after all...my ten would have been good. I push my whole stack of $300 over to this guy, Randy buries his face in shame...I rebuy for $300. Which I did one more time...losing all three buyins. Yes...for the 14 hours I grinded to win $900, I sat there and lost it all in three hours of cash game. Pretty damn brilliant, huh?

So I went back the next day to play again in the nooner. I walk in at 1:45 (standard arrival time for me this trip)...sit down...wait for the big blind so I can play. First hand...nothing. Second hand...with 10c7c...the board comes JcQc9c...yeah, we will call that a good flop. One other guy has K10h....flopped a straight...and the other guy had 2c5c. I would get all his chips, and 4k of the other guys'...and that was how I started. I turned my 10k starting stack into 24k by the break. 

After break, this lovely Asian dealer arrived. Cue the 'Asian Dealer Disaster.' Flopping two pair, losing. Flopping top pair with flush draw. Losing. Flopping open ended...brick bricking two or three times. I was losing my mind. And my chips. When we finally broke that table I was down to 11k. New table...pick up JJ...re-raise an aggressive early raiser of 700 (with another caller) to 2200...get called by both of them...and flop A-J-Q rainbow. Went ahead and bet out 4000 on that flop. They folded...and I had a bunch of my chips back.

Things would go pretty smooth for the few levels. Until I ran into 'Mr. Stupid.' Now let me explain yesterday. Since I had almost no sleep, I had opted to take an adderal, and it was working wonders. I was alert, I was feeling peppy, I was in the zone where I was dropping lots of funny one-liners and had the table having fun. With the exception of Mr. Stupid in the 3-seat. Not much came out of him...no words, no emotion. Nothing. He has no neck. And he had yet to demonstrate very much in the way of being a player with any high degree of skill. Meanwhile, every hand I was winning I was showing...I like to do that a lot, especially early. Why? I like to plant the mental seed in people's heads, that when I raise...I always have a top ten hand. Makes it a lot easier when I need to pick up pots with 3 or 4-bet raises late in tourneys when I might be sitting on a semi average or below average stack. 

So...when I raised with JJ...from 300-600 to 2200, and the only reason I raised 2200 was because it was the third hand in a row that I had raised...previously with A10d and AQh...just figured I would keep my raise the same. Now, if a guy who had been showing you nothing but top ten hands all day raised your big blind...and you looked down at Q5s...what would you do? Don't be shy.

Well, when you are dealing with a guy who doesn't even know who dressed him that morning...where he found the money to buy in...or which bathroom to walk in when he gets to the restroom...how can you take offense to anything he would do with the two cards in front of him? I mean...seriously? Why do 'us' players ever expect any of these 'mutants' to make decisions that would make sense to us? Shouldn't we expect them to do something totally fucked up that makes us want to take a metal pole, walk over to a bank of slot machines...and just start smashing the shit out of them?

So when I raised with JJ...and 'The Buffoon' called with Q5...I don't know why I should have been surprised when the flop came 5-5-6. And when he check raised me all in, and later asked me "What you were thinking when I re-raised you!??" I couldn't fold. My reply to him was "Well, my problem was that I was actually giving you credit for knowing what you were doing...you know, for having a shred of skill...that perhaps you merely 'put me on' a big ace, and that I was just making a standard C-bet...and that you were making a play back at me. However, what I didn't realize, is that you do NOT have that shred of skill, that you merely decided to flat me with a Nostradamus-like prediction that you would miraculously flop trips and derail another quality player...on the way to donking off your chips eventually and finishing no where NEAR the money. So yeah...stupid me. Good game."

And that concluded my experience in the nooner. I would later check back to see where Jabba the Donk and my chips were doing. Oh...he was nowhere to be found. What a shocker. I might have to change my view on his stupid suckout though, since getting knocked out when I did allowed me to get into the 'Triple Barrel' Pot Limit Omaha tournament at the last second. They had just gone on break.

I sat down with 12k. I was murdering every flop. Stacking, stacking, stacking...then making a huge call on a three way all in, featuring my buddy (sarcasm OBV) Gary Bolden and another player...where I had a pair with an open ended straight draw...win the hand and I had a HUGE stack...or lose it and still have 22k. I went for it. I was up against a bigger straight draw...whoops and can't remember what Gary had...but I turned trips...then rivered the low end of the straight...the only straight I could hit...and knocked out both players...and watched my stack grow to over 50k. I would get to as high as 60k when the average was only 15k...then sat there losing almost every hand for three levels.

I got down to below average when we had 27 players left and was getting pretty nervous. But one monster bluff pulled me a much needed pot, then I got my A-A-K-10 to hold up against an all in re-raisers K-K-J-J to get to a good stack. 

Holy shit! Its 1:20. And I haven't showered! I gotta get outa here! And I haven't even told you about OMRG and his nearly disastrous busting of my A-A-hands twice in a row to take me from 100k to only 22k. I walked to the other side of the casino and nearly picked up an ATM machine and heaved it.

OMRG in the HOUSE! Crushing dreams!

Well, I would recover...and when we brushed to 10 players...which by the way, they forced us to play on one of those damn stud-like mini tables...when we were completely surrounded by full size tables, and had all the players EXTREMELY irritated...he was still there. And I was dreaming of getting my chips back.

I will cut to the chase. OMRG was the bubble, as we were only paying 9 players. And that put our night at the conclusion. Sweet justice.

I am listening, and have been listening to my friend Clint Tolbert's radio show (with Lance Gordon) on www.ontiltradio.com while I've been writing this blog. He had Allen Kessler on first (one of the most boring interviews of all time) and now has Maria Ho on with her ventriloquistic friend Tiffany "Wish Her 15 Minutes Would Hurry Up and Expire" Michelle and listening to her praddle on is making me throw up all over the keyboard of my laptop. I don't think I can emphasize enough how much I loathe this woman. I really like Maria. Really hate TIFF. If you want to hate her a little more than you already might, click on that link up there and listen to her...you will surely find yourself wanting to kick her in the throat.

Is that it? Yeah...it is, gotta go try to win this PLO tourney...which for the record, is only the SECOND PLO tourney I've ever played...the first one was at the Bike in LA last month, which we chopped 7-ways.

MONKEY