Adam Levy Blog

I’ve decided to do a tournament report of my super deep run in the 2010 WSOP Main Event. Normally, no one wants to hear a story about how someone got 12th in a tournament but when it’s the Main Event, it’s a little different. With 7300 some odd players battling it out for a whopping 9 million dollars, this is a special tournament.

Day 1 — Start of Day 1C 30,000 chips 50/100 blinds

I started off in the Pavilion Room, a room even bigger than the Amazon Room, holding 300 tables. A good 100 more than the Amazon Room. My starting table wasn’t particularly soft but I only knew a couple faces. Ironically enough, one person was Diego Sanchez, a friend who was one of eight people that I bought action from in the Main Event. Pretty sick odds of us being at the same table. The table had a few online players and a couple amateurs mixed in but no one was giving it away. Early on I decided I wanted to beast the table. Beasting a table meaning try to throw around some chips and make the table succumb to my aggressive style. Within a couple orbits I had already lost 5,000 chips trying to do this. What I realized was the two players to my left were pretty good and were not going to allow this to happen but I kept doing it. I even floated out of position early on with King high and bet out when i turned an open-ended straight draw. The kid, who I later found out was a UB cash game grinder, GuiGui88, raised my turn bet and here’s where my entire mentality changed. A little bit of backstory, the previous night I had watched some WestMenlo Card Runners videos because I loved his style. His videos were two years old but still they were so good. He just played tight, solid, smart poker, much similar to my style. I said I was going to play like that. However, when I got to the table I decided I wanted to play crazy. So anyways, on the turn I thought for a minute and decided I was going to concede the pot. But as I was doing this I said to myself, “Dude, what are you doing?!?! This is the Main Event. Don’t play like a monkey. Just think, what would Menlo do? So after that hand, I calmed myself down, went back to my nit cave and started playing solid poker. This mantra permeated through my game for the rest of the tournament. After this I had 22k of my starting 30k. Things were not going well.

Halfway through the 2nd level, 100/200 I overlimped in the cutoff with J8hh in a 5-way pot. The flop came JJKdd and the sb bet out 800. The initial limper flatted and I opted to flat. The turn was the 9. THe sb bets out again. This time to for 1600. The other guy folds and I don’t like this card but I still decided to call because we are most likely chopping if he does have a J and could be betting a flush draw still. The river is a 4 and he bets out again for 3800. Pretty gross bet and after a couple minutes I decided to fold. The guy answered my queries about what I had cryptically and it wasn’t until he got moved tables that he told me what he had, J9. I was pretty stoked to have made the laydown. Yet, still I was just not running well. The Aussie to my left would 3bet a third of my opens and when I did make it to a flop I wasn’t hitting them.

At 150/300 25 a player gets moved into our table. As he is sitting down he reaches into his pockets and pulls out his chips. You don’t see that very often but for anyone who doesn’t know, this is against the rules of tournament poker and strictly enforced. The dealer immediately called the floor over and the floor had to deal with the situation. I’ve never witnessed this first hand but for it to be the biggest poker tourney in the world for it to happen, just seems so brutal. The player was extremely lucky because the floor person had not escorted him to the table but had verified how many chips he had. While almost always the player would have to be disqualified, in this specific situation he was not. I think I saw the guy on day 4 and he ended up cashing too.

My lowest point came around this time when I found myself at 12k. I had made some good laydowns but unfortunately you don’t get chips for making an excellent laydown. I wish you did! It was at this point that things started turning around. I was able to win a string of pots without showdowns and get back to 15k. Then at 150/300 I was able to get 3 streets of value against the Australian kid to my left on the J34dd38 board with AJo against what I presume was top pair with a worse kicker. I was up to 22k and looking to start my steady rise to the top but it was not to be. Well, not yet at least. I lost more chips when I called a couple raises and bricked a few flops. Then, at 150/300 I picked up the biggest pocket pair I had seen all day, JJ. The cutoff, who happened to be the tightest player at the table by far opened to 900. When I say tight, I mean this was his 5th hand he had played in 5 hours. So I definitely did not want to reraise him with plans of getting it in here, even if I was on the button. So I flatted. The small blind, the Australian kid, made it 3400 to go. The cutoff deliberated and folded his hand. Initially I thought, this kid has got to be tight here because of how tight the other guy was so i didn’t feel comfortable shoving here. I was going to re-evaluate on the flop. The flop came KJ7 2 spades 1 diamond and he checked. Yeah, solid flop to say the least. I decided to bet super small and bet 2900 into a pot of 8k. Within 3 seconds he took a chunk of 5k chips and stuck them out there effectively putting me all in. I snap called and he flipped over the…wait for it……..96dd!!! Yes, 96 high with straight and flush draw runners only. As I was calling I was thinking AK, KK, AQ, flush draws were in his range but never in a million years would I have said 96dd. I immediately jumped out of my seat and said “What a helluva way this would be to bust”. The turn was a 6 and he was drawing dead. And just like that I was above starting stack with 34k.

