JustinSmith

I'm going into Day 4 tomorrow with 602k chips in the WPT $15k Bellagio Cup tournament, in 8'th place with 31 people left. I am really playing well and feeling great physically. I'm ready to take this tournament down. $1.2 Million for 1'st would be solid.

I've been eating at Lotus of Siam just about every night with Anita which is truly amazing. There's so many different dishes, I haven't had the same one yet except the sides of different types of fried rice and eggroll appetizers. The main courses are amazingly delicious and very healthy.

Right before the WPT started I played various games at the Bellagio including 50/100 PLO, 100/200 half PLO half Pot Limit Triple Draw (which is an amazing game and I absolutely love it and feel I have a huge edge), 200/400 PLO ring game and heads up with one particular very well known live player known for his PLO skills, 300/500 PLO, and 500/1k PLO ring game and heads up with another live player. I've been winning live lately which is a nice feeling.

Right now, I'm just focused on winning this tournament, I'll write another blog after it's over.

Day 1 of the Main Event went very smooth and well as I expected going into the day. I basically controlled the table the whole day and played on average about a third of my hands. I was never wrong when I folded or called the river. I had very good reads on about half the players at my table and finished the day with an above average stack. Day 2 however didn't go my way at all. I didn't play that amazing to be truthful. The table wasn't playing the way I wanted it to, people were doing very very strange things and it messed with my game plan early. I lost almost half my stack in a very freak hand that I don't even care to discuss vs. one of the L.A. Lakers players, back-up point guard I forgot his name. Then our table got broken and I overvalued top pair against a young french guy and I got slowrolled and eliminated.

 

Day 2 WSOP Main Event, the look on my face sums up the day

I went to the Pokerstars party last night and hung out with Anita and Matt Hawrilenko (Hoss_TBF) most of the night. Anita and I went to some decent chinese place in chinatown and called it an early night. I feel as I didn't play amazing Day 2 of the Main Event because of the early crack of dawn noon start. I have a few more days before WPT Bellagio Cup and they have a 12 p.m. noon start as well, so I'm trying to bring back my schedule 20 minutes every night/morning so I'll be more prepared and focused for that event.

The past few days I've just been playing online in some 25/50 and 50/100 PLO, 200/400 and 500/1k 2-7 TD, 500/1k and 1k/2k HORSE on FTP, and 400/800 8 and 7 game on Stars and FTP. That's what I plan on doing for the next few days before the WPT event as well.

I started Day 1 in the $50k HORSE off with the softest table in the room, and made good use of it. I quickly climbed to the chip lead or top 5 for most of the day. On Day 2, I won quite a few pots in the first hour while the limits were low, but as they moved up I really never won any, but STILL managed to straggle into Day 3 with 3'rd or 4'th lowest chipcount. Before the end of the night though I got some bad infection and got a doctor to prescribe me some antibiotics to knock it out real quick and should be preventive as well for the Main Event hopefully. On Day 3 I outlasted 33% of the remaining field without ever winning a pot again. I made one terrible play late on Day 2 and it may have been because I was sweating with a 102 degree fever and not focused. Other than that, I'm satisfied with my play. Unfortunately I had a $10k last longer and a $10k in the money with John Hansen and of course he crushed everybody and got 2'nd place.

I made it deep in the $2500 2-7 Triple Draw as I expected the entire way. 2-7 Triple Draw is probably my third best game. I basically coasted all of Day 1 and when I came into Day 2 I won every pot the first half hour including calling with a pair of 2's and calling the guy's exact hand basically. About two hours in, I tanked for a while and called a guy with a pair of 4's who I for certain knew he was bluffing...he tapped the table and said "nice call" and I tabled my hand and he said, oh wait, I got you, and showed a pair of 3's. Extremely annoying after I thought I made a great call. I play a lot regularly with Abe Mosseri in cash games and played with him in the tournament as well(the winner of the tournament) and I consider him to be top 3 or 4 in the world at triple draw. We made it just into the money and then I got frustrated and based off of some information I thought I had, I made a very crazy play with my tournament life and got punished, I won't go into detail about that.

