Matt Kay Blog

This will just be a quick update. I busted in the last level of day 2. The two prior levels just went completely awful, and I couldn’t win very many pots at all and eventually just lost all my chips. I didn’t play bad, it’s just how tournament poker goes sometimes.

On Sunday I was deep in the Warm Up. Was playing very good and trying some new things as well. I ended up getting 10th (argh). I lost a 4 mill flip AK vs a low pair which would have put me in a great position had I won that. I then doubled to 10BB, then lost QK to A9 to bust 10th. I also cashed a few others on Sunday.

I’m going to start driving home either tomorrow or Wednesday, I’m in no real rush, but I would like to go home soon. It feels like such a long time since I’ve been home and I don’t like being away for too long. When I get home I’m going to increase my volume of play and start making a lot more.

Matt.

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The rest of the WSOP has been pretty uneventful, I managed to cash one other one, but not for much. I played the WSOP ME yesterday on Day 1b. I think I played pretty good throughout the entire day, and had to make some tough laydowns (had to fold QQ PF and was shown KK after I folded face up, also had to fold JJ PF). My table draw wasn’t awful, however the best players were to my left, but they didn’t play back at me too much, so that was nice. I peaked around 50k, and ended the day with 38k. I play day 2b on Saturday.

Online has been going pretty good, I’m getting a lot more deep runs and fixing some errors in my play that I have noticed while I’m here. I’m also getting more motivated. I’m considering making a run for top 20 on the pocketfives leaderboard, which would mean I’d need to play a lot more, and play pretty good of course. I don’t think it would be that difficult to accomplish if I can stay motivated. If I get there I may try for top 10 again, but that involved A LOT of playing and I don’t think I’m willing to play that much. I have hated playing week nights on East Coast time since I have to be up so late if I go deep, but I may try to play some more nights when I get home, but I’ll likely play more days since I like having a more normal sleep schedule.

Anyways, just a quick update, been quite busy learning more and playing a lot, I think a big score isn’t too far away.

Matt.

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It’s not often that I sit down at a poker table and really enjoy myself. However in one of the $1500s recently, I was moved to a great table. I sat down and heard much more conversation going on than at a typical table, and people even calling each other by their first names. It was kind of weird at first, but I introduced myself and joined in the conversation. At one point they made a comment about how I was a statue after I had raised, so I smiled huge and gave 2 thumbs up. I wasn’t strong with my raise, but they seemed to not mind folding their blinds after a good laugh. It’s rare that you get a table where most people are enjoyable to be around and play with, but this one was great. I still remember everyone’s name there. Last year I had another great table, I sat down and two players were talking like they had been friends for a while, then I joined in. One of these players was Joe Sebok, we started ordering drinks by the 2nd or 3rd level and were making a lot of noise. It was pretty sad when that table broke.

Sunday I played online, and did very well. I ran very good, and played a bit different than my normal game as well and it seemed to work well. I took 5th in the early FTP $109 for $3700, 5th in the $55r for $10.5k, won a $12k WSOP seat on FTP, and then got 7th in the $117 Super turbo on FTP for $1400. As good as I ran overall, I ran really awful at the final tables. Especially in the Super turbo, I entered the final table with 30BB and chip lead. I then ran QQ into KK, lost AQ to AJ, won a small flip, lost QQ to QT, then busted by losing AQ to KK. It was an awful ending to a pretty good day, 1st would’ve been $12k, but I was still in a pretty good mood anyways. I had to run pretty good to get to the final tables, and I still had a $20k+ day which is great, especially since most of the recent Sundays have amounted to nothing.

Today I played in the WSOP $1500 NLH Shootout event. My starting table was probably a little tougher than average, but I played pretty solid throughout, picked my spots well, and didn’t tilt off my stack even though dfish was 3betting me so many times. In the end it worked out and I won at the end of level 4. I play day 2 tomorrow at 2:30pm west coast time. Hopefully I’ll have a favorable table draw and go on to make my 1st WSOP final table. Guaranteed $5600 now, and 1st would be $382k.