The rest of the day was pretty easy. I played tight, picked up small pots with little resistance and slowly chipped up. It wasn’t until the last hand of the day where i played the biggest pot of the day against Diego, the person I bought action of. With 3 hands left in the day, I opened at 200/400 50 to 1050 with KK, the first time I had seen this hand all day. He flatted out of the big blind. The flop came 482ss. I bet 1400 and he called. Turn brought an offsuit 4 and I bet 3300. He calls again. At this point I’m almost positive I have the best hand. The river brings the 4 of spades. So the board reads 482ss44s. He checks and I think for 30 seconds and decide to bet 12k. Almost immediately he starts agonizing over it and is completely disgusted by my river bet. So now I think he has a flush and that this would be an easy fold. A few minutes go by and he’s still hemming and hawing while I’m just shuffling chips away waiting patiently on the other side of the table. Finally, he calls and I flip over my Kings and he immediately felt gross about his call. I later found out that it wasn’t a flush but in fact 1010. It sucks that I had to take chips from my horse but hey, that’s how it goes.

At the end of day 1 I had 54,425 and I couldn’t have been happier. Going from 12k at 150/300 to 54k in 2 levels’ time is fine by me.

End of Day 1C – 54,425 chips 1 hour left in 200/400 50 blinds

Hope you enjoyed the first installment of the tourney report. Yes, I know it’s a little long but there are a lot of cool little details that went on each day and I would like to be thorough in writing this to give the reader a better perspective on what I went through.

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Unlike the previous blogs, this is going to one where I let some stuff of my chest. I find blogs cathartic so why not go on a rant about the World Cup in my own blog. I can’t help but be in a slight funk after the World Cup loss to Ghana. There’s no point in recapping the game but I do want to go over some mistakes that were made. While I think Bob Bradley is a very good coach it seems like he rarely gets the starting lineup correct and this game was no exception. Ricardo Clark was a surprise starter and the cause of the first Ghana goal after he botched a pass. Kevin Prince Boateng got a hold of the ball, went on the counterattack, and took an amazing shot where Tim Howard was just a split second behind. Yeah, Clark can’t be blamed entirely for it. Boateng still had to make a very tough shot and Howard probably could’ve done a better job getting to the ball. That said, he created it, and within thirty minutes Bob Bradley subbed him out for a more in form Maurice Edu. But it’s like, why do you correct yourself after the fact? Yeah, maybe Clark was having a bad game, and no one could foresee him giving the ball away there but Edu was clearly the better choice for the game.

In the first half US was completely flat. No rhythm, bad passing, no space, and no real chances. So during halftime Bob Bradley made changes accordingly which is what a coach is supposed to do and I respect that. The changes he made worked out great but having used a sub early and playing from behind it took a toll on the entire time. Dempsey was able to get a penalty kick when it was too obvious for the refs to not give us the call and Donovan delivered with an exact shot and it was tied up. Bradley subbed Feilhaber in the 2nd half for Robbie Findley who also should’ve never played. He didn’t add anything to the team and didn’t seem to really help Altidore too much. Feilhaber was another guy who was having a great World Cup and definitely should’ve been in the entire game, not the 2nd half.

When it was time for overtime, everyone was completely exhausted but Ghana had 2 subs left and we only had one. We had to take Altidore out because he was just gassed. Gomez provided a spark but it was too late. We had already conceded another goal. Every decision that was made during the game was being made to correct the problems that starting Clark created. Even after the game Bob Bradley said that he made some decisions prior to the game that affected the course of the game. It just goes to show you how your starting lineup might actually be more important than any of the changes you make during the game.

