Daniel Moravec

I decided to play a little bit lower stakes due to the cold decks I’ve been running into lately. I’m gonna make this one short and sweet. I started playing the nightly event at 7:00pm and there were 271 entrants. After over 8 hours of perfect poker, I had half of an average stack and found KJ on the small blind. The button (big stack) made a raise to 3BB and I thought he was simply using his muscle to take our chips so I raised him all-in for a total of a little less than 10BB. The big blind folded and the big stack called and unfortuately turned over AKo, beating me with Ace high and knocking me out.

I placed 28th in the tournament, 27 places paid.

Sure, it may have been a common tournament mistake to make, playing against the big stack near making the money. However, I considered the $368 prize to be minimal compared to making the final table. Also, at the beginning of the hand, the tournament clock showed 34 remaining players, not 29 so I had considered the fact that I may have to push my stack to make any decent money anyways.

So I had another disappointing tournament today… at least this one didn’t take 13 hours to realize that I wasn’t going to win something.

We each started with $6,000 in chips. After blinding and calling down to about $5500 I was able to double up. I had AKo in early-middle position and was at a very aggressive table. I smooth called hoping to backraise a player trying to squeeze the pot. The blinds were $100/$200 and there were 4 more callers behind me, building the pot to $1300 in blinds alone. This was odd though, that so many people would call without raising. As expected, the button raised and made it $1000 more to call. Nobody between us called and I reraised him $3000 chips more. My opponent reraised me all-in and I quickly called. He showed QQ and I spiked a King on the flop, knocking him out of the tournament.

It was all downhill after that. I was getting decent cards, but nothing seemed to hit me. I would get A10o, see an ace on the flop, and my opponent would have AJo. I once had AQs missed a flop of K86 men’s warehouse and another hand I had 99 with a flop of KQQ. I couldn’t hit anything whatsoever!

My final hand was pretty bad too. I could have played it differently and won, but the way it went down was disgusting anyways. I had 22 in middle position and the blinds were $100/$200 with a $25 ante. I raised to $700 preflop and the flop came 689 all differnet suits. My opponent checked to me and I bet $700 once again. He came over the top for $1500 more and I moved all in for another thousand. He made a crying call and won with 44.

Anyways, I’ll get a bit luckier one of these days and hopefully catch something that will bring my chips to the level in which they need to be. It’s just so difficult keeping a chiplead with flops like these.

It didn’t take long before 25% of the field was knocked out. I had an below average chip stack of about 3150 and a very weak table of players. My only showdown hand was my last one.

I was under the gun and told myself that if I had anything in the top 10% that I was going to limp-reraise with it. I looked down and saaw KsQs. I limped for 200 (Level 3) and the guy next to me raised to 900. Three other players called the 900 and it was my turn to act. I quickly shoved my stack into the center. The initial raiser moved in for another 200 chips and the other three players folded. My opponent said that he wasn’t going to call but felt lucky and flipped over AQo, something that I didn’t think he wasl

Ace high won the hand and I was knocked out. Now I’m playing a $325 satelitte.

I’ve played in a couple more events since the last time I posted, Event #21 $5000 NLH

This podcast is about how I won my biggest pot ever, participated in some 7-way flips at and some of my tournament results.

2008 WSOP Podcast – June 7

Current Cash Games Statistics

Current Tournament Statistics

After breaking it off with my girlfriend last December, I tried meeting new people via a service that most people know as a reliable and trustworthy online dating company, eHarmony.com. I figured that it would be fun to try out, and could be a great way to meet new people. Boy was I wrong.

When I signed up to be a member of this overpriced dating service, I thought that this was a service that is priced the way it is because of it’s success factor. Instead, I found out that the money that is being given to this company more so pays for the large amounts of commercials that are aired on TV and customer service representatives that they need to keep their customers as part of the “29 dimension system” that milks as much money from the customer as possible.

The first thing that you do is fill out this long questionairre… aka their “29 dimension system” survey that matches you with “compatible mates” that live as near or as far as you tell the system to look. After filling out the questionairre, you then create your match profile, a sort of public advertisement that says “Hey! I’m right here! This is who I am!” Of course, nobody tells you that people can’t actually look FOR you, but that eHarmony simply makes you WAIT until a possible match comes up on their system.

Ya, that’s right, you have to fill out all of this information, taking hours

After my last podcast, I went back to the Bellagio and played a little bit more $25/$50. I won another $6000 in the first half of an hour, but got in a hand against a fish where I flopped a set and he flopped a King high flush. The money went all in on the turn when a 2nd suit rag fell. The hand cost me about $7000 and I was now down about $1000. After that, I lost a few small pots in the next hour and left with a loss of $2000 and some tip money for valet.

I was getting ready to gear up for the main event, trying to satellite in. I won my first and only satelitte into the Super Satellite, costing a mear $560 to enter. Playing in the satellites are typically pretty easy, and this one was no different. We each started with 4000 in chips and the levels were 12 minutes. I played tight and made a couple well timed moves to get in the money. At first, the chips all went to one guy, who could have literally sat out and won his seat into the super. However, he started dumped the chips around the table, evening the stacks and allowing me a chance to catch up to him. I was sitting with an average stack most of the time. My tight strategy turned into a loose/aggressive one once we reached level 5 or 6 and I started picking up quite a few pots. Before I knew it, I was chipleader and took down the satellite with another guy (top two paid).

The Super Satellite was to take place the next day at 1pm. I arrived early and there were just 280 entrants. By the time level 2 was over, there were 385 players who bought into the Super. Hours dragged on, and my chip stack slowly, but consistently grew. I caught a few good hands, but nothing that paid off big time. By level 2, I had tripled my original stack of 5000 to 15000 chips.

After getting to about 20k in chips, I got caught bluffing and lost 6,000 chips in a single pot. I had AdKd and hit a flush draw on the flop 8d9d4s. I raised preflop, bet the flop, bet the turn (3c), and bet the river (Qh), making sure to represent an overpair in the range of Tens to Queens. Unfortunately, my opponent also had diamonds… (Qd Jd). He missed his flush and straight draws, but paired the queen on the end and called my bet of 3500 chips on the river.

I placed 58th out of the 385 that paid over $2500 to get into the Super Satellite, and it took another 3 hours from when I was knocked out to get down to the top 36 players that got a seat, 37th getting cash as a prize.

Since the satellite, I hopped into a $25/$50 and won $1100 and got into a $50/$100NLH mixed with $25/$50PLO and lost $600, so even though the stakes have