Here’s a hand from the $55r:

PokerStars Game #45782580929: Tournament #316010597, $50+$5 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level XIX (2500/5000) – 2010/06/20 20:36:49 ET
Table ’316010597 72′ 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: jcamby33 (151690 in chips)
Seat 2: Jay Baggs (42140 in chips)
Seat 3: marktb (237159 in chips)
Seat 4: TwinMSU (310003 in chips)
Seat 5: KarinaGYG (146582 in chips)
Seat 8: delaney_kid (183212 in chips)
Seat 9: ch0ppy (285633 in chips)
jcamby33: posts the ante 500
Jay Baggs: posts the ante 500
marktb: posts the ante 500
TwinMSU: posts the ante 500
KarinaGYG: posts the ante 500
delaney_kid: posts the ante 500
ch0ppy: posts the ante 500
ch0ppy: posts small blind 2500
jcamby33: posts big blind 5000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [6c 6h]
Jay Baggs: folds
marktb: folds
TwinMSU: folds
KarinaGYG: folds
Bandano is connected
delaney_kid: raises 5500 to 10500
ch0ppy: raises 14500 to 25000
jcamby33: folds
delaney_kid: calls 14500
*** FLOP *** [2c 9d 5h]
ch0ppy: bets 30000
delaney_kid: raises 35555 to 65555
ch0ppy: raises 129445 to 195000
delaney_kid: calls 92157 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (37288) returned to ch0ppy
*** TURN *** [2c 9d 5h] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [2c 9d 5h Js] [4s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ch0ppy: shows [6c 6h] (a pair of Sixes)
delaney_kid: shows [7c 5c] (a pair of Fives)
ch0ppy collected 373924 from pot
delaney_kid finished the tournament in 40th place and received $594.60.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 373924 | Rake 0
Board [2c 9d 5h Js 4s]
Seat 1: jcamby33 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: Jay Baggs folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: marktb folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: TwinMSU folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: KarinaGYG folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: delaney_kid (button) showed [7c 5c] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 9: ch0ppy (small blind) showed [6c 6h] and won (373924) with a pair of Sixes

I had 3bet him in this same position last orbit, and he folded (although I had AA last time). He flats this time. I don’t believe he’s that strong here, and likely just tired of getting 3bet by me and is playing back at me now. The flop isn’t a bad one for me, and I cbet. He raised me pretty small, and I think it’s incredibly likely that he is pretty weak here and is likely making a move, so I went all in and to my surprise he called. I think I was already in first place before this hand, so I had a very big chip lead after this hand.

Matt.

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Since my last post, the guy I got into a fight with has moved out, and the house has been much better since then. Everyone seems to be happier and in a better mood, and no one else has come home late during the night to wake everyone up.

Poker hasn’t been kind to me. I keep getting it in pretty good usually, or I’ve gotten coolered. No real errors that I can think of, just losing AK to AK and other dumb beats you probably don’t want to hear. Today I’m going to play some live cash. I’ve heard it’s really soft and I should be playing more since I think I’m quite good at the early levels of tournaments, and it’s basically the same thing. It’s been tough to get motivated for poker lately, but my attitude is improving. Hopefully I can get it back and enjoy myself more.

Last week I saw the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil and it was really well done. It’s tough to not like it with constant Beatles music playing. It’s tough to really describe it in detail, but it’s definitely worth seeing if you are in Vegas. I saw Ka last year and really enjoyed it as well. I liked Ka more, but both are worth seeing. I still want to see the O cirque du soleil before I’m done with this trip, and I also think that seeing Penn and Teller would be highly amusing.

Breaking Bad had it’s season finale on Sunday. An amazing show, if you aren’t watching it yet, you should now. I thought the ending was very well down and pretty intense. Kind of sucks now though since I have to wait so long for new tv. Summer TV just isn’t the same. I recently started watching another show called Party Down. It’s hilarious and I’d definitely recommend it. I’ve finished the 1st season and just started the 2nd season. I’ll probably finish the 2nd season this week.

