Part 2 -
Saturday August 9, 2008
I didn't get a ton of sleep the night before. Just a bit excited about the previous evening and looking forward to the next days event.
I got down to the meeting area and we all got to our private room next to the sportsbook in the Venetician where Daniel would be instructing for most of the weekend. We met around 9 am and had a catered breakfast. Nothing extraodinary, but definately had everyone one would need. DN came in the middle of breakfast and chatted around with some of the guys.
We got ready around 10, and basically everyone sat around in a semi circle as DN went through the day's lesson. Virtually all his material from Saturday is identical the information from PokerVT. I have not gone through everything in his latest book, but I believe it would be much of the same information.
I went through all the material on PokerVT before heading out to Vegas, so much of the information was a review. The material provides the fundamentals to poker and should be understood before a player can become more advanced. Most of the content is geared towards deep stacked tournaments, and/or deep stacked cash games. If players are interested in learning more about the small ball strategy and how to incorporate it to their game and/or seeing how small ball players approach the game, the book/PokerVT is a must have to improve your game.
In any case, most of the players obviously did not go through the material before hand. And very few of them took any notes at all. I took as many notes as I could, even though the majority was a review.
I believe we took a few breaks and maybe took a late lunch. By the time came to 2:00, we had covered preflop and flop play. From 2-4 pm, we all went to our private room at the Ventician poker room. The basic idea was to simulate early stages of a deep stacked tourney. Everyone started with 10k in chips and started with blinds of 25-50. Everyone would play their hand as they normally would. Any time a player folded preflop, but wasn't sure if it's correct, he would set the hand aside. Also any time a player folded after the flop, he would set it aside. After the hand was over, everyone would show their hands and we all discuss the hands.
Right off the bat, it was obvious some of the players were really bad. A lot of them had problems taking instructions (eg. raise 2.5x preflop if you're the first to enter or fold). I didn't have too many interesting hands. I mostly called raises pf and folded when I totally missed the flop.
There were a few interesting hands that came up. One of the other players had position and reraised the 2 or 3 other players pf with 66 (really poor play). He flopped a set and bet really small on the flop and 1010 decided to fold. DN was instructed how the pf raise was really bad, and the flop bet was also bad. It would have been better to check the raggity board and let your opponent catch up. So of course they rabbit hunted and a 10 peeled off. DN quickly changed the cards to help illustrate his point...lol.
I did play one interesting hand late in the session. It might help you guys more if I don't tell you the exact details of how it ended:
11 handed, I have 7800 chips. Blinds are 100/200 antes are 25. I'm in the SB with 6
8
. Folds around to a MP+2 or so, who bumps it up to 500. Folds to me in the SB and I call. The pot is roughly 1500. Flops k
10
3
. I check, and pf raiser bets 1500. I have 7300 left.
Answer these questions before you read the spoiler in white.
What do you guys do in this spot?
How long did it take you to make that decision?
If you folded - why?
What is your plan if the A
comes on the turn?
I took a while to make this decision. I was checking the flop with the intention of calling anything up to 3/4 pot - relatively quickly. The pot size bet confused me - also I'm rarely play live. So I kept thinking weather it was worth the call or not. His pot size bet seem like he had at least a king. I took my time to think about the hand. Then I suddenly realized that I can't call this hand anymore. If I had a king, I would have called much quicker. If I had a 10, I could call or fold...but wouldn't take this long to call. There are no other draws - so my hand is basically face up. I folded the hand.
When DN saw that I folded, he said Wow. He looked at me and said I had to call there. I was getting 2:1 on my call. Also, my opponent might not have the K. He flipped over AKo. He told everyone we want to make straights and flushes and have top pair stack off. He told the dealer to peel the turn. It was the A. And said I should bet 2500 into the 4500 pot on the turn if I had call.
He then looked over to me and asked why I folded. I briefly said I didn't want to play the hand face up. He said Wow again. He was like yeah, yeah...because you took so long to make the call. I nodded and he said, you know what you can do against good players. If you have a strong hand, like a set, you can play it the exact same way. If the turn misses the flush, you can check the turn and your opponent will stack off.
