WSOP-C Southern Indiana

I'm heading down to Horseshoe Southern Indiana this weekend to play a couple of circuit events. I am playing event 2B and if I'm not playing day 2 I will play event 3. I will be posting updates of my progress on my way to the final table on twitter @shbzjenkins.

Rio Daily DeepStack Final Table

After a rough week in Vegas, I played the $235 Rio Daily DeepStack tournament on Friday. I had a good feeling about this tournament and was focused on playing my best. I had a weak starting table and was able to double my starting stack during the first 2 hours. I was moved to table 1 and knew that this table wouldn't be breaking for some time. I wanted to build a solid tight image to use once the blinds and antes went up. The players at this table were a little better, but very exploitable. There was a loose foreign guy that was the table CL. He was seeing probably 70% of flops and catching with weak hands. I thought I already had a read on him, but not sure. I knew if I got involved with him he could have any 2 and I would need to keep the pot small unless I had a big hand. I raise from ep with KK, button calls, CL calls from bb (obv). Flop comes J87. He checks and I gotta feeling he is strong. I check button checks. Turn K, bingo. He checks I bet, button calls, CL shoves. Could have 9T here, if so gg but I still got outs. I get it in, button folds he has J7..bink. I double and feel very confident at this point. The only hands I had been showing were strong and I have a very solid tight image.

The structure in this tournament is nice but if you're not careful you can find yourself suddenly short stacked. I was card dead and unable to find any good spots for a while when I found myself suddenly down to 15bbs. A new player at the table with a decent stack raised from mp. I didn't have any reads on him yet. I find 88 on the button and decide to get it in. He tanks for a good 4 minutes before I think he is finally folding. He then says "I just don't think I can lay this down" and says call while turning over his cards. QQ. I stand up and say "Really" what the hell. But I know that 8 is coming and of course I bink it on the river. Now I'm feelin like I'm gonna win this thing.

I find some good spots to maintain my stack but can't get anything going. I lose 1/3 when my AKs can't hold vs. A5o. I get a little back but lose 1/2 when my AK loses to QJ aipf. I'm a little frustrated but then my railbirds show up. Mike aka Ivan_Drago45 and his wife. I find AJs in lp and shove. Button wakes up with AKs. sigh....But I hit the J on the flop and another one on the turn. The table breaks soon after and we are down to three tables.

Love my new table. I can tell some of the players, most noticeably the older guy on my left, are hoping to move up the payscale and need to take advantage. At this point I have around 400k chips which is about avg. Time to change gears. Blinds were 15-30k with 5k ante. One of the first hands it is folded to me in the sb. I rs and take down the pot. The bb tells me to be careful as he mucks his cards. I then steal the blinds from the button w/k9s the next hand. He says now that time I know you had a monster. lol. The next orbit in my bb, utg looks at his cards and I see either a 9 or T (not purposely) when he looks at his cards. Folds around to me and I know if I have overs I'm shoving....I have Ak. I shove for most of his stack. He starts bitching about no skill involved here, don't you know how to play poker, is this your only move? Then folds.

Blinds up to 20-40k. I know have about 650k stack. Tight euro kid shoves 6bbs from hijack. I find ATs on the button and had a tough decision. The only hands he had shown were strong but he was short and I thought he had a wide range. The two stacks to my left were about 500k and 200k. I decide to shove and he turns over KK. fml. I flop a ten and a flush draw and bink the flush on the river. Up to 900k or so. At this point there are about 20 players left and I have a top five stack. 3 more players out and we are now down to 2 tables. Blinds are up to 30-60k 10k ante.

Scott Cook, aka Chipless Wonder from badbeatspoker stops by to wish me luck after his awesome day 1 of the ME before heading to bed.

A young agressive kid sits on my right and isolates 2 shorty shoves with qj and kt and wins with both. He then starts raising almost every hand. He has over 2mil chips. I know I'm going to have to confront him soon. I get a couple steals this level but my stack drops to 800k. Our table seems to get down to 5 players pretty quickly and 11 left overall. We go on break and I will only have 10bbs at the start of the next level and will be in the bb. Back from break, folds to agro kid in the sb. You think he can find a fold here? I know he is raising any 2. I have A6o. He actually takes a while and asks how much I started with and acting like it was a tough decision. He shoves and I almost call, but have a weird feeling he is strong here. If he woulda shoved immediately I probably call. Very next hand it folds to him on the button. He looks down and insta shoves. I find KQs in the sb and get it in. He turns over AT. Flop comes KQx. oh shit. but I sweat the J and hold.

