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All the best,

Eric Kurtzman

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Wsop 2017

Testing

WSOP 2017!

Dear Herd,

It's been far too long.  But it's time to smash through the barn door as they say, or they should anyway.  Due to some veterinary issues, the Donkey hasn't had caffeine or alcohol in 3 weeks and it's time to take that frustration out on someone.  So, . . . 

Later today is a new tournament at WSOP.  It's Pot-Limit Omaha with unlimited re-entries for the first six hours.  That means people will be playing crazy aggressive and trying to build a big stack (or rebuy and try again).  The Donkey will be in action and blogging along, starting around 11am PST.  There's a possible delay to the start time as the Donkey's human accomplice, occasionally referred to as GLA (short, of course, for the Galloping Litigator of the Apocalypse), may have to deal with some late morning crap (no better way to describe it). 

A few notes about the game for people who haven't played it:

It is exactly like No-Limit Hold'em, the game you see on late night TV every evening, with two exceptions:

1. Each player gets 4 cards and must use 2 cards from the player's hand and 3 cards from the board to make the best possible hand.  The best poker hand wins the pot.  For example, if a player has 4 hearts in his hand, but there are only 2 hearts on the board, the player does not have a flush.  If there are 3 hearts on the board, then the player can use those three hearts, plus the best two from the player's hand, to make a flush.
2. Player's can only raise the amount that is in the pot.  This makes position very important.  For example, if the blinds are 100-200 and the player in seat 4 wants to raise, seat 4's raise can not be more than 700 (calculated as a call of 200 plus a raise of the amount that is then in the pot - i.e. 100+200+200).  If the player in seat 7 then wants to re-raise, seat 7 can raise up to 2,400 (calculated as a call of 700 plus a raise in the amount that is then in the pot - i.e. 100+200+700+700).  This "pot-limit" element impacts betting in dramatic ways (e.g. the "check-raise" bet is far more impactful) and subtle ways (e.g. one might be less likely to bet when they flop a nut flush draw because keeping the pot small will help them survive the betting on the turn if the flush doesn't happen).

As I did last year, each hand will begin with the position of the button on the table.  For example, B5 would indicate that Seat 5 is the button.  Accordingly, if we are in Seat 7, we are in the big blind for that hand.  This should help you identify certain players over time by their seat.

Finally, if you would please do me a favor and go to the blog site  click on the "Follow" button, and throw your name in there, I would appreciate it.  I know there are a good handful of people who get these emails, but I don't know who they are (except Schey, Jeremy and Gerbs who have already done this).

All the best,

Donkey

Event 23 - NLH

It is time.  Rising from the ashes of 2015, today is the first day of bloggable poker; Event 23 - No Limit Hold'em.  Cards up at 11am . . ..  4 Legs, No Bracelets, get your angry muzzle on . . . 

I'm going to use a new format this year. Each hand will begin with the position of the button on the table. For example, B5 would indicate that Seat 5 is the button. Accordingly, if we are in seat seven, we are in the big blind for that hand.  This should help you identify certain players over time by their seat. 

Now it's time to get angry. Im focusing on a recent event that's on my mind; I strutted confidently to my lithe and loving wife, feeling good that I have lost a bunch of weight in my WSOP training, when she looked at me and giggled and let me know that I was wearing her T-shirt.

Angry muzzle on!

Donkey 

All the best,

Eric Kurtzman

Sent from my iPhone

The Donkey Riseth . . .

It is time.  Rising from the ashes of 2015, today is the first day of bloggable poker; Event 23 - No Limit Hold'em.  Cards up at 11am . . ..  4 Legs, No Bracelets, get your angry muzzle on . . . 

All the best,

Eric Kurtzman

Big Dance 10

Playing 600-1200 with 200 antes so 3600 in pre cards.

Likely the strangest hand I've ever seen;

Monster stack bets and seat to my left raises. Monster puts a huge stack of orange in clearly intending all in but the guy on my left says call and turns his cards over AA thinking he had called an all in. Monster stack shows KK but then everyone realizes they haven't gone all in and guy on my left has 20,000 chips left. He simply had more chips than Minster had pushed in. So they see the flop TJK. They both check and a T turns. Monster pushes all in and reminds AA that he only has 2 outs because monster stack has a full house already. AA folds having lost the biggest pot we've seen with by far the weirdest play.

In seat 4 we raise to 3500 with TT hoping monster stack will aggressively challenge is from the bb. Everyone folds. That's okay too.

We fold through our blinds and we are back where we started this round. Also okay.

We raise to 2800 with 88 in seat 6 and seat 7 and the button go all in. We fold. They show AKd and QQ.

Lando raises to 3000 and we call with TJc. Flop comes A25. He bets and we exit.

We have 28000.

We raise to 3300 from seat 3 with KK and everyone folds to monster stack who goes all in. This is what we have been hoping for. We call and he shows AQd. Anything but an ace! Flop comes JJ4 no diamonds . Great. Two more cards. Turn comes K!!!! Perfect. River comes T. For a second all I see is his straight, then I realize we have a full house - Ks full of Js. We double up! We have just over 55,000 now.

We raise to 3300 in seat 4 with KQc and TQh Crusher raises to 6000. Strangely small raise. We call and flop comes 49T. Bluffing sounds bad. We check and he checks. We need a jack! But it doesn't come this time. Board pairs the 9. We check and he bets 10,000. We fold.

One modest pot and blinds and antes and we are down to 45,000.

We muck our blinds and we are down to 43,000. There isn't much opportunity to wait for a hand at this rate!

We raise from seat 4 with AJ to 3300 and get calls from TQ Crusher and Monster Stack in the bb. Flop comes 59T with 2 spades. Monster checks and we bet 5500. They both call. Not good. Turn comes Th putting 2 hearts on the board. Monster checks. We check TQ checks. Hmmm. River comes Kh. Everyone checks again. They both have 2 spades, neither with a pair, one with A8. Our A with a Jack kicker takes it! Small pot but we have just over 60k now.

They announced that there are five more hands to play in the second day and then we are bagging up chips. Amazing that we have made it. We fold 3 hands and then play the bb.

Everyone folds to the small blind. He raises to 4600. We looked down and have AQ. We could call and see if we hit something on the flop, I really want to just take this down now. We raise to 14,500 and he quickly raises all in. Wow. It was like a snap raise. No one wants to get knocked out on the last hand of the second day and he is likely relying on that to get us to fold. To be honest, we are not immune to that, and despite having a fantastic heads up hand, we consider folding. However, then we consider how cowardly that would be and how great it would be to have 120,000 chips coming back Friday, and we call. We are all in and he turns over 93 off suit. Now we just need the cards to do what they're supposed to do to send us home with a big stack. The flop comes 53J. That's terrible! He flopped a three. Now we need to hit one of our cards. The turn comes nine and the river six. We take a pretty bad beat, and im that's it; we are heading to the rails 90 seconds short of the end of the 20th hour of play.

There really is no good way to get busted out of the World Series. However, there are gradients of bad, and this was pretty terrible. To lose to a 93 off suit after making a great call and risking 60,000 chips; that is truly unfortunate.

For those of you receiving this complete with photos, I'm including a couple keepsakes of the last hand.

Truly amazing to come all this way and get u horses by a 93o. This will haunt me for a long time.

Thank you all for following along and for your support. It is as much fun to communicate with you as it is to play, almost.