For the past few days I've been lounging around the house working out trying to get myself ready for the big one. I'm ready for the tournament and will be entirely focused on the table as usual. Tonight I'm going to Tom Dwan (durrrrrrrrr)'s party for 4'th of July and will hang out there for a little bit. Happy 4'th of July everyone, have a good one.

It's been a little while since my last blog, and I know lots of bloggers always say they don't have time and most of the time that's BS. However, this time, it really is true! I've been home awake for maybe a total of 4 hours in the last week. The only time I'm home is when I'm sleeping.

I played the $25k Heads Up Championship event and beat an online NL tourney player in 10 minutes or so in the first round. I was the second winner. Second round had a little mix-up as I was playing 100/200/400 PLO between matches and arrived about 10 minutes late to find somebody else playing in my seat! There was some confusion but after all was said and done, Hoyt Corkins and I played for about an hour and I was the victor. The next day I played William Thorrson who I played a lot of 50/100 and 100/200 HU NL with about 2 years ago and had his game on lockdown and won in about an hour. The fourth round match was against a guy named "Dragon" from Slovakia I think and that match was pretty fun and over in about 5 or 10 minutes. The fifth round was against Johnny Chan who I've played a lot with in Bobby's room in all the games and had a good idea of how he would approach the match. I ran really cold and I made one mistake that probably didn't influence the outcome of the match that much. I was really setting Johnny up for something that he might fall for but it never came to fruition because I never got a hand that I could play in the way I sensed he sensed was weak. He knocked me out after about an hour and a half and that was that. I cashed for $38k in 13'th place. Throughout Day 2 of the HU Championship I ended up playing the $2500 PLO and the $1500 HORSE as well and nothing really happened in those.

I ended up playing the $5k PLO and probably drew the toughest starting table in the tournament with over half the table being winning regulars at 25/50+ PLO on FTP. However, I picked my spots well and played okay on Day 1. On Day 2 I really made some big moves including 3 betting Bruno Fitoussi 3/4 of my stack with K732 on a J664 board. The second big move was when I limped on the button and Devilfish completed the small blind and an irish kid checked the big blind at 1500/3k level, the flop came AQ9 rainbow and Devilfish led out for 6k, the irish kid called, I made it 27k, devilfish called, irish kid folded, the turn came a 5 and devilfish check-folded for my pot allin. I ended up showing him three cards, T-7-5 which was pretty fun. I ended up min cashing in the event and as soon as I got my cash slip for $11,000 I ran over to the $10k Stud 8 Championship and arrived two hours late.

Again, I drew the toughest starting table in the tournament with Abe Mosseri, Erick Lindgren, Chris Reslock, Jennifer Harman, David Benyamine, Mike Sexton, and a tight tight tight asian guy I brutally misplayed a hand against. I waded through the table and came back on Day 2 with just a few more chips than what I started with. I was very picky with my spots on Day 2 and found much softer spots than what I was given on Day 1. I never had more than 65,000 chips until late in Day 2 when I went on a little rush when I got moved to my third table of the day. I held that chip position and dipped down a bit coming into Day 3 which is pretty much identical to what happened to me in the $10k 2-7 NL Event, just ended up running dry very late on Day 2. I came back yesterday on Day 3 for the final 12 of the Stud 8 and couldn't even stay awake at the table so I slept between hands and grinded along winning a few pots until we reached the final table. During the short break before we moved over to the main featured final table Mike Matusow convinced me and basically dragged me outside to do jumping jacks and do windsprints. I couldn't believe the kind of energy this gave me even though I felt like I was going to die. It really did the trick and I came to the final table feeling very focused and awake. I was the shortstack for 3 hours and had to make 3 very very big laydowns which were correct each time until I just couldn't hold on any longer and went out 8'th for about $55,000 + $25,000 in side bets.