We make the final table and the agro kid doubles up a shorty and is now short himself. I have about 1.5mil. Blinds at 40-80k with 15k ante. We lose two short stacks and are down to 8 players. Agro kid shoves from utg+1 I find TT next position and reship. It folds around and he has KQo. I hold and we are down to 7 players. At this point the prizepool info was taken off the nearest monitor and I'm not sure of the pay jumps. I know 7th place gets ~3500. There is a sheet of paper with the payouts but I don't want to make it look like I care what the payouts are. There are three short stacks at the table and all three have doubled at this point.

The blinds are now 60-120k w/20k ante lol. I have around 1.5m still and sitting around 3rd or 4th in chips. I look around and no one has more than 20bb or less than 9. No one has mentioned deal yet and I didn't want to be the one to bring it up. But damn, there is no "play" left here and 24k dif in 1st and 7th place. So I decided to do it. "Who wants to discuss a deal?" Turns out everyone did. They didn't want to bring it up either.

So we all agreed to a 7 way chop. Now we had to agree on who was signing for what place. They needed 5 players to sign. Two players couldn't sign. French guy wasn't sure about tax implications so we had to wait a while for floor to confirm he was good. So it was between me and the drunk biker to sign for 5th place. He didn't want to sign and neither did I. So I tell him to give me 1k of his prize and I will sign. He says deal. In the meantime, the drunk biker, who was drinking double rum n cokes all night, was about to ruin the deal because he thought the frenchman didn't want to deal. While we were waiting for confirmation for the frenchman, he slurs loudly the words "Fuck it lets play the gdamn thing out then. he don't want to deal let's play" and sits down. I quickly went over and calmed him down. Eventually the frenchman heard what he wanted to hear and we chopped.

I ended up getting more than 3rd place money with 7 players left. Pretty good deal imo. Thanks to everyone who followed me on twitter and wished me luck throughout the tournament!

What a day!

Follow me in Vegas

I just figured out (somewhat) this Twitter thing and will be tweeting? during my Vegas trip next week. I will be playing daily tournaments and giving updates during breaks. I have been following other bloggers' Vegas tweets and I'm hoping I can at least double my followers currently at 5, lol. Thanks.

Follow me at @shbzjenkins on twitter.

Vegas Trip Back On!

I will be in Vegas July 4-9th. I had planned on going in early June but held off and eventually decided that I would not be going in June. I set my sights on going to the fall Venetian DeepStacks series. I made the trip last November and had a good time but it's just not the same as being there for the WSOP. I plan on playing 3 Venetian DS and either a Caesars Mega or the daily DS at the Rio. I also may play a mega satellite to the WSOP ME.

I haven't been keeping up on who is in Vegas this year. If anyone will be there the 4-9th let me know.

Please take a few minutes...

I've never done this before..until now. Please click this link and take a few minutes to send letters to our government officials regarding online poker. I'm not sure it will help but it definitely won't hurt.


Thanks

First Dank/Mookie win!

Decided to play The Dank/Mookie for the first time in quite some time. Glad I did! I don't know much about Survivor Island but heard that Smboatdrinks needed to outlast Very Josie and muhctim to get to the final two. I was rooting for him but unfortunately took him out when my AJ vs. his AT held.

Good luck at the tables!

Vegas Trip Recap

Back in June I headed to Las Vegas with the hope of winning alot of money. My mind was on the prize and not what it would take to get the prize. I don't want to say that I didn't have high expectations for this trip, but I wasn't focused on winning money. Whatever happened I just wanted be mentally and physically prepared everyday and play my best poker. I went to bed fairly early each night and I did some stretches and excercises each morning.

My first event was the $550 Deepstack on Saturday. I started off pretty good chipping up to about 30k in two hours from a 15k starting stack. I took alot of those chips from a crasian who loved to bluff. He was able to build his stack back up and he raised from utg. I'm on the button and call his raise with 55. Flop comes 345. He bets out and I call. Turn is a q. He checks. At this point I put him on two over cards or a medium pair. I bet and he min check raises me. Now I am thinking he could have aq here or a flush draw so I flat and plan on letting him bluff the river. River is an 8 and didn't complete the flush draw. At this point the pot is about 24k and he bets 12k leaving 3k behind. I put him all in and he turns over A2 for the wheel. UGHHHH. I didn't even think he could have A2 or 67. I hit my set and was focused on getting as much out of him as I could. I doubled up a couple times and survived for another 2 hours or so but couldn't really get anything going.

