Katie and I met up with Katie75013, KillerEV, MachtiSonni, Machti's friend Mikko, and Machti's hat at Grande Luxe at Venetian. Katie told the waitress that we had to make the 7pm donkament and she got really panicky and told us a moment later that the manager had veto'd Mikko's salisbury steak order due to concerns over the donkament.

Fortunately we only missed a couple riveting hands of 25-50 action. I was the first to bust, losing most of my stack after making an equity-vs-range call.

Blinds: $100-$200

Action: I open Ad9s to $525 in the cutoff, older guy calls OTB, BB calls.

Flop: 3d 9h Td (Pot: $1675)

Action: BB checks, I bet $1100, button shoves ~$5500, BB folds, I call.

This is a fairly straightforward equity-vs-range situation, but I used to have some trouble with those live when you've got to count or reconstruct the pot, estimate the other guy's stack, and do the math in your head while everyone's waiting for you. Fortunately after playing a decent amount live I've gotten better at focusing in spots like this.

The pot was a bit under $8500 and it cost me about $4400, so I was getting close to 2:1 and therefore wanted about 35% equity against his range. The key is that I don't actually have to put him on a specific range. With a roughly 6.5 out draw if behind, I'll improve about 25% to a likely-best hand. So what it really comes down to is whether this guy's sometimes semi-bluffing or value-shoving worse, or whether the vast majority of his ranges is TX or better value-shoves. Against a random 70-year-old that's a real concern, but I'd seen him open-shove an 11 bb stack from the hijack with K8s earlier so I figured he'd be making a play often enough that I had my equity.

I called and he flipped KsJs. Turn Qd and I thought my extra 1.5 flop outs might be coming in handy, but wasn't to be. Fortunately I made up for my devastating $120 donkament loss at the cash tables. One strange 2/5 hand:

Loose-passive 60-year-old hijack open-limps, button calls, SB completes, I raise to $30 with AcKc, hijack thinks and makes it $60, folded back to me. Really wasn't thrilled with the spot, but since he'd seen me attack limps a number of times before and (more important) he only started the hand off with about $320, I just 4bet shipped. He snap-called.

Board ran out: 3d 3c Jc 8h 9c

I quickly tabled my flush and he mucked without showing before storming off from the table.

I was playing at KillerEV's table which was a lot of fun, but he left at around 11 so I did the socialable thing and table-changed to join Machti's where he was crushing en route to what would end up a +$950 session, not bad at 1/2! It was great getting the opportunity to meet him and talk poker.

Also great to have Katie75013 in Vegas, as well as see KillerEV like always, but now I've hit awards show speech territory so I'd better call it a blog.






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