Grump Runs Good in RGC 3 (WSOP Edition)

Pictured above is an exclusive, live action photo taken during the first of two events scheduled for the PokerListings Run Good Challenge 3: WSOP Edition (click to enlarge). That’s the Poker Grump out in the lead. He’d end up taking it down, thereby winning an entry into a $1,500 preliminary event at this summer’s WSOP. The Spaceman is close behind; he’d finish runner-up. And there are F-Train, Michele Lewis, and the others trailing.

That’s me in the back with the fedora. I’d finish an ignominious 20th (out of 25 runners). Lasted into the third level, and really, all told only had a single hand where afterwards I found myself thinking if I could’ve possibly done something differently to alter my fate.

There were eight players at my starting table. Going counterclockwise, we were seated as follows: myself, Benjo, Bruechips, Dan Skolovy, the Poker Grump, Spaceman, CarmenSinCity, and Pokerati Dan. I’d played with most of these folks before in previous Challenges, having butted heads most significantly with Dan Skolovy, the strategy writer over on PokerListings.

Back last fall in the first Run Good Challenge, PokerListings Dan knocked me out of the first event in fourth when his A-J outran my pocket jacks. Then in the second event, I made it to heads-up only to fall to PL Dan again. I won the third event of that first challenge, though have to say my triumph was helped somewhat by the fact that PL Dan went out early in that one.

Knowing PL Dan is an aggressive player, I didn’t care too much to see him a couple of seats to my left. (In fact, during previous RG Challenges we’d joked about how he always seemed to be seated on my left.) When I was in the cutoff, he’d be in the big blind, meaning it wouldn’t be such a simple matter to steal should the opportunity arise.

Still, I managed to win a few small pots early on without catching any real cards, then found it necessary to fold to preflop reraises a couple of times, causing me to slip down below the 1,500-chip starting stack. Was sitting at 1,485 near the end of level 2 when the following hand arose -- to me, the only real interesting one in which I was involved.

It folded to me sitting in the cutoff with . I decided to raise to 100 (a little over 3x). Then Benjo flat-called my raise from the button, which I didn’t care for too much.

When Bruechips folded his small blind, I knew instantly what PL Dan -- sitting there in the big blind with a below average stack of 955 chips -- was going to do. He shoved, and I had a decision. I might’ve considered gambling with PL Dan, since I know his range is very wide here, but with Benjo lurking behind (not to mention having me outchipped), I decided not to risk it. I got out of the way, and Benjo called.

PL Dan had K-9 offsuit, and Benjo pocket sixes. A jack did flop (que sera, sera). Benjo’s pocket pair held up, and PL Dan hit the rail. “Knew he wuz gonna do that” I typed, referring to PL Dan’s attempted squeeze.

Wasn’t long after that when I’d slipped down to an even 1,000 chips. The Poker Grump, our eventual champion, had been the short stack with around 650 chips, having been gutted early on when Spaceman’s outdrew his pocket kings. But then he managed to double up with pocket rockets. It was actually the second time he’d gotten ’em in one orbit, though he didn’t get any action the first time. He’d chipped up a little more to 1,675 when we reached what would prove my last hand.

With the blinds 25/50, I was sitting UTG where I was dealt . Raised to 200, and my only caller was Grump from the button. The flop came all babies -- . I shoved, and PRESTO Grump called, showing pocket fives for the flopped set. No jack came to save me, and I was toast.

I shot PG an email shortly afterwards telling him he now had to take the sucker down. A little while later he sent me a reply telling me he’d fulfilled my request. Have to say I’m especially excited for him, as I would have been for anyone who had emerged victorious in this here winner-take-all tourney. Gonna definitely be fun to see how he does in the WSOP event, whichever one he chooses to enter.

We all have one more chance this Saturday in the second and final event of Run Good Challenge 3. Big thanks again to Matt S. and the PokerListings guys for hosting!