That night I played the Venetian nightly $120. It drew about 135 players. My first table was extremely weak and I built my 7.5k starting stack to around 25k in the first hour. I had one solid player at my table and the others were unbelievably easy to read. They were folding to my cbets and if I thought they were weak I would check raise or raise their cbet. I felt like I couldn't do anything wrong. I have never just ran over a table like that playing live. A couple hours in I lost a big pot when my QQ < JJ. And then I isolated a shorty's all in w/aq offsuit. He showed up with aq offsuit also. 3 clubs came on the flop and the 4th on the river giving him the pot. I went into short stack ninja mode and was able to make the final table. I went out in 9th place for a little profit.

I played the O8 limit on Sunday. It had 135 runners and I went out 45. I felt pretty good about my play considering there were some really good O8 players in the field. I lasted until around 9pm so I wasn't able to get into the Venetian nightly again.

On Monday the V had a $350 NLHE event. This would be my last deepstack event so I wanted to make it a good one. I drew a pretty tough table and was down to about 10k from 12.5k starting stack in the first hour. With blinds at 75-150 two late position players limp in and I find jc9c in the bb. The limper in the hijack position had limped with strong hands several times already. I check my option. The flop comes QT7 with 2 spades. I check and hijack bets pot. Previously I saw this player check call all the way down when he hit top pair. The last hand he won he limped with TT and bet the big when he flopped a set. I felt he had at least 2 pair and maybe a set here. If I hit I knew he would pay me off so I call his flop bet. The turn is the Kc giving me the straight and a straight flush draw. I check and he bets almost the pot. I raise and after he tanks for about 3 minutes he shoves and I snap call. He has TT for the set and rivers a K for a Full House. I'm not so sure about getting it all in here. Since I was pretty sure he had 2 pair or a set I could have flatted his turn bet and made sure the board didn't pair. The river K may have scared him and I could have gotten to showdown without going broke. Got my money in good just unlucky.

That night I played the nightly Venetian again. It drew about 150 players this night. I drew a pretty lag starting table and was getting horrible cards. I was down to around 8bbs when I got one of my best starting hands of the night 5d7d. I obviously shoved and got 2 callers. The flop comes 578 and I triple up. As we neared the bubble the table tightened up and I was able to get a few valuable steals and resteals. I won a big pot when we were 6 handed on the final table bubble and went to the final table 2nd in chips with about 200k. Even though it seemed as if I had a big stack, I only had about 20bb with an M of 8. I stole a few pots but avoided any confrontations and we got down to 5 handed. Blinds were 8 and 16k with a 3k ante. 39k in the pot and i was sitting on about 210k. The aggro player at the table raises from utg and I find AQo on the button. I shove and he calls with TT. I see a Q coming on the top card of the flop cards! As the dealer slides the 3 cards across the table, the bottom card is a Ten. sigh.... But wait flop is QT9, turn is an 8. I can chop it with a Jack! Jack. Jack. Jack. Deuceeeeeeee. Damn out in 5th for $800. First was almost 4k. During the tournament I was talking to the guy that busted me out. He won an FTOPS jersey back in August.

The Deepstack events seemed to be a little bit tougher than they were in June. I saw more pros at the Venetian than I ever have in June. There seemed to be less tourists in the Deepstack events this time around. However the Venetian nightly seemed to be alot softer. I also played 3 satellites this week and 3 way chopped 2 of them. I played some craps, pai gow, and stayed away from the roulette tables.

Venetian Deep Stack

I am heading to Vegas this weekend to play a few live tournaments. I was planning on going to Hammond Indiana last month for the WSOP circuit event. I was only going to get to play two tournaments and my expenses were:

$300 for the room
$130 for rental car
$100 for gas

total $530

I had my room and car reserved and then realized that I don't even pay this much to go to Vegas. I knew the Venetian series was going on, so I checked flight prices and called Harrah's to see what rate I could get for a room. $300 for flight and $80 for 4 nights at the Imperial Palace. Wow I'm actually SAVING (hehe) money by going to Vegas.

So I will be playing the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday events at the Venetian.