I’m now addicted to Smoothies. There’s a chain in Vegas called Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and it is SO GOOD! I always get at least one per day, but I usually get 2 per day. A few others in the house usually go with me for them as well. It’s just too good to pass up, and once I get back to Waterloo I won’t be able to have them anymore. So I may as well enjoy them while I can.

I guess the highlight for this week has been food. After the 1st shitty week, I’ve avoided most American food. I’ve found a few great Indian places, the best thai place I’ve ever been to, and also tried Ethiopian food for the 1st time. Indian is one of my favourite foods, I love spicy curries, and I seem to handle it better than most people. If you’re in Vegas I’d check out India Oven, and India Palace. Both are excellent, and much better and cheaper than Gaylords at the Rio. Lotus of Siam is the best thai place I’ve ever been to. I ordered the Musaman Curry Chicken and got it made spicier, it was fantastic. Ethiopian food was also delicious. Cutlery isn’t really used, we got this sponge bread for our dishes, and used it to pick up food on this giant platter that we ordered. I’ll be eating there again before I go home.

That’s all for now.

Matt.

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A bit later than I wanted to post, but you’ll hear why soon enough.

My 1st WSOP tournament was Event #3 $1000 NLH. I played day 1a and it went very well. Early on I was constantly crushing people. People kept trying to make moves on me but I just seemed to know every time and played back at them and kept winning. I was very focused and had a pretty easy starting table with good reads on my opponents. There were 2 times in the early levels where I 4bet over a 20BB stack’s 3bet and got folds. I only had AJ and AT too when I did it, the way they bet just seemed so obvious that they didn’t have it. Anyways, I ran pretty good throughout the day and on the final hand of the day I picked up AA and ran into AK to finish that day with 75.5k. After day 1b had finished, I was about 15th in chips going into day 2.

I lasted a while in day 2, but my luck had pretty much vanished going into the later part of the day. An old guy rivered a set vs me, lost 77<66, 44

I have also played 2 more events now, which were 2 $1500 NLH events. Both of them I did not last too long. It’s tough to get it going a lot of the time since the starting stacks are so small.

Tuesday I played a few turbos online, and won a $10r 3x deep turbo to the WSOP ME. That was nice, made up for an awful Sunday.

Wednesday I also played online after busting the $1500 event early. It’s SO NICE to play on west coast time since the latest the big tournaments start is 6pm (9pm EST). Which means I can play a full night and not be up forever. I’m really starting to wonder if I should move to British Columbia, Canada. It would make me play many more tournaments on weekdays, and be able to put in much more volume.

Anyways, Wednesday was when I had planned to do an update, but during my play I started to feel sick, and it kept getting worse. I was hungry and convinced others to order pizza with me, I lost the credit card roulette and had to pay, and by the time it arrive I couldn’t really eat it. At one point a little bit later I had to quickly fold all my hands, run to the bathroom, throw up, then run back to keep playing. This happened a few times until I finally busted everything. That night I had to go to the bathroom over 7 times to throw up, it was almost certainly food poisoning. The quality of food in the US is so awful compared to other places in the world, it’s really frustrating to try and keep up a healthy lifestyle while I’m out here, in fact it’s just not possible with how often I’m playing, and the available food I can get. The next day I started to improve gradually throughout the day. Right now I have a shortness of breath, but nothing that major. I tried to lift weights today but just had no energy to do so. I hope to be 100% again soon.