Run Good Challenge To Run All of the Way to WSOP

Am hoping to be there tomorrow for the latest installment of the Run Good Challenge, hosted by PokerListings. Have some running around to do this weekend myself, and in fact will be not be at home tomorrow at 11 a.m. Pacific time when the first of the two scheduled tourneys begins. But I’ll have my laptop and am hoping to find some place to log in and play the sucker. (Big thanks to Matt and the PokerListings folks for the invite!)

The PokerListings guys have set up a winner-take-all situation tomorrow, with the top prize being a seat in a WSOP preliminary event. And the second-place finisher winning a hard-luck story. Then next Saturday (May 23), there will be a second tournament in which the top two finishers will win prelim seats. Pretty cool stuff.

Click here to read more about the third Run Good Challenge. Hopefully I am able to get on there and play tomorrow, and will certainly report back here how things go.

Run Good Challenge 2: Breakin’ It Down

Had a good time Saturday playing in the third event of PokerListings’ Run Good Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Thanks to my tenth place finish in the first event (for which I receieved no points) and my having mistaken the scheduled time for the second one (for which I also received no points, and thankfully little ribbing from others for my absent-mindedness), the only way for me to make next week’s RGC 2 final would be to win the tourney outright on Saturday. Game on!

We had 17 show. My table assignment had me stuck between the two Dans -- Pokerati Dan Michalski on my right and PokerListings’ strategy columnist Dan Skolovy on my left.

The very first hand saw the table fold around to Michalski in the small blind who completed. I had in the big blind, and thinking I’d use this first hand to establish an image to the table, I put in the 3x raise. Dan called. The flop came . Dan checked, I bet 80, and Dan quickly called. Argh. We both checked the on the turn, then Dan check-called my bluff of 160 when the came on the river. Dan showed to take the pot.

I guess you could say I was successful at creating an image there. I showed everybody I was fully capable of donking off 20% of my 1,500-chip stack with ten-high.

Shortly after that -- in the fifth hand, actually -- I lost another 260 chips to Michalski in another brief heads-up battle that got aborted on the turn thanks to a too scary board. In this hand I picked up pocket kings in middle position. The table folded to Dan who raised to 80, I repopped it to 260, it folded back around and Dan called. The flop came and Dan checked. Didn’t like the look of that ace, so I checked behind. The turn was the and Dan promptly bet 460. I let it go.

Down to 960 before the first orbit had even completed, I put my head back in the turtle shell after those initial snafus. We were well into Level 2 when I managed to grab some chips back off of Michalski. I again picked up pocket kings, this time in the cutoff. Table folded to Michalski who called the 30-chip big blind, I raised to 120, and it folded back around to Dan who called. The flop came . Dan checked. I knew I was betting, but how much? The pot was 270, and I had 840 behind. I contemplated a moment, deciding that if I bet pot (or thereabouts) and Dan pushed, I’d be probably be calling anyway. So I pushed, and Dan didn’t take too long to call me with . The turn and river were safe, and I was back up over 1,900. “Sweet oxygen,” I typed.

Not much to report after that. I think I played okay overall, but was a little too dependent on the cards (which generally weren’t cooperating). The hand that ultimately decided my fate on Saturday came later on during Level 5. We were down to seven: Matt Showell (of PokerListings), the Poker Shrink, Dr. Pauly, Kid Dynamite, Spaceman, Change100, and yr humble gumshoe. Kid Dynamite -- the eventual winner on Saturday -- had the chip lead with nearly 8,000, and Change, Spaceman, and I were each sitting on short stacks. I had 1,630, Change 1,260, and Spaceman 1,145. I had reached the point where I was looking for any decent hand with which to gamble.

Finally picked up in middle position and readied myself for the ride. But wait! There’s Change pushing all in before me, and there’s Matt Showell just calling her bet (leaving himself about 2,600 behind)!

