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.