Out of the four games, the penalty in the box was the only big call that actually went in USA’s favor and it was a super obvious call. The refs were probably like, well, we can’t not call that one. I mean the refs were just unreal. And it wasn’t even just the US. England, Mexico, and many others all got hosed by bad officiating. It really irked me. While, the US is very new to being gung-ho about the World Cup and soccer in general, everyone else thinks we are crass and cocky. Sometimes, we might come across a bit arrogant but when it comes to sports rules, it seems like we’ve figured out the right thing to do pretty well. When things happen that shouldn’t, they have a discussion, and opt to make the game more precise. They’ve done it in football, baseball, hockey, and here and there in basketball. All these sports organizations are always striving to optimize the game they govern. Now, FIFA, the Federation of International Football Association, seems like they are so wrapped up in tradition and history, that they are closed off about any discussions regarding better officiating. Today, they agreed to start using goal-line technology to make sure a goal was a goal and vice versa. But this was after multiple goals had been incorrectly disallowed or allowed due to officials not being in the correct angle to see it. Yes, I do think tradition is important, but in the age of technology, how can you just ignore it. All the games on ABC and ESPN have had instant replays playing within 5 seconds of the play happening. That’s amazing. Now if FIFA were to take a beat from these broadcasts, it could do a lot of good for the sport.

The system that football uses is excellent. While, I love the fact that soccer is 45 minutes straight with a short break and another 45 minutes with no commercials, it’s not the end of the world to stop it once or twice a half for the good of the game. If each coach was given one challenge per game and the refs were allowed to review certain things like offside calls that lead to goals, handballs, or bogus diving fouls it would make it so the refs didn’t have such a huge influence on the game. They’ll still be a huge part of the game but at least in some situations instant replay will correct some of the ref’s mistakes. No human is perfect and it’s hard to refute clear visual evidence of a certain play. It really isn’t that much to ask to add instant replay when nations are depending on which way the refs rule a certain thing.

Well, I think that’s enough ranting for now. It’s time for me to grind online anyways so that’s it for me. I’ll be playing the Main Event on Day 1C for all that are interested in following me via Twitter(@Roothlus).

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Damn the WSOP is flying by! It’s like I want it to take forever but it always goes by so quick. Now that we are nearing the home stretch it’s time for that final push to make the big bucks. The past two weeks of the WSOP have been decent for me. I’ve had two more cashes in the 8 events I’ve played in that time. Solid cashes but nothing huge. Regardless, it’s been a cheap WSOP for me thus far because two of my three cashes have been the day before a $5k event. Of course I would’ve loved to play the $5ks but obviously I’m not going to blow the tournament I’m in just to play a superiorly structured one. So my buyins haven’t been more than $30k and I’ve made $16k back in cashes. I’m okay with that right now. My goal for the series was to cash 4 tourneys and right now I’m 75% there. I’ve unfortunately never made a final table at the WSOP. I’ve come excruciatingly close with an 11th, 14th (lost heads up in the 2nd round of a $5k shootout), and 25th in a $5k. I just needed that one last pot to get me there. It’s the way it goes though and I know I’ll get there eventually.

My 2nd cash of the series was in a $1500 and I started short on day 2 but had some amazing skills when all in. My first dub came when I had A5o vs AJo and the flop came J32. Turn 5, river 5!!! That was epic. I then won a nice pot with top pair top kicker vs a weaker top pair to get to 120k at 1k/2k. After that I lost a couple all ins and then made a bad shove with AQo vs QQ to cripple myself. I busted shortly thereafter but there’s nothing I hate more than losing a huge pot due to a mistake made on your end. I can deal with taking bad beats or losing flips but man it hurts when it was something you could’ve controlled. It happens to everyone from time to time though and you have to move on and erase it from your memory. It wasn’t a huge mistake but I hold myself to a really high standard that even the smallest of mistakes I will really get mad at myself for.

My 3rd cash was in the $1500 triple shootout. I truly love shootouts. In order to be good at shootouts you have to be versatile being able to play ten-handed, shorthanded, and then finally heads up. My table had a few good players but it wasn’t particularly tough. I knocked out a couple of the short stacks and was able to chip up to 8k from the starting stack of 4500. Once we got shorthanded I couldn’t get anything going. If I 3bet light someone would 4bet and I kept missing a lot of flops. Luckily while I was sitting back and folding players were busting and after Hevad Khan lost a massive pot to the fish at the table, I found myself 3-handed with 10 bigs with the fish and a solid Russian guy. First hand I pick up QQ and the Russian has KK but I bink my Q on the flop. Then the fish loses a big pot to the Russian guy and I finish him off with A8ss holding vs K9hh. When I got heads up, I really started running sick. I was backdooring gutshots, hitting sets and getting paid, and then I rivered two pair against what seemed like a worse two pair to get him down to 900 chips at 200/400. I then proceeded to double him up 4 times in a row and he was almost back to even at a point until I got 1010 in vs his 88 to win the table. The next day I had a very good table and was slowly chipping up until I ran into Chau Giang’s Aces 5 handed with AKo to bust. It was a pretty brutal way to go but I was okay because like I said before, I didn’t play bad. It was just a simple cooler.\