I thought a moment, then decided to go ahead and reraise with the rest of my chips. Felt like given Change’s short stack and Showell’s decision just to call, I might actually have the best hand here, although surely my overall equity wouldn’t be much better than 1 in 3. The cards went on their backs:

Change100:
Showell:
Shamus:

Not bad at all. Both cards live, as were the diamonds. With everyone’s fingers crossed, the flop came , giving Change her flush draw. The turn was the , pairing her trey. The river was the , giving her the main pot, although I got 740 back for beating Showell. Wasn’t too long after that when Dr. Pauly, free from reporting duties down in Mexico at the aborted LAPT event (read all about it here), finished me off in seventh place with his pocket fives.

No final for Shamus, then. Sequels are never as good, are they? Still, it was a bunch of grins, and the fact that I made out like a bandit in RGC 1 makes it easier to come up empty here in the second Challenge. Big congrats to the Poker Shrink, Benjo, and Kid Dynamite for their victories this month, and good luck to Amy Calistri, Luckbox, Change100, Michele Lewis, Matt Showell, Spaceman, and Dr. Pauly who also made it the big one.

My understanding is Run Good Challenge 3 (in 3-D) is around the corner, so be sure to pick up your glasses in the lobby in order to enhance your viewing experience. Gonna also try to play in that PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker next week (Dec. 15-21), which appears this time to be a series of events (including some non-hold’em stuff, yes!).

All this freerollin’. Makes me wanna dance.

LOL Shrinkaments (Run Good Challenge 2 Underway)

We had the first event of Run Good Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo yesterday afternoon. Had managed to pick up a nice bunch of cabbage during the four events of the first RGC back in September, so I was surely looking forward to the sequel, even though (as it seems like I am always saying here) I hardly ever play tournaments. Have to admit my confidence this time around was tempered a bit, though, by the addition of more bloggers, plus a few pros including Liz Lieu, Christina Lindley, and Jason Young (a WSOP bracelet holder).

Before we started I was looking over the structure for this no-limit hold’em event and for funsies decided to run the numbers through Arnold Snyder’s Patience Level/Skill Factor calculator. There I learned the tourney (with 15-minute levels) actually had a bit of play -- i.e., it was a "medium fast" tourney that thus required a bit more skill than yr typical fast-structured tourney. (You can hunt around Snyder’s website for more, or check out his books.)

Indeed, as it turned out, there was a chance to be patient in the early going. But you know how it is once those stacks start shrinking. That’s when, as the PokerListings guys always say, it definitely pays to “run good.”

Turned out neither Lieu nor Lindley showed this week, but Jason Young did. And unfortunately for me, he was sitting on my left. That is him there holding up his bracelet in the picture. (Dunno if he was doing that while we were playing, though that was nevertheless the image I had in mind as we were.) For those of you who watched ESPN’s coverage of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, Jason got a lot of coverage on one of the early days when he was sitting next to Ray Romano at the feature table.

Making matters worse, the aggressive Dan Skolovy (of PokerListings) -- winner of two of the four events from the first Run Good Challenge -- was on Jason’s left. Not an ideal arrangement for yr humble gumshoe.

My table draw -- along with a relatively poor series of starting hands -- caused me to tighten up a bit too much in the early going. I won a couple of small pots, but was doing way too much folding to be competitive and eventually my stack started to bleed away. At some point after I had fallen down below 1,000 chips, I pushed all in with pocket eights and was called by David G. Schwartz who held . An ace flopped, but luckily an eight appeared on the turn and I was still alive with 1,600 or so.

Kid Dynamite was Gigli this time around, finishing 14th, with Schwartz going out in 13th a few hands after having suffered my bad beat. Eventually we’d reach Level 4, with the blinds suddenly 50/100 and my stack down to just 1,385. Jason Young had been eliminated in 12th, and Pokerati Dan had hit the rail in 11th.

With Young out, we were now five-handed. Also, now Dan S. was on my immediate left. I picked up on the button and when Pauly and Change100 folded to me I put in a raise to 300. Dan promptly responded by pushing all in from the small blind. Amy Calistri folded her big blind, and the action was back on me.

