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another Friday night in Vegas...
Before I begin, I ran across some news articles that should be of interest. The word from Crispen Leyser, the man trying to get half of Jamie Gold's WSOP win of $12 million, is that he's closer to that goal. I personally know no more than what I have read about on the web. If you want to read more about that story, click here.
I've also heard the Venetian is probably doing better than I had last reported. A friend told me he was invited to some special $1,000 buy-in tournament there later this month. I didn't visit it this weekend yet, but I probably will after the holiday is over.
Since my blog is supposed to cover all the news, rumors and gossip in Las Vegas, I'd be nuts not to talk a little about the Brandi Hawbaker story. If you haven't heard, I really don't want to direct you to the worst of the topic, but if you surf around the Two Plus Two forums (www.twoplustwo.com) in the news, views & gossip forum, you can read for yourself. I must warn you that it's kind of graphic.
Anyway, since so much of the story is she said he said, I won't give any further details than this: Brandi Hawbaker claims that Tom Franklin took at least $12,000 from her, of which he refuses to give back. As to how the money became in his possesion is up for interpretation. Dutch Boyd got thrown in the mix a few weeks back when he met Brandi. He tried to help her get the money from Tom, but Dutch wasn't of much assistance. Like I said, the rest is up for interpretation, as I don't know what to believe and what not to. You can read and see for yourself. Just keep in mind that the stuff you're reading is on the INTERNET, and to take it with a grain of salt.
So, last night... I went to Caesar's for the $120 with a $100 rebuy again. And again, I struggled to get anything going. I ran up to around 9k, and played pretty well, but never could get action when I wanted it. The only real interesting pot came in the 25-50, when the button and SB limped to me in the BB. They had done this over and over and I just decided to steal the blinds right away without looking at my cards.
It might be a little overly aggressive when there's not much in the pot, but I also wanted them to remember me being that aggressive. I should have shown a bluff after I did this, but my brain quit working and I mucked instead. They both called 225 additional (!) and the flop was 9 9 7 . That looked good enough, and I bluffed again for 400. They both folded. So I thought at first I had made some serious blunder and bluffed for a small pot that was insignificant... then the flop looked ripe for the stealing, and I ended up making a tidy profit overall.
I pick up queens and reraise from the small blind, trying to avoid playing a tricky spot out of position. No action. I get kings, raise, no action. I start getting short-stacked and the blinds are finally getting high, so I start pushing all in. I think I moved in like, eight or nine times before finally being called. The blinds were 400-800 with a 100 ante, and I had 5,200 on the button with A 8 . I shove in, and the small blind thinks for like two minutes before calling with... T T . Man, I really, really hate when someone takes forever in a situation that should be automatic! They hadn't seen me get called once, and I had complete garbage over and over. Why would he think with tens, when they clearly are favored against me?
Anyway, I bust out when I miss a flush draw on that hand. I'm about to go home when I decide there was a nice $1-2 NL game I heard where some guy was pissing money away. I was about to sit when I heard... "seat open $4-8 HORSE!" Mind you, I wasn't looking to make a ton of money, I just wanted to play, and HORSE sounded like a great change of pace.
Caesar's gets this going occasionally and hopefully with this blog, we can get it going more often. I really would love for more people to come down and play HORSE, maybe even bigger limits, more often. Especially the players I played last night! I hope they show up every day!
I ran card dead for the whole session. It was disgusting. I played two hours and raked three pots, two times just the antes. In Hold 'Em, I got a pair of eights and too much action to be excited on a Q 9 x flop. In Omaha, I flopped dry hands with no redraws or high/lows to go with them. In stud, I got razz hands. In razz, I got pairs and paint. In stud high low, my door card was a nine almost every time. Talk about complete garbage.
However, the game was a blast! Everyone was enjoying themselves and a few were drinking casually. One crazy guy on my right was playing every hand, cackling at the top of his lungs. One pot he screamed "RAISE!" and I was wearing headphones (at a very low volume) and said "did he say raise? I didn't catch that!"
So please, if you're looking for mixed low limit games, Caesar's is the place...
Finally I wanted to write a quick review on No Limit Theory & Practice by David Sklansky and Ed Miller. I picked this up on the PokerStars FPP store with some leftover FPPs. My expectations were actually kind of low, because I skimmed it before and wasn't impressed. However, skimming it does no justice, because this book is full of amazing insight and theory.
One of the most eye-opening sections involves preflop raises. Somewhere along the last few years, someone once said "always raise the same ammount so as to not give anything away." It might have been a statement from a TJ Cloutier book, and I know a lot of beginners took it to heart. That's not to say that sometimes you should just be consistent, but the idea of never raising a small amount or an overly large amount preflop is incorrect. If you size your raises correctly, you will play the size of pot you desire against the players you desire. For instance, against nits who will always assume you have the nuts on the flop, raise big, and get more money in preflop. They'll fold more often than not on the flop, so you want to get more in the pot for them to make a bigger mistake. Against people who make mistakes in smaller pots, make smaller raises.
There's more information that this book covers than I can write about without boring you... as this blog has already grown pretty long! Let's just say that there's something in here for even the best no limit players in the world. I say that because every time I have a game "figured out," I go back and study more, and learn more and more. I know many high stakes pros who could use a look at this book. It's by far the best read on the subject of no limit out there.
Check back in either late tomorrow or Monday morning, as I'll have a report on the PokerStars Sunday Million.
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