Next week I’m playing 5 more WSOP events and then after July 4th the main even starts and I can’t wait for that one. It’s the best structured tourney in the entire world as well as the one that pays by far the most. Seriously, it can’t get here soon enough. So good luck to everyone and hopefully I’ll see you guys in the main event too!

P.S. All you Americans BETTER be rooting for the US in the World Cup. They are playing great and have a pretty fortunate bracket. Let’s GOOOOO!!!!

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Nothin’ But Poker

My first week of WSOP events ended up being fairly eventful. The first event I played was a $1k and I grinded it out the entire day. My first table had my old roommate from Gainesville at it, which is about as random as it gets. He texted me beforehand to not even acknowledge his existence at the table so he could protect his crazy image. I thought it was funny and I obliged. My peak for the tournament was $10k and I lasted until the last level of the day, 400/800 but unlike last year I was running fairly well in all ins and made a dinner break in my first event which I felt was a good omen for the entire series.

The next tournament was the first $1500 of the year and after the first break I had $14k at 50/100 from my $4500 starting stack. I got Aces all in on the flop of 1084ss against a guy’s AJo no spade. Needless to say, he was dead on the turn. The action went as follows: he overbet pot, I 3bet about 2.5x and he jammed for a little more. It was a pretty nice gift. By 100/200 I had $20k after winning some nice flips. Then I got moved to a pretty tough table for a $1500. Yes, there were soft spots but they weren’t that soft. Combine that with playing 10-handed and it wasn’t an enjoyable table. I ran trip kings into a full house, lost some other small pots, and found myself down to $8k on dinner break.

Once I got back from dinner break our table broke within 15 minutes and I loved that. Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to you in a tournament is a table change. New faces, no reads, and the cards can just turn on you sometimes. But conversely, the opposite can happen so it’s a love/hate relationship. Anyways, I grinded for a little bit at my new, easier table and then got it all in A10o vs KQss and the flop was 237ss. Somehow he bricked and I was up to 15k. Then our table broke again a couple minutes after I dubbed. The next table I was pretty carddead and raise/folded once. A couple orbits later I found myself at $9k and shoved KJss at 400/800 utg 8-handed and got snapped off by the guy next to me with KQo. Was a bit surprised with his call but that’s the way it goes. The dealer flipped over the flop and the door card was the Qh. So I’m like uh oh, I gotta start calling for cards. He moves the other two cards out from under the door card and I see they are spades so I start calling for more spades. As soon as I do it dawns on me that they are the 10 and 9 of spades and I basically flopped the immortal nuts. Nut straight with a straight flush redraw. It was a good chuckle afterwards. Everyone was like, this guy (me), yea he’s a realll professional. It was all in good fun. Even the guy who got 3 outed wasn’t in too bad of spirits. Shortly after my table broke yet again. This time I got moved to a decent table with some good players but a lot of soft spots. Within the first orbit I picked up Queens and shoved in 18k, got called by Nines and swiftly doubled up.

At the tail end of 400/800 I played a really sick hand. I raised Q9dd to 2300. Mark Seif flatted on the button and the big blind that seemed really spewy flatted as well. The flop came K3K one diamond. The big blind checked and I bet 3200 into about 7500. A pretty small bet but for that board I can expect to take down the pot a fair amount. Mark quickly folded but the big blind instantly check-raised to 12k. Now, earlier that day I felt like my thinking was right but I wasn’t going with gut instinct. This time, I just decided he didn’t have it and that I was going to go with my read. I decided to call the bet because he had to think I had a king if I called here with only 20k behind as well. The turn brought the Q. He thought for a bit, checked and I did the same. It was funny though because while I had a plan to shove the turn or check and shove the river, my plan immediately changed once I hit my queen. The river brought a brick 2. He checked again and I checked. He flipped over A4o high and I scooped the sizeable pot. I maybe should’ve value shoved the river but I thought maybe he could have a better queen every so often and would’ve reraised JJ, 1010, and 99 preflop. By the end of the day I had $64k and was pretty satisfied with my play.