Sick 1M gtee hand

Full Tilt Poker Game #24784135785: $1 Million Guarantee (181789490), Table 95 - 25/50 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:44:14 ET - 2010/10/17
Seat 1: Shabazz Jenkins (5,625)
Seat 2: DarkHorse19 (4,625)
Seat 3: Kazak132 (6,152)
Seat 4: ZaReTa_SbriSsa (4,280)
Seat 5: CharlesBeck (4,915)
Seat 6: berkey11 (2,543)
Seat 7: grindtherail (5,305)
Seat 8: oleg12345 (6,268)
Seat 9: philament28 (5,287)
philament28 posts the small blind of 25
Shabazz Jenkins posts the big blind of 50
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Shabazz Jenkins [2d 2s]
DarkHorse19 folds
Kazak132 folds
ZaReTa_SbriSsa folds
CharlesBeck raises to 100
berkey11 calls 100
grindtherail folds
oleg12345 folds
philament28 folds
Shabazz Jenkins calls 50
*** FLOP *** [Kd 3c 2c]
Shabazz Jenkins has 15 seconds left to act
Shabazz Jenkins bets 200
CharlesBeck has 15 seconds left to act
CharlesBeck raises to 500
berkey11 calls 500
Shabazz Jenkins has 15 seconds left to act
Shabazz Jenkins raises to 1,450
CharlesBeck has 15 seconds left to act
CharlesBeck raises to 4,815, and is all in
berkey11 calls 1,943, and is all in
Shabazz Jenkins calls 3,365
CharlesBeck shows [Ks Kc]
berkey11 shows [Ac Kh]
Shabazz Jenkins shows [2d 2s]
*** TURN *** [Kd 3c 2c] [9c]
*** RIVER *** [Kd 3c 2c 9c] [4c]
CharlesBeck shows a flush, King high
Shabazz Jenkins shows three of a kind, Twos
CharlesBeck wins the side pot (4,744) with a flush, King high
berkey11 shows a flush, Ace high
berkey11 wins the main pot (7,654) with a flush, Ace high




I probably could have gotten away from the hand if I had just called his flop raise and saw the club come on the turn.

Big Win X 2

This is the same tourney that I chopped last Friday. I was tired and went out of the 28k and 50/50 and was going to call it a night. Man, am I glad I didn't. At the final table I got into a heads up battle with jason jiang. He was raising every pot. I picked my spots and kept letting him bluff into me. Had a chance to take him out with 2 pair vs oe draw but he caught on river. Finally my 33 held vs his k9 and I took it down.

BIG Win!

TOOK IT DOWN! chopped for 5200. This was another tourney where I decided at the last minute to get in. Glad I did. loose_cannon_jj was at final table. I think this was the first time I've played against him. He's pretty tough. I was lucky to have position on him. 6am here gotta get to bed...if I can sleep.

Still Alive

It has been quite a while since my last post. I have been following everyone on my blogroll but have stayed away from commenting or posting. If I posted it would've meant that I had to think/write about how bad I was feeling about poker. I had high expectations for my Vegas trip and after another bad year I came home pretty disappointed and depressed. I used most of my online bankroll for the trip and my run-bad continued online. I couldn't even get myself to post a Vegas recap blog. I didn't want to come off as the guy who blames his downswing on bad luck and bad beats and everyone else. I started questioning my game and wondered whether or not I knew how to win anymore. Every decision I made seemed like the wrong one. This made me start playing differently and making more bad decisions to the point where I was way off my game. I kept making small deposits whenever I could, but couldn't build a roll with the small amount I was depositing....until Friday night.



I don't have any screenshots or hand histories to post but I spent most of the tourney short stacked and unable to find any good spots. I was all in several times with under 10 bbs. I stayed alive and made it into the money. I had some very weak tables and knew if I could catch some cards I would be able to make a deep run. At one point I made a big (and correct) laydown with aks pre vs 2 players. When we were down to 4 tables I opened them all up and observed each table. I stayed short stacked until we were down to 2 tables when I doubled up with QQ vs. AQ. At this point the table tightened up and I started I started taking control of the table. I went into the final table 5/9 and had very good reads on the players. I applied pressure whenever I could and was the chipleader with 4 to go. 3 handed I was still the chipleader and had a chance to take out the shorter stack with 99 when he shove over my button raise w/8To but he hit a ten on the flop. This hand put me in 2nd place. Same guy raised my bb from the sb and I had k4 sooooted. Flop comes AK2 with one heart. He bets and I decide to flat and re-evaluate the turn. Turn is a lovely 4. He shoves and I snap call. He shows AJ and blanks on the river. This gave me a small chip lead heads up. I felt I had a big advantage but it was 8am and decided to chop it.

I have been working ten hour days and alot of overtime, so haven't been able to stay up to play the mookie. Good luck at the tables.

