Mohegan Sun

So I'm at Mohegan Sun for a week of tournaments and live cash games. So far it's been about a break even trip for me. I'm up some in cash games and stuck in tournaments (usually that's how it goes). I played a $1k and the $5k main event. Unfortunately I busted midway on day 2 of the $5k. There was one very interesting hand where I could've played differently on day 1.

At blinds $150/$300 I opr to $700 w/ A6 of diamonds mp, aggro kid right behind 3bets to $1500, I call, flop QJ8 w/ 2 diamonds, chk, chk, turn blank, I bet $2k w/ intent of barreling every river except an ace and a ten (unless it was a diamond), river offsuit J, I bet $3800, kid raises to $8500 (we started the hands w/ about $30k each), and I think about 3bet shoving for my tournament life. After a few mins I figured it's too late to shove and fold, sigh.

Reflecting back on it I still think shoving is probably better than folding. If we think about villain's possible range it's capped at Jx that's not a fullhouse (because he bets flop w/ straights and 2prs+). If we think about what our perceived range is, it's uncapped to include straights and fullhouses and I think the villain realizes this which makes a 3bet shove profitable. What makes it actually tough to pull the trigger is that it's for my tournament life. There's a chance he hero calls w/ KJ or AJ anyways and I bust.

I decided to skip the $10k bounty shoot out because the structure sucks (got worse than last one in LA because producers wanted to reduce the amount of time it took for the winner to win his table so it becomes essentially a hyper turbo) and it didn't sell out which made the field incredibly tough. The possible tv exposure is nice but that's not worth $10k.

My buddy Joe Tehan (who I've blogged about before winning the NAPT LA) final tabled the $5k main event. Recently between him and I, it seems like one of us is final tabling every event we play together. He also happens to be one of Cardrunner's newest instructors. Some kid, Bryn Kenney's brother is chipleader and Vanessa Selbst is 2nd (she won this event last year...she's a sicko...having 6bet shoved 84s vs AA preflop and getting there late in day 2 to become chipleader). I laid 4-1 w/ a friend w/ 24 players left and her having about 12% of the chips that she wouldn't win this. Joe is 5th in chips heading into the televised final table tomorrow. 1st is $450k. Also wanted to mention Vincent aka Amurophil online is 3rd in chips. We've battled some in online cash games and he's got a good chance as any to win this. If Joe doesn't win I'm hoping he does. Should be a nice sweat tomorrow.

Other than that I'm in Uncasville, CT having a blast. The Mohegan Sun is huge...comparable to the big ones in Las Vegas (possibly even bigger). I'm realizing traveling costs a lot of money, especially from one coast to the other (well, from Vegas to the east coast), and traveling the live tournament circuit could get very expensive (this doesn't include the tournament buyins). For that reason I'm going to limit my travels to the western part of the US. Well I may come back out to Hollywood, FL in a couple of weeks for the WPT, mostly because high stakes poker is new there and the main event is expected to be softer than other places.

When I get back to Vegas I'm planning on grinding a lot online to make up for lost time. Also grinding live tournaments is a super tough way to make a living (not to mention it's not the most stable way). My 2nd video in my series "Quest for $100k" came out Friday on Cardrunners and the title sums it up...winning $100k in online cash games. So far I'm up $16k after 11k hands so my win rate is really good but my volume is really bad. Realistically I'd love to get to halfway done before the WSOP starts but in poker you never know. All I can do is play the best I can all the time and worry about results later, and I hope everybody follows that path ;) .