Despite how I felt starting the day, I felt able to play one of the most important events for me which was the $10k PLO Championship. I started with one of the easiest tables and ended up losing the first 10 pots I played with nothing I could do different. When Phil Ivey got moved to my table, everything changed though and I started to win pots. I really had great focus and I made two very big plays which I don't want to talk about but I raised the turn both time and they folded both time. I also had to fold a full house to Andy Bloch which took me about 30 seconds to make on a ATT39 board and I'm pretty sure was correct. Our table broke and I got moved to a table where I again controlled the action and mounted top 5 chips until Steve Zolotow and I played a monster pot and had I hit my full wrap with flush draw, I would've had over 260,000 chips. However, I was knocked down to 70,000. I got moved from that table and chipped up to about 110,000 at my new table until a drunk Ziigmund with 220,000 chips got moved to my immediate left and raised every pot and I just played tight. Today not much happened besides making 1 really good move in a 3 way pot and getting coolered by Markus Golser on a J33 board with A663 vs AJ3x when I had 120,000 chips and RIGHT after I made a bet of $10,000 to win $260,000 with about 78 people left during break. I was crippled to 15,000 after that hand but within half an hour was back up to 110,000. I then repotted a hand with AKQT and whiffed completely and was forced to fold when I got potted into, and then I ran AA98 into 8743 flop 652 and out the door I went. Since about 10:00 tonight I've been hanging out at home relaxing and I can tell you it's pretty nice. I'm going to decide tomorrow if I feel up to playing the $2500 Razz at 5:00 which should be a pretty juicy event. Razz is probably one of my better games and most people play it poorly. Hopefully I get good rest tonight and wake up refreshed tomorrow.

(Caution: Long Blog)
I'm in full throttle WSOP mode now. I forgot where I left off, so I'll start with me being eliminated 28'th in the $10k O8 to Phil Ivey hitting a 2 outer on me to scoop the entire thing in the most disguised way possible. That's not to say a few hours before I hit a 2 outer to 3/4 Allen Kessler though. I then played the $3k HORSE and was doing pretty well the first day until the limits really got high and I was knocked out shortly after beginning Day 2 when my K high flush ran into a concealed full house in Stud 8 which there was nothing I could do about.

The next day I played the $10k 2-7 NL event. As I believe I've mentioned before, 2-7 triple draw is one of my best games, but 2-7 single draw NL is a totally different beast. It requires the most intense reading ability of any tournament. I had to be totally focused for this one, and I was virtually the entire way. Day 1 started off with me drawing the best table in the room. I had John Hansen on my left, Kenny Tran to his left, another guy to Kenny's left, some guy from Switzerland to his left, Steve Sung to his left, and then some NL tournament player on my right. It was very very soft compared to the field. Some guys drew 3 a few times and even 4 once and made a 9 on Kenny Tran's pat hand and then raised him after the draw!!! It was so sick that when the guy drew 4 and then raised Kenny after he led out, I had to run away from the table so I wouldn't disrupt the action by not being able to contain my laughter. Kenny eventually paid it off and the guy drew 4 into a 9-7...lol. I made a really good call on Kenny when I raised UTG with 2367 and he called in position, and Steve Sung overcalled from the big blind and stood pat. I drew 1, Kenny drew 1, Steve checked, I caught a King and checked, and then Kenny starting counting out chips and bet 6500 into about a 3500 pot. Steve quickly folded and I took about 5 seconds and called him. I just knew by something I had picked up on Kenny that there was no way my King high wasn't good here. Kenny is usually very difficult to read, but this time I definitely had something solid to go on, and that is what this game is all about.

Eventually, our table broke and I moved to a table with a random tight Australian guy, Danny Alaei, Anna Wrobleski, Jeffrey Lisandro, David Williams, and David Benyamine. I'm very friendly with all of these people except for the Australian guy who I actually ended up playing with for 15 hours of Day 2 with, so it was nice to just shoot the shit with them. As soon as I got to the table, I was very very active, with hands, and without hands. I made a big squeeze play after Anna opened UTG, Jeff called, and DB called, and I was on the button and made a big re-raise and they all folded. I also re-raised two other times and I also bet after the draw a few times and I never really got looked up when the following hand came up. The blinds were 200/400 and I had 53k and Jeff Lisandro had me covered with about 85k. He raised UTG to 1500, I re-raised from the button to 6500 with T6542 but all 4 of my smallest cards were diamonds, and since flushes count against you in this game, there was no way I was going to break my Ten. Jeff took about 3 seconds and made it 20,000 more, and I went into the tank. I didn't stop staring at Jeff and just looked for anything I could, and after about 2 or 3 minutes of being in the tank, I shipped the rest of my money in and Jeff hollywooded for less than 10 seconds and folded. I flashed the Ten to the table and David Benyamine almost jumped up in the air and hit the ceiling out of shock! LOL! For those of you unfamiliar with the game, sticking in 125xbbs with a Ten to a UTG raiser is definitely not standard. Again, I felt I had a good read and just had to roll with it. I ended Day 1 with around 85k in chips which was 5'th with about 60 left heading into Day 2.