Day 2 I started with Dwyte Pilgrim on my left with mountains of chips. I think 202k to be exact at 600/1200. I had to be tight with him to my left and tons of chips. After a while I got it in with AKo vs 99 and rivered the Ace to get up to 100k. Then I won a nice pot against Dwyte Pilgrim by value raising top pair on the river and it was good. I was up to 170k at 1k/2k. But unfortunately that was my peak. Im not really sure how I lost a lot of my chips but a couple raise/folds here, one ill-fated 3bet and I found myself at 100k. With 51 left I decided to ship 44 after someone limped from 3rd position at 3k 6k. He tank-called with 1010 and I was out of the tournament. I cashed for $8500 which was a solid start to the WSOP.

The next two tourneys I was out before the dinner breaks. One I was out in 40 minutes wit Q8ss on the 882 board against deuces. The other I built to $20k rather quickly and then played a massive pot against a super fish with QJo vs his K5dd on the Q23Jddd board. It really sucked but I knew that he was incapable of folding a lot of hands so I had to get it in in that spot.

Well, I hope you guys liked a very poker-oriented blog this time. Oh, and if you want to follow my WSOP progress, I’m Roothlus on Twitter. Peace.

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Brunson Beer Pong Challenge Pic

The first week of the WSOP has been an interesting one as expected. I arrived last Wednesday for the 3rd Annual Brunson Beer Pong Challenge at Hogs and Heffers located in downtown Las Vegas. It’s a 32-team single elimination beer pong tournament that has become quite the tradition. I teamed up with the one and only Trishelle Canatella and we were pitted against Scott Seiver and his friend Greg Dyer. We were definitely the underdogs but within twenty minutes we found ourselves on the cusp of winning. I sank the last shot in and if Greg and Scott missed their rebuttal shots, then we had the huge upset victory. Scott came in clutch and sank his so we had to go to overtime but there was confusion as to whether Greg would get to shoot his. Apparently the house rule is you move on to overtime. Once this was settled Greg rolled the ball back our way but I was in the middle of a conversation with one of the Hogs guys so I instinctually reached to stop the ball but in doing so I knocked over the last cup!!!!! Apparently another Hogs rule is if you knock over a cup it counts. So that meant GAME OVERR!!!! Probably one of the more heartbreaking experiences I’ve had in recent memory. It felt like the Ron Artest buzzer beater he made against Phoenix but the complete opposite feeling and on a way smaller scale. Either way, it wasn’t something I wanted to relive anytime soon. After all was said and done though, I had a blast at the whole event and can’t for it again next year.

Thursday and Friday I spent moving in to my place at the Meridian. It’s not Panorama but it’s a pretty good setup and allows for me to just hang out and relax away from everything. It’ll definitely be way easier to stay focused this series and not let other things get in the way. On Friday night we went out to a nice dinner at RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay. I think Mandalay Bay is very underrated but RM Seafood was pretty blah. Later that night my girlfriend Shana, Darryll Fish, and I went to Rain at the Palms to see my favorite DJ, Z-Trip. I saw him at Coachella by accident and I’ve spoken about him at length in previous blogs but I just love his willingness to try anything. We ended up dancing for two hours nonstop. I’ve honestly never done that anywhere before but he just kept playing great songs over and over. Whenever we were like, let’s stop dancing, he’d put something on to keep us going.

On Saturday we got up early and went to Rehab at the Hard Rock. It was only my second time there and it was a blast. It wasn’t super packed like on Sundays but it wasn’t empty enough to be lame. We met up with a bunch of peeps from Panorama and all pitched in for a cabana. It was a chill day with good music, great people, and lots of alcohol. We all got pretty hammered which is standard protocol for Memorial Day weekend. Later that night I went over to Aaron Been and Steve O’Dwyer’s place at none other than Panorama to watch the UFC fights. Some of the fights were just alright but the main card lived up to the hype and was a solid fight all around. It featured Rampage Jackson, who will be in the upcoming A-Team movie remake so that was cool to watch. He’s definitely going to be a great Mr. T.

On Sunday I played poker but who really cares about that??? Nah, I’m just kidding. Next week, I’ll talk about the first week of WSOP events I played including that event. Until next week, peeeeace.

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