I skipped the PLH $1500 event yesterday since I was still recovering from food poisoning, I decided to go to bed at 10:30pm since I was very sleep deprived from the previous night. Now, I’m in Vegas to work. I want to win a WSOP bracelet and play my best everyday, and be focused each day. Most people in my house feel the same way. However two of them like to party excessively instead, which I have no problem with, to each his own, I’ll be going out some nights as well. However if they are loud coming back, then I have a problem. That night at 5:00am, two people (don’t really want to use real names) came home and were drunk and shouting. I angrily got up, opened my door, and yelled at them to shut up. I don’t think they heard me, and it kept on getting louder, and then they turned on one of the hallway lights that shines directly into my room, making my room as bright as day. So I got up, went outside my door, and they heard me this time. However instead of apologizing, and turning off the light, they were assholes about it and said I had to come downstairs to turn off the light myself and told me to chill out. They were completely unaware of how they were acting. This was absolutely ridiculous, they wake me up and show absolutely no respect for others in the house as well. I got so little sleep the night before, I’m still recovering from food poisoning and here they are being assholes at 5am making a ton of noise. I go down and turn off the light, and call one of them an asshole as I go upstairs. He tells me to say it to his face. Now, the smart thing for me to do would’ve have been to just continue walking up the stairs, I mean, even if they had been a little bit nicer I probably would have, but they were complete assholes and showed no respect at all, and I won’t take that. It just hit a breaking point with me, I turned around and said it to his face, aware of what might ensue, but hoped it wouldn’t. Shortly afterward he throws 2 punches at my face. The other one then comes in and tries to break it up (trying to keep me off of him, while the initiator gets more cheap shots at my head). I managed to get him away and push the one who hit me to the floor in a headlock before other people that were awake at this point had come down to break it up. I think I got a few in, since he threw up shortly afterward and appeared to be in rough shape. He was out of control, I’ve never seen anyone with such a huge lack of self control. Some drama ensued afterward, but nothing that interesting besides him breaking a glass, and the other one telling me I should apologize and I was out of line. I lost a ton of respect for him since he was just so stupid to not realize what had happened even though he was there, in fact he even claimed I threw the first punch.

Before this, I had never really been in a real fight (way back in grade school, but that doesn’t really count), however I’m strong and have basic karate training, and have sparred with friends before, so I’m not afraid. Despite him landing so many hits to my head, I was relatively fine. I’m usually very calm, very logical, and think out my decisions carefully. I wasn’t the only one that was woken up also, and other people were angry about it too. They had been loud before (around 8-9am last time) and we were worried there might be issues. They know me fairly well though and know that I wouldn’t start anything like that, but of course I have to defend myself. Things were a bit awkward today, but he seems to not want to start anything today. They said they were going to move out last night, but who knows if that will actually happen. I guess this should be a lesson to choose your roommates carefully on these trips. A happy home will make for a happier me which will lead to better results.

I play another $1000 event tomorrow, hopefully I can go deeper than the last time, and keep my hopes high.

Matt.

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I arrived yesterday in Las Vegas by car.

I drove about 8-9 hours on Tuesday (left later than I wanted to, and held up at border for 40min or so). Stayed the night at a hotel, then left by 10am the next day and planned to drive 16 hours. After about 10 hours of driving, I just really wanted to get there, and didn’t really want to stay in another hotel. After 16 hours I just kept on driving. Around 2-3am (so many time changes it’s hard to know for sure lol) I was starting to feel too tired to drive 100% safe, so I pulled into a Rest Area and took a 1.5 hour nap. Woke up feeling great and drove the remaining 10 hours to get to Vegas. Arrived in Vegas at 12:20pm, and didn’t even feel that tired until around 9pm that night. At which point three of us went to Naked Fish and ate a delicious feast. I definitely missed eating there.

We rented a house in Vegas, staying with me is ImaLuckSac (Kevin), ImaLucSac (Dylan), pokerbrat13 (Simon), floes (Joe), rivermanl (Lawrence), rjmgrace (Richard), and jackpot786 (John). When I write I will usually use real names now, so check back at this post if you forget. But anyways, we should have some good times here.

The 1st $1000 event is tomorrow, it should get A LOT of runners, and hopefully I can start off the series with a good cash.

Matt.

www.ch0ppy.com for past blogs.

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