The six-handed NL events are some of my favorite events at the World Series of Poker. They action is fast and furious, and I generally believe that the boredom of playing live poker tends to drive fields full of online grinders towards playing even more LAG than they usually would/should.

So of course I was really looking forward to WSOP Event #26, $2,500 six-handed NL. While driving on my way to the Rio for this event I found myself just generally thinking about how much I love poker. What a job, what a life. =)

Almost as if to remind me of why I love it so much, I sat down to find only two players seated at my table…and both were over 50 years old. Weeeee! I sat down and had a grand ole time with these two guys until a couple younger guys filled the open seats. Still, overall, it was a pretty good table draw.

With starting stacks of 7,500 and the blinds at 25-50, I ended up stacking it off for a 19k pot with Jh-Th on a 8h-9h-6s flop…against Ah-5h!!! Not exactly the hand I was looking to face, and the reason that the Kh on the river wasn’t enough to save me.

I ended up losing the rest of my chips to the same kid who won that pot against me when I 3bet him with A-Q planning on going with it pre-flop, but ended up bluffing it off anyway into his T-T when he just flatted.

If you thought THAT was a short story of how to bust a tournament, wait til you hear my story of Event #28 ($1,500 NL)! I flatted a 3bet with A-A in the first ten minutes and proceeded to stack it off on a T-9-6 flop…against 9-9. I had 700-800 left at 25-25, isolated a UTG limper to 100, and tank-shoved after the button called and UTG limp-reraised huge. The UTG player had 8-8 and rivered an 8.

Anddd I was out the door in under 20 minutes. LOOOOOOOOOL, it’s better than bubbling, though!

I decided to join some friends and media folks in the weekly Pokerati game at the Palms on Thursday night since Event #28 CLEARLY decided it didn’t want to take up much of my time. The lineup included “Dr. Pauly” McGuire, Danielle Ford, Dave “F-Train Poker” Behr,  “The Mark” Thoennes, and Dan Michalski…Mr. Pokerati himself.

Later on my roommates and good friends Joe Cappuccio and “petegotaplan” Lubrano dropped in to play as well, which made the game even more fun…especially when I got to 3bet every one of Joey’s opens! Weeeeeee.

The Pokerati game is a $1/2 NL/PLO rotation game with a fun twist. If you straddle the button to $5, you get ULTIMATE LAST ACTION. In other words, if I straddle the button, the action starts UTG. After the cutoff folds I get to see what the players in both blinds do before I act. If there’s a re-raise from the BB, action will go all the way around the table again and to the SB before it comes to me…no matter what I’ll get to act last.

I didn’t quite understand what was going on at first, and by the end of the night acting out of turn on the button became known as a “Stout.” It’s an interesting twist though, and punishes those who don’t straddle even more than usual!

Despite somehow managing to lose $950 (Yea, 475BB…only 190 straddles, though? lol sigh) in the game, I had a blast and am looking forward to playing in the game again. Considering how often I’m playing big tournaments where I put a lot of pressure on myself to play my best, it can be nice to just have a few drinks, relax, and play some poker for fun.

I’m still going to try not to drop a G every time I do it, though. Wouldn’t be prudent!

Stout