On Day 2, I drew another soft table. I had a french guy I had played with in the $10k 8 game on my left, Kenny Tran on his left, an old timer named Hertzel who I played 2-7 TRIPLE draw and PLO with in Biloxi during the WPT who used to play in the old UB days and is quite solid in all of those games, Max Pescatori to his left, and then an older guy from Miami, and Andy Black on my direct right. Within about an hour and a half, I had very very good reads on 3 of these players and was totally focused and honed in. I was maneuvering at all of the right points and making good reads almost every time. Not too long into the day the following hand came up: Hertzel raised UTG, Andy Black called in the cutoff, and I had 2356 on the button and called as well. Hertzel stood pat, Andy Black drew 1, and I drew 1. Hertzel led out for about half pot which was 4800 into about 7500, Andy Black very quickly raised to 15,000, I drew and peeled off the second best card which was an 8 to make me an 8-6 and now I had a big decision to make, I needed to make a read on Hertzel first, to see if he had me beat which was a definite possibility considering he stood pat and led into two people who drew 1 out of position, I decided I had Hertzel beat and put him on about 9-6 or something. Then I had the even bigger decision, did Andy Black have me beat and should I just flat call or should I ship the rest of my stack in? I tanked for about 2 and a half minutes and finally moved in, Hertzel snap folded and Andy black SNAP SNAP fistpump slammed his chips into the pot. I was very concerned now that I was beat given the action and how quickly he called. Fortunately though, 8-6 was good and he said he had 8-7. Later in the day, I raised with A4422 on the cutoff, and got called on the button by the french guy, bruno fitoussi who got moved after I busted Kenny Tran in the small blind, and Hertzel in the big blind. Bruno and Hertzel drew 2, I stood pat, and the frenchman on the button drew 1. Bruno and Hertzel checked and I bet 23,000 into about 30,000 and everybody folded and I brought "snow" to Las Vegas in the summer time and revealed my pure total air bluff! (For you folks unfamiliar with 2-7, snow is a term used instead of bluffing). There weren't any other real good hands to talk about, but I went Day 3 in about 7'th place with 10 people left and I only had about 10 big blinds and we were playing 5 handed so I needed to make some moves fast. I lasted about 10 hands and found myself in a near coinflip situation with David Benyamine with both of us drawing to a 9 and he hit gin and I caught a jack to spite for a 9'th place finish. I can't say I was the best player left in the field, so I'm not upset, but I did play really well and made some great plays. Congratulations to Nick Schulman who won the tournament and is a great overall poker player. I've played with Nick for years and he is very solid.

 

At the final 2 tables of the $10k 2-7 NL Championship

 

Day 2 of the $10k NL 2-7 Championship

After I busted in the 2-7 event yesterday, I had a short business meeting with my partner(unrelated to poker) in the Aces Lounge break room, then I hopped in the $5k PLO8 Championship Event. This event was very relaxing in the way that for 3 days I had been using highly intense reads on every single hand dealt because you have to use reads in 2-7 NL Single Draw. In PLO8, it's almost the exact opposite. You don't need to pick up reads as much as you just need to play your hand accordingly to the board. It was very relaxing to just sit back and play the game, and not play the person like what I had been doing the past three days. Today I'll be playing the $10k NLHE Heads Up Event in 2 hours and that will probably be the toughest field of the year given all of the great NL HU players nowadays. I've had poor results in the $25k HU tournaments that run occasionally on FTP but I'm looking forward to changing that since I'm a pretty big favorite in this event. I'm going to go work out, walk my dog, and shower and head to the Rio. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/BoostedJ.

I ended up seeing the Bellagio House Doctor late one night because he was basically the only doctor available at night in the entire city of Las Vegas. There's only one 24/7 walk-in clinic in all of Las Vegas and the line was about 2 hours long. Screw that. He told me what I already knew, which was I had a sinus infection, and prescribed me some antibiotics. I'm on the 3'rd day of them now and I think I'm feeling slightly better, but if I'm not much better tomorrow I'll probably have to try and get on some different ones.

So far I've not gotten very far at all in any of the WSOP Events. I played the $10k Stud and was doing good at first but then started finding myself in a lot of pots with playable hands but never winning many. I made two very very tricky plays against David Oppenheim who was on my right, and got caught bluffing the first time, but got paid the max the second time. I was out soon enough when my straight in 5 got beat by a higher straight. The next day I played the $2500 2-7 NL. This is pretty much the only game where I have very limited experience in. I have a lot of experience in Triple Draw 2-7, but not much in Single Draw NL, two different beasts with no question. I was able to talk to two of my friends for two hours before the event on some rundown questions with regards how to play. I had a general idea but I really think this is one of those games where experience is crucial, way more important than in other games. I basically totally botched a pot and it made me get short and had to make a play with a hand I would've normally folded with a larger stack. Anyhow, I got quite a bit of experience and I look forward to playing more of that game in the future. I'm probably going to go down in a few hours to watch one of my good friends at the final table. I will be playing the $10k 8 game mix tournament today at 5 p.m. and it should definitely be one of my best events. My full focus is going to be in tact and I still intend on doing heavy damage this summer.

Last night I sat down in a short handed $100/200 NL/PLO half and half game in Bobby's Room. (I was twittering while I was playing, http://www.Twitter.com/BoostedJ) I basically ran over the table the entire night and only lost one big pot. Unfortunately it was the biggest pot to be played of the night, about $160k. Player 1 limped UTG, Player 2 raised before looking at his cards in the SB, I looked down to AKKJhc in the BB and repopped him, Player 1 folded. Flop came J52 with 2 clubs, I had nut clubs. Player 2 checked, I bet $4k, he check-raised me to $13k, I 3-bet the pot which was about $40k at this point, he shoved all-in for about $75k total and I called. He ended up having J722, we ran it twice, and I lost both times. I was very happy with my play, but ran sort of hot also, so I was quite frustrated I ended up only winning $10k. It was an odd feeling that I just played so hard and ran pretty good to only get beat in a huge pot and win $10k.

That's all I got for now, I'll update again in a few days.

I can't believe I got sick again so soon. 3 non-long days and I woke up congested this morning. I think it's recurring sinusitis and I'll try to see if it will work its way out of my system within the next 2 or 3 days naturally with some Vitamin C, Zinc, B12, Tea, Nasal spray, Turmeric, and my Sinus clearing kit. If it doesn't clear up very soon, I will go to a doctor and see if he thinks its a sinus infection again, and get some antibiotics. As long as I'm not worse, I will go down tomorrow and play the $1500 PLO and try to gamble it up and amass a big stack before the $10k Stud. If I fail to amass a big stack, I'll play the $10k Stud.

I filmed High Stakes Living yesterday with Kristy Arnett. I think it should be a solid episode and was sorta fun to do. I enjoy watching the show myself so it'll be interesting to see how I turn out on it. After I was finished with that, I went over to the Bellagio to play some 600/1200 mix and ended up losing $15k before I quit since it turned into a fairly bad game. After that I was going to play some 200/400 PLO in Bobby's room, but got beat to the seat. By the time there was a seat open, it was time to pick up one of my best friends, Brian, and will be staying with me for a few weeks throughout the WSOP. I haven't seen him in about 10 months and we should have a good time hanging out in the free time I will have.

I played the $1500 O8 yesterday which was incredibly soft, and the $1k event today which was sort of a joke. I didn't even make any moves in it, and busted when my nut flush gutshot combo draw whiffed vs. top two.

For the rest of the evening, I intend on taking it very easy, shoving down tons of supplements, and hopefully falling asleep a little early. I've been having a rough time falling and staying asleep since I arrived in Vegas two months ago. I'm dreaming a lot, which leads me to believe I'm getting deep REM sleep, but it usually takes me an hour or an hour and a half to fall asleep and I keep waking up throughout the night to turn over or whatever. I'd really love to just lay there happy on my back and wake up the next morning seemingly not more than a minute later. I've gotten into the habit of twittering quite a bit, so keep up with me there at http://www.Twitter.com/BoostedJ.

Good night.