The Real Tiger Woods Apology - Funny aniboom Animation

Thank you Al and Full Tilt

Unbelievable opportunity.....but I couldn't get anything going. One of those tournies where I always had 2nd best hand. I picked good spots and was able to stay around my starting stack for the first 2 hours or so with few good starting hands. With around 35 bbs left I picked up qq and reraised rambler. He just had a big hand to knock out pvanharibo. He 4 bet, essentially putting me all in. I'm 99% sure his range here is AA or KK so I folded and he told me later he did have kk. Then I picked up KK and Maigrey called my raise and an A flopped. I cbet and she shoved instantly so had to fold there. Got it all in w/kjo vs. 55 and turned a gut shot and flush draw and couldn't get there.
Going in, I had a good game plan, had a lot of notes on the players, and wanted to make sure my early and mid tourney decisions weren't affected by the prize pool. Hard to do with this much on the line, but I didn't want to have any regrets. I guess I'll just have to stick to the Venetian Deep Stack events in a couple weeks. Congrats to the winners.

TOC seat #2

Short post, I gotta get to bed. I was able to make a comeback being the short stack with 4 left and take down the Poker from the Rail tourney. I didn't have AA or KK the entire tourney and when we were heads up, I got both within 3 hands.

TOC seat

I haven't been playing very well lately and have been pretty frustrated. There was an incident at work a couple weeks ago and I think that may have something to do with it. Let's just say I was almost "rivered" by 69000 volts. Since then, I have been playing with an awefuckit attitude. Calling and shoving when I know I'm beat and pushing draws at the wrong times. Tonight I got my head right and played a solid tourney from start to finish.




I came to the final table 5th in chips. I got lucky here when my AK held and I doubled through KimLovo.



I was able to take out babaghanoush in a B vs B when I flopped top pair and he shove my flop bet.



I made a big laydown when I raised utg w/TT 5 handed. Blinds were 1500/3000 (i think). Smokee shoved all in from the button and I decided to wait for a better spot. We lost kimLovo and usaf_trevor and were down to 4 handed when I picked up TT again in the sb. Dave shoved from the button and I my TT held.



Once 3 handed, lightning was able to maintain his stack while smokee and I (mostly me) were up and down. We played 83 hands 3 handed and on the 84th hand smokkee shoved with his pair and flush draw and lightning called with his top pair.



Smokkee is one of the first bloggers that I started reading. I have had his tourney table up observing his play many times. I hate to root against someone whose game I respect so much, but I am definitely glad to have a TOC seat. GG smokkee!

Congrats to lightning for winning his seat and also congrats to ddionysus for a great tourney.

BBT Final Table

I can't find the words to describe how bummed I am right now. I ran great in this tourney and couldn't get the TOC seat. I came to the final table with the chip lead, took out a short stack's AK w/KJ, and it all went to shit after that. Whenever I made a raise with a marginal hand, I was reraised. When I had a hand, my raise was called and I totally missed and they hit. There was one spot where I'm not sure if I made the right play.

6 players left. I have 52k or so.
Blinds were 1200/2400
All in at 420 rs to 6000 from the cutoff.
Button folds
Ftrain pushes all in from the small blind for 54k
I have 52k in the BB w/TT.......and fold

I'm questioning myself here. 420 was raising a lot of hands which would open Ftrains shove range. Looking back, I think that I should have called. I was definitely shoving over 420's raise but hate to be the caller w/TT. Winning that hand would've put me back in the chip lead and maybe a run to the final 2. Any thoughts?

Invitational Freeroll Thoughts

Just wondering what it takes to get an invitation. Are the blogger invites going to be the same every week or will more bloggers get the opportunity to play subsequent weeks?

Vegas Plans

I bought my plane ticket tonight. I will be staying at the Flamingo from June 15-21. My tournament schedule looks like this:

Wed 16th Venetian $340 NLHE
Thurs 17th Gldn Nugget HORSE $230
Fri 18th Binions HORSE $500 or Venetian $550 NLHE
Sat 19th WSOP NLHE $1k or Venetian $340 NLHE
Sun 20th Venetian NLHE $340

BBT5
It looks like there will be another BBT after all. I was hoping that there would be some sort of prize for the overall points leader but it looks like the invitation only tournament wouldn't allow that. Hopefully I can win my seat and make a run in the MTT.

Good luck to all!

Nice River

All in pre in the 5050 with about 300 left. I got a few "words" in before the river came but was pleased to see the 9.