Fellow backers, I'm sorry to tell you, but our run has come an end.
I'm sitting here at 7am, writing this in my hotel room before catching a last-minute one-way flight to Toronto in four hours.
I still need a day or two to get over the disappointment. But on the bright side, there were some important lessons I learned on this trip, but before I get into that, let me recap the final tournament of the campaign.
It was the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza $2500 buy-in with a $300,000 guaranteed prize pool.
For the first two hours, only recreational players were at my table and I was able to build my 20,000c starting stack to 30,000c.
Then Marc Daubach sat down at the table, with over $380,000 in live tournament wins under his belt.
I was the aggressor at the table until he sat down, but in one hand, I used his aggression against him.
I called his raise in the blind with KJ, not a strong hand, but I was willing to protect my blind with it.
King flopped with two diamonds on board and I check, letting him c-bet and he does. I call.
The turn is a blank and we go check check.
River is a blank, and unless he has a King with a better kicker, I'm pretty sure I'm good. I could value bet if I want to, but I thought I would make more money if I check the river to look weak, and call his bluff.
He bets the pot, which is a quarter of our stacks, and I feel like he doesn't want me to call. I decided he either missed his draw and is trying to steal, or he genuinely has AK or KQ with top pair and a better kicker than me. It feels more like he missed his draw because of his huge bet, so I take the chance and call. He says "you're good" and I show my hand. He mucks.
He loses again to someone else, and eventually he's down to half his starting stack.
That's when I look down at AA and raise. He re-raises and I put him all-in. He says "is this a re-entry tournament?" and someone says "yes". Then he says "good" and calls with JJ.
The flop didn't hit him, so I knocked him out and built my stack to close to 40,000c.
Six hours into the tournament, half the field remains, and as always, the recreational players are mostly out, and the pros, both online pros and live pros, are mostly still in.
You can tell who the online pros are, who are a lot tougher than live pros, because they're all in their 20's, some of them look like teenagers, they almost always have headphones and iPads to listen to music and watch movies while they grind 12 hours a day. And they always have a back pack carrying snacks, books, and probably stacks of money.
There were 4 of them at my table at the 6-hour mark.
One pro to my left kept 3-betting my pre-flop raises in late position--and I mean always.
After the fourth time he did this, I 4-bet him a third of my stack, and he pushes all-in. It was amazing. I had to fold, and I wish I asked him his name so I could look him up.
Sometimes I'd just sit back and watch two pros go at it and I learn a lot. One major quality they have is their willingness to go bust early in the tournament--risk their whole stack on a hunch--and I just don't have that yet. Maybe I never will.
These guys got me down to 10,000c, 50bb, just before the dinner break. On the very last hand before dinner, I look down at AQ on the button. A short stack with 5000c goes all in. Everyone folds to me. His range is wide so I want to call, but I don't want the blinds to call, so I go all-in. If the blinds have a good hand to call me, so be it. But they don't.
I go heads up for a showdown with AQ vs AJ and win.
Back from dinner, I have 15,000c with blinds at 150/300 with 50 antes.
The table breaks down again and now I'm at tougher table with five online pros.
I'm in seat 9. Seat 7 is the chip leader, a smart online pro who looks 17 years old and plays 50% of his hands.
Eight hours in, the blinds are up to 300/600 with 75 antes, and I blinded down to 10,000c.
I raise under the gun with 10 10. Everyone folds and Seat 7 in the small blind puts me all-in.
I've seen this guy go all-in against short stacks with A8 suited, so I figure I beat over 70% of his range with 10 10. I'm hoping he has 9 9 or A 10.
I say "alright" and push my stack.
He shows AJ. It's a coin flip. Our whole campaign came down to one coin flip. And I lost. Ace on the flop.
I was devastated, but at the same time, I felt like I played well.
In fact, I think I played my best this whole trip.
And that's when I learned the biggest poker lesson of my life -- Vegas is too good for me.
Poker isn't about ego, it's about making money.
If I play in smaller tournaments with recreational players, in the long run, I will make money.
If I play in Vegas tournaments against kids who do this for a living, then in the long run, I will lose money.
Being in the top 20% of the Canada All Time Money List, I actually thought I was better than 20% of the field out here. After taking my shot, I'd say I'm in the top 50%, which isn't enough.
This doesn't mean I'm going to quit on the WSOP or Vegas--I'll come back next year to play a couple.
And I think I'll be better this time. Losing to these pros made me better.
For example, let me break down an interesting hand I got into with pro Jeremy Joseph in the $1000 buy-in on Sunday.
Joseph plays any two cards. He sat on my right.
He was small blind and I was big. Everyone folds and he raises me. I 3-bet with A10 and Joseph calls me.
He checks, and I don't want to c-bet here because I want to control the pot size.
Turn comes 9. I have an up and down straight draw with a back door draw to an ace.
He checks. I think I can take the pot right there so I bet. He check raises me a big chunk of my chips.
He's representing a straight here, or he's semi-bluffing with a straight draw. It's highly unlikely he's doing this with a pair, or 2 pair. If he hit any part of the flop or turn, I feel he would have lead out with a bet instead of checking.
So if he's semi-bluffing with a straight draw, that means he either has a 6 and is looking for the bottom end of the straight, or he has a 10 and is looking for the top end. Which in the latter case, means I have him beat with Ace high and a 10.
In my head, I decide that he's semi-bluffing, which means I should go all-in here, but i don't. And maybe that's the difference between me, and a pro. A pro would 4-bet all-in with Ace high in this position. But like scared money, I just call and hopes he checks the river.
He value bets so small that I have to call him.
This is just one of the hundreds of tricky hands I had to play here, which wouldn't happen in Atlantic City or Buffalo, no disrespect to those players. But these guys are just on a different level. And when I play them, I'm really gambling.
Jeremy Joseph went on to final table the WSOP $1500 no-ante event the next day, winning over $20K.
And the week before, he won over $12K in another WSOP event.
But with all that said, I want to thank my 76 backers for giving me the opportunity to play here.
I got to meet James Woods...
...play beside a world champ and watch him lose before me...
...had some of the best, most authentic Chinese food I've ever had (Vegas sure knows how to treat us Asians)...
...had the pleasure of drinking tons of free beer (free beer is unheard of in Canada)...
....I got to experience my first big buy-in win...
...and I got to watch my heroes play and learn from the best.
So that's the end of our journey. I hope you enjoyed following my blog.
Running this campaign was just as much fun as playing in the tournaments, and therefore, I'm planning on helping other players crowdfund their big tournament buy-ins in exchange for shares of their winnings, and all the meanwhile, I will document their progress here for backers to follow.
Maybe the next "crowdstaker" will be a pro?
Until next time, please stay in touch. I'll be updating this blog on the regular, talking about poker and the future of Crowdstaker.
Thanks again for your support, and I hope you enjoyed following me on this ride of a lifetime.
izzy806
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