There were no other hands I played that were at all interesting. One of the better other players ended up laying down QQ's preflop. Action folded to a shortty, who raised to 500. QQ calls in position, only to have the button pop it up to 2800. The short stack went in for about 4k. QQ didn't take too long to fold before the re-raiser called.
Everyone flipped open their hands and the 2800 chip raiser also had QQ's and the shortty had 55. When the good player folded QQ, DN was totally impressed and said most of the time, you're looking at AA/KK, in the spot he was in. We basically got to the point where, we're never that happy to be all in preflop before the flop - in deep stacked situations. It was an impressive fold, and I wasn't sure if I could make it.
In any case, after all that, we went back to the private room and went over turn play. We ended the session around 5 or 6. And it felt like a long day. I think everyone was tired. It was almost like going back to school all over again.
We all were free till 8:00. We planned to meet at Morel's - a steakhouse outside the Palazzo Lobby. The guys love choosing steak houses whenever they hang with Daniel as he is a vegan. We had our own private room in the back. I talked with some of the other guys. Mostly to one of the organizers of the weekend events. He usually helps with the production of the PokerVT material and plays a bit online.
We had oysters, shrimp, and octopus for starters. Unfortunately seafood isn't high on my list of things to eat. During dinner, DN shared some stories and we had some interesting conversation. He mentioned how hard it was for him to play lower stakes. Apparently he's been asked by railbirds - Halle Berry 6 hours dead or Kathy Liebert....that led to more interesting conversation. I also talked to the guys about how to multi-table and etc. Over dinner, I had a steak and it was one of the best steaks I've eaten. I'm usually not a steak guy, but this new york steak was delicious. We also got Creme Brulee for dessert. Needless to say, I was stuffed from dinner.
So after dinner, we headed to the Tao Beach night club. It's basically an outdoor night club...so since it's still hot, I thought it was a good idea to wear shorts. Apparently not. The bouncers there love their authority. They made up rules as they go. From no where, they decided people needed collars to enter the club. Then everyone needed pants....even though half the girls in there were half naked anyways.
So I returned to the hotel room which is a bit of a ways away and changed before returning. One of the coordinators came back to get me and when I back and the club was packed. We finally got to the top and we had our own private area. DN had some of his buddies over...and we had random woman coming in to get drunk. Nightclubs really aren't my thing. I never go to them, and really have no interest in it - I rarely drink alcohol. Anyways, I talked to a few of the guys....and grabbed a glass of Orange Juice. I'm just standing around and there's three chicks in front of me... I don't know it was, but it was hot out, I was tired, and condensation from my cup.... basically the cup slips out...and it was like slow motion in a movie as I saw the cup crash to the ground and all over the place. The girls screamed, and I was like *hit....I appologized so many times and felt so bad. Those chicks must have thought I was drunk...lol.
I recounted the story to DN and of course he had to share it all with his buddies. In any case, Mark Seif came by later to the booth. I hadn't really noticed on tv, but he's a bit bigger then I thought. I really didn't want to get into the whole AP scandal with him. He has been playing mostly online as of late and even on Stars. He found out I was a supernova and said he was platinum for a month, but couldn't find the time to keep up that pace. Apparently, when he plays online, he's often high....it sounded like he smoked a lot.
Talking to most of the other guys, I've been mentioned as the favorite for the tourney on Sunday. I really never thought much of it and mostly replied, whatever happens happen. Anything can happen in poker and it's not worth investing so much emotional interest into one tournament when you know there's another one right around the corner.
In any case, I didn't want to stay up too late and took off around 1:30 or 2. Before taking lost, I basically got lost in the club. It's pitch black and I have no clue where the heck I was going. Eventually I found the exit and looked down as there was a hot chick with barely anything on in a bathtub with flowers all over. Too bad I didn't bring my camera with me. I went back to the room and slept.
I later find out that the Tao Beach is actually a topless nightclub during the week. They apparently hire strippers about 100 bucks to lay out up top and get gocked at.