Turning Stone...Part 1.

Well, that was fun. I say this multiple times, and every single one has a fun meaning. Here, watch.

Well, that was fun. The trip here was basically hell. Griffin had been stopped at a border before trying to get to the USA for a month or two under a work visa, so this created problems for us this time coming down here also, as we again got held for over an hour at the border.

During this time, just as a helpful aside, Amanda nearly got me shot. She text messaged me good luck, which I appreciated, but it just so happened that it was during our wait in the border office, which has signs that say "No Cell Phone Use Permitted", you're basically not allowed to move while they go over your papers. So, the text came through during that time, and not noticing the signs for no phone use, I pulled out my phone to read it, and promptly was told to put the phone away by a guard there that literally had his hand on his gun holster. Fun fun fun.

So, we got to Turning Stone around 5:00am, give or take, and checked in. We got up to the room and went back down to check and see what time the tournament started, then Griff decided that since the tournament started at 10:00am it'd be fun for him to play a cash game. I went up and crashed, he walked in after about an hour having lost a 5/5 buyin($500). Not a good start.

Well, that was fun. I woke up and headed down to register, actually fairly early, so I sat at a 1/2 table to just fling some cards around while I waited for the tournament, and played basically one hand of interest. I still don't know how this guy played this weak.

There's an early position raise to 10 and 6 calls to me in the SB with Ad/5d, so I call also. Flop is Kd/6d/3c. I flop the flush draw. I check intending to check raise someone in since I have 80 behind and I'm willing to gamble at this point with the pot already at 62. Checks all around amazingly to the button who bets 20. I raise all-in. It folds around to him and he goes into the tank, muttering to himself about how he thinks I flopped trip 6's. Eventually he flashes KQ face up and folds it, asking me if I had trip 6's. I literally laugh at him and tell him no, and flash the 5d, and muck the other card. Time to go register for the tournament.

Well, that was fun. 300+40, gone in 3 hands. Fold, fold, and then this. We start with 5000 in chips, blinds start at 25/50 and are a comfortable 40 minute levels. Really nice structure. So, I'm in the SB in a limped pot, and I call up with 6c/7c. BB checks. Flop is Ac/5d/2c. I pick up a flush draw. I check, BB leads out 200 at the pot of around 250. Folds all around to me, I call. Turn is a 9c, completing my flush. I check again, intending to check raise here, and he complies by really overbetting the pot here, 1000 at the pot of 650. Now, we started with just under 5k each so there's not alot of room left for me since there are still scare cards, I figure I'll shove and kill the hand here, unless it's flush under flush which I'm willing to bust on early, although there's no indication that's the case since he's really betting hard now and I doubt he'd do that with a made flush. I shove in. He borderline insta-calls which scares me, and rolls over A/2 for 2 pair. River is an Ah. Ship that man his pot. That's my 340 dollar tournament stay. 3 hands.

So, upset, I go back to what I know best, cash games, and buy in to the 5/5 game for 500 bucks. I really only played 2 hands of vast importance.

Early middle position, I look at AQ, so I raise to 20. I get 3 callers. Flop is Q/J/3 rainbow. I fire out 50. One player calls(SB, so he's out of position for the rest of the hand). Turn is a 10. He checks again and I fire $100. He calls again. Pot is now $380. River is an ace. He checks again, which to me says, "I can't possibly have a king because how can I rely on you to bet on a 4 card straight board". Which means, it's Kenny Tran value bet time. This is the biggest part of my NL Cash game play I'm working on. I fire out $200. He folds, but at the same time, I'm happy that I still bet that card when alot of people would just check behind.

The other big hand I played, I limped from middle position with Qd/Jd. It was raised to 20 dollars behind me, and I called along with one other player. Flop was Kd/10d/4c. Open ended straight flush draw, I'm getting a big pot here. I check. The initial raiser flat shoves 250 bucks at the pot of 70. Other player folds and it's back to me, I actually deliberate for a moment because I'm 100% sure he has AA right now and just hates that flop, so a few of my outs are gone. But it's not more than 5 seconds before I call, I'm not ever laying that hand down on that flop. Turn is a brick, river is a 9c, making my straight. For those of you wondering, the way I calculated it, and this is obviously optimum, I know he has aces so I have 2 Aces, 4 9's and 9 diamonds that make me good. 15 outs. There are 8 players meaning there are 20 dead cards(hands and the flop and burn), so 32 cards remaining. 15 of which are gold for me, he's got to fade half the deck twice to hold, and I need to hit one of my half of the deck in two cards. We're actually after I did the math more specifically back home, dead even to win. He's 50.61%, I'm 49.93%. So if I play this hand 100 times, I profit $3500(50 wins x the profit of the 70 dollars dead money in preflop). Easy call.

After that hand I middled around for a while, won a few more chips, cashed out $1590, profit of a thousand. So that's a good middle of my day, time to grab a nap since I'm running on 3 hours of sleep.