Ugh. Now I have 1,085 left and the pot is (effectively) 1,785 after Dan’s shove. Adds up to a bit worse than 2-to-1 to make the call. I know Dan’s range is very wide here. If he has two overs (very likely), I’m about 40% to win. So I call and, sure enough, he has . (At the time, Dan typed a “?” when he saw my hand -- I am sure he expected me to have more there -- but I see in his write-up of the event he is saying odds-wise the call was correct.)

Plainly I should have just shoved to start with rather than made the 3x bet, especially if I knew I was going to call an all-in bet like that. But actually, I didn’t know. I’d thought a regular preflop raise might have gotten Dan to fold from the small blind (he doesn’t always protect his blinds). And if the Amy C. -- generally speaking a more conservative player than Dan -- had been the one to put in the big raise from the BB, I’d have let it go for sure. Anyhow, never feels good to call one’s stack off like that, but as it turned out I wasn’t too unhappy with the situation once the chips were in the middle.

The flop came , and I was down to a few outs. The on the turn gave me a straight draw, but the on the river sealed it and I was out in 10th.

I decided not to hop into a cash game afterwards, knowing that oftentimes whenever I play just after busting from a tourney, I tend not to fare too well. Did a little work on the computer while occasionally checking in on the final table as it played out.

I saw Change get her pocket rockets cracked by Michele Lewis’ big slick. Michele had raised, Change had pushed all in, and Michele called. The flop brought a jack and a queen. “Wow,” typed Luckbox (of Up for Poker). “Uh oh,” typed Dan S. The ten came on the turn, and Change was out in 9th.

Benjo appeared to have had connection issues all day and got short-stacked before Michele also bounced him 8th. A little later, Dr. Pauly called Dan S.’s all in bet and appeared in good shape with A-Q versus Dan’s . A four flopped, though, and Pauly couldn’t improve. That crippled the good doctor down below 400 chips, and a few all ins later he finally was bounced in 7th when he ran A-J into Amy C.’s big slick.

The Spaceman went out in 6th when he ran against Dan’s big slick and got no help. Luckbox followed soon thereafter, yet another victim of Michele Lewis. Luckbox had shoved from the button with ace-queen, and Michele called from the big blind with A-10. A ten flopped, and Luckbox couldn’t recover. The remaining four had reached the cash bubble.

The four were all in the 4,000-6,000 chip range when the Poker Shrink (a.k.a. Tim Lavalli) had a big double up with pocket aces through Dan’s pocket eights. Dan would then shove his shortened stack with 9-9 and the Shrink called with 7-7. The flop came 4-5-6, and the trey on the river meant Dan was out in fourth.

The Poker Shrink was running good. With the lone Poker Listings representative out, that meant there would be no rollover of the money this week.

When three-handed play began, the Poker Shrink had just over 10,000 of the chips in play, while Amy and Michele each had around 5,000. A couple of big hands later Tim was up over 14,000, with the women slipping down close to 3,000. The trio then battled for forty hands or so before Michele finally pushed with A-3 and was called by the Shrink who had pocket sixes. The pair held up, and Michele was out in third.

As some of you may know, Tim and Amy are co-authoring a book about Mike Matusow, Check-Raising the Devil, due out next May just before next year’s World Series. At the start of heads-up, the Poker Shrink had about 16,000 to his co-author’s 5,000.

Amy lost a few hands, then doubled up with pocket treys versus Shrink’s ace-queen. Then came another all-in confrontation as Amy took her pocket jacks to war versus Shrink’s . The flop was safe for Amy -- . But the came on the turn, giving Tim the lead. The river was the , and the Poker Shrink was our Event 1 winner.

Congrats to Tim! And thanks to Poker Listings for some big fun. I’m gonna have to see if I can get my head back into a tournament-mindset here before next weekend’s Event 2. Clearly some of that shrinkin’ is in order.