First cash of June

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or political, but because it is right." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr

Well…even though it wasn’t much, I am happy to finally get a cash in an event this month. Played the $150 Pot-limit Omaha event at Binion’s yesterday and finished 28th out of 243.

I felt I played pretty well, and again put myself in a spot where with a couple of breaks I could have made a run at the $9,100 first place prize, but I ran pretty card dead the last hour. PLO is a game where position is so important, more so than NLHE, and the last hour I didn’t have strong enough hands to open from early position and almost every pot was opened before it got to me in late position, and there weren’t enough chips to flat call more than one time by that point. It was unfortunate because the three players to my left were very tight players, but it was always raised before it got to me. Only twice was it not, the first time I had K922 and passed and the BB got a walk. The second time I decided it was too good an opportunity to not steal, so I raised a pathetic looking KT72ss and the BB woke up with AKKJss and pushed all-in. I called getting 2.5-1 odds and hoping he had AAxx but lost the pot.

By the time it got to the money (they paid exactly 28) I had about 17,000 chips and average stack was around 35,000 with 1000/2000 blinds. I played an 899T and bet a flop of J73 with 2 clubs but was called by a smaller stack who showed KJ7x with the club draw and the board came 3-2. I was down to 6000 chips and went out in my BB when I called my last chips after the button raised and I was double suited with J983 all black, but the flop was T53 all red.

Disappointing to be knocked out of course, but at least a cash can serve as a confidence builder when struggling. Props to my friend Christi who cheered me on during the event.

Still up in the air about my tournament schedule the rest of the month. I’ve been playing more cash games this week and have found it a bit more relaxing. As to the bigger tournaments, of which my plan was to play 3 WSOP events, I’m thinking the PLO8 on June 25th almost for certain, but I’m actually thinking that the other event I might play is, instead of another WSOP event, there is a $1000 PLO event at Binion’s July 2nd. The main reason is the starting chips at that Binion’s event is 10,000 chips, as opposed to the WSOP events which are 3000 chips for the $1500 events or 4000 chips for the $2000 events.