Adam Katz, Jamie Rosen and I flew from Vegas into the big city of Providence, Rhode Island, from providence we took a limo into foxwoods and we were finally checked into our suite (which actually turned out to be super sick despite the horror stories I have heard about foxwoods) by 1:30 am. I was still very much on west coast time, and I couldn't get to sleep till around 5 am last night, then had to play today at noon, so I was only a few hours of sleep and had no time for breakfast. This lead to me being super out of it today and not nearly mentally prepared enough to play my absolute best.

When I sat down at my starting table this morning I felt like I hit the jackpot, Im pretty sure the table I drew was pulled straight out of a nursing home as all I saw was a sea of grey hair. Don't get me wrong, I respect my elders, but in general random old people at your table might as well be turning their hands face up with how transparently they play. Unfortunately for me this table had 2 empty seats when I sat down and within a few rounds David Singer and David Williams scooped the empty seats, that being said this was definitely a table I wanted to be at. Not a lot seemed to go my way at this table though, and I missed a bunch of flops in multiway pots and saw my stack dwindle to 25k (30k starting stack) when my table broke at the beginning of level 3.

I was obviously disappointed that this table broke, and I was even more disappointed when I saw my new table, the table was definitely not very soft. This table had some great players, Andy Bloch on my immediate left, Pokerroad's own Gavin "the Caveman" Smith on my immediate right, Brent Richey across the table, Anna Wroblewski on Andy's left and another young (probably internet player) kid at my table who played very well. This table was playing very loose and aggressive, and since I had a pretty decent seat with position on Gavin I planned to play pretty active. I played a bunch of small pots, nothing too interesting all day, flat calling and three-betting Gavin a fair share in position, eventually chipping up from 25k to about 45k then the 300-600/75 level started which was the last level of the day, and all hell broke loose.

I folded for the first few orbits of 300/600 because I was pretty card dead/situation dead, then missed a couple set hunt attempts against early position raisers and chipped down to about 38k when a big hand with gavin came up.

Gavin raised preflop to 1600 from the cutoff and I flat called from the button with 9d7d, Gavin was the table chip leader with about 130k or so. The flop comes a beautiful 976 rainbow and Gavin checks. I bet 2200 knowing that Gavin thinks I'm going to stab at this flop very often when he checks. He then raises to 6100, and my initial instinct was to 3bet this flop but Gavin is very good at making big laydowns and I feel like my hand would be a little overrepped and I feel like gavin would get away from trickily played overpairs etc if I opt to 3bet here, and obviously get it in when I'm crushed. I decided to flat call the flop with the intention of getting it in on the turn on a lot of cards hopefully squeezing one more bet out of his air bluffs with the benefit of disguising my hand because I feel like Gavin would expect me to 3bet the flop with 2 pair. The turn brought another 7 giving me pretty much the nuts. Gavin checked to me again and i decided to stab for 8,000, a small bet but I didn't want it to look like I am committing myself and want to induce him to come over the top with some sort of combo draw. Gavin insta shoves and I obviously call and he has 5s8s for a flopped straight and I obviously got very fortunate to cooler him and chip allll the way up to about 75k.

A couple hands later it folds around to Gavin and he raises to 1600 from Mid position. I decide to just flat call with AJo because I didn't want to 3bet Gavin too light because I felt like he may have been steaming after his cooler and would be ready to flat call me wide with the intention of outplaying me post flop. I didn't feel like getting into a pretty deep stacked spew war with a good player so I decided to flat call and play a hand that figures to be the best hand vs Gavin's opening range in position. It then folds around to the young player i mentioned earlier and he shoves his stack into the middle, for a total of 18k. This reshove is obviously a lot of chips, but before he shoved I saw him look around the pot and realize how many chips were in the pot, he also was definitely good and smart enough to realize that Gavin is raising like 40% of the deck, and given that he seemed like he may have been steaming at this point he would expect me to 3 bet a big hand for value, thus I felt that he was very light here a lot. After some deliberation I made the call and he tabled pocket Tens which is a stronger hand then i expected, but still a race. I lost the ~40k race and was back down to around 55k. The blinds went through me a couple times when Gavin raised the hijack to 1600, I looked down at QTo and decided to 3bet him to 4800 because he was obviously raising very wide in this spot and the stacks were incredibly awkward for 4betting thus i expected to take the pot down preflop a huge % of the time, and if he calls I could play a big pot in position with a hand that figures to be the best hand. The blinds both fold, and it fairly quickly Gavin decides to 4bet to 16k, which was a big F my life moment. Obviously my natural reaction is to snap muck in that spot, but having played with Gavin and hearing him discuss hands on Poker radio he rarely seems to 4bet his huge hands (QQ+) unless he has reason to believe his opponent has a huge hand, he tends to flat call with these premiums a lot. He definitely knew that I did not need a big hand to 3bet him here, and thus i thought he was bluffing sooo often, I counted my chips and was literally ready to grab them and shove all in but instead I went away from my read, didn't have the balls to pull the trigger (not usually a problem of mine) and folded after a lot of deliberation. Gavin tabled the old 63o. OWNEDDD. I get sooo frusterated when i don't go with my reads and they were right.

Oh well, after playing a few pots and making a few preflop raises that did'nt work i end up chipping down to 40k when another hand with Gavin comes up. Gavin raises Mid position to 1600, I flat call with KJdd, and the BB flat calls as well. The flop comes Tx6s3s. BB checks, Gavin Checks, I check. I decided stabbing here would be bad because its a pretty coordinated flop and one of them is likely to at least have a big draw. The turn is an off suit Jack. BB checks, gavin bets 3600. I decide that on the flop Gavin often has something with moderate showdown value like a midpair 77-99, an A6 type of hand or a draw that he planned to checkraise the flop with (Gavin plays really tricky postflop). I think with my steaming image if i raise the turn it will look really bluffy and he will have a hard time giving me credit for a hand as it looks like I'm trying to rep a strange holding like J6 as he wouldn't expect me to raise with a naked jack and wouldn't expect me to check back anything top pair or better on the flop. I thought Gavin was definately capable of looking me up very light with this line and I have the additional benefit of making his draws pay more to get there. I opt to raise to ~12k and gavin peels. At this point I was planning on firing for value a fair amount of rivers to try to get value from hands with marginal showdown value. The river, however, brings a baby spade card, completing the flush and gavin leads in for 23k and I muck fairly quickly. At this point I beat pretty much nothing and I didn't feel like Gavin was likely to turn a hand with showdown value that he peeled with on the turn into a bluff.

I blind down a couple of orbits to 25,075 to end the day in very frustrating fashion, but I suppose the title is a bit misleading because Gavin did not quite stack me, even though he hammered away a huge chunk of my chips, that being said he was a pleasure to play online poker with and a very nice guy. Hopefully tomorrow I can hit a rush and chip up, things can happen so fast in this game.

Ill keep you updated tomorrow, thanks for reading!

~Amit