P.S. I had 5% of Justin Bonomo in the $40k Event and he just busted for a little over $400k, so ship the $20k this way. Although I lost $5k to Ted in our final table/final 3 bonus bets.

Okay, this is going to be a very short blog. I played the WSOP $40,000 Buyin tournament today. I was eliminated the last hour of the day unfortunately. So a whole day to waste basically. Very very happy with the way I played except for possibly a call I made on the river for about 13% of my stack at one point, however that did not affect the outcome of anything. Ended up losing a coinflip with 77 vs AQ and out the door I went.

My twitter is http://www.twitter.com/BoostedJ which will be regularly updated throughout the day, every day of the WSOP with interesting stories, hands, and other various things.

Ted Forrest who is a decent friend of mine came up to me today and propositioned me for a $5,000 bonus for each final table either one of us makes we have to pay each other and an additional $5,000 for making the top 3 of any tournament during the WSOP this year. The most final tables he's ever made in a year is 3...and he won all 3! LOL! So hopefully my sake that doesn't happen this year, but I definitely don't want to root too hard against Ted, he's a good guy.

I received 13-1 odds on winning a bracelet this year...my $10,000 to his $130,000. It's with a particular long time high stakes NL cash game player whom I've played many many hands with. I'll leave his name anonymous for now but when I win an event it will be a nice victory.

I have a $1k friendly bet with Lance and company at Bluff Magazine on gross $$$ cashed during the WSOP this year between my team of: Justin Bonomo, Brett Richey, and myself vs. his team of Andy Bloch, Bertrand Grospellier, and Michael Binger. Elky is on a super heater the past year so hopefully I can fade him.

Today during dinner break of the $40k in the VIP break room, I took a piece of Mike Matusow in chinese poker vs. Eli Elezra, Phil Hellmuth, and Doyle Brunson. I don't know how to set my hands that great in chinese so I sweated Mike and Eli a little bit and fortunately Mike went on a pretty nice heater which netted me $6,000 for my piece of the action.

I'll be playing the $1,500 Omaha H/L tournament tomorrow at noon and you can follow me on twitter or Pokernews.com

I've been playing online the past few days...mostly 25/50 PLO on Stars and FTP, 100/200 and 400/800 8 game on Stars, and the 2-7 TD 100/200-500/1000 on Stars. 2 days ago I had a nice $70k win in a session of 500/1k 2-7 TD. Yesterday however I lost just about all of that back playing 25/50 PLO and 400/800 8 game though. Today I had a 7 table session of 25/50 PLO on Stars and started running nice and was winning $45k, and then it made a full reversal and ended up breaking even. I'll continue to play only when the games are really really good before the first event of the WSOP which is the big $40k buyin NLHE tournament. I don't want to wear myself out before a very long 6 weeks.

Since overcoming being sick twice in two weeks, I've gotten on a great workout schedule which I really like. I like to be working out frequently at least 3 times a week. I'm eating very good and nutritious (like usual) with extra high protein foods.

What can I say about the NBA. The NBA playoffs have been amazing to watch. All the games in the conference finals have been extremely close. I've been betting a lot on the Nuggets and the Cavaliers. I really want to see the Nuggets beat the Lakers personally, and the Cavaliers are really playing dreadful. I haven't been putting in as many hours into poker as I normally do, which is awesome. I play 3-4 hours after I wake up, mix in a little pool shooting, and then gear up for a basketball game at night and go into full sweat mode. I've definitely been enjoying my daily routine lately.

WSOP starts in a few days, and I'll be putting every last bit of energy into that. I'm definitely going to try to make something happen this summer. I'm very confident in all of my games lately and I've made the commitment to myself to remain absolutely focused throughout the duration of the WSOP. I'm never going to slip up or give up. I'm just going to play my absolute heart out and that's all there is to it. If you want to bet against me, feel free to bet with Justin Bonomo. Read his latest blog on his site http://www.ZeeJustin.com and he wants to bet on me taking 4.5-1 odds.

This will probably be my last blog until either during the $40k event if I make it deep, or after the second event or so. My blog should be moving to the front page of PokerNews at the start of the WSOP so look for it there I think if you intend on continuing to follow me throughout WSOP. Also check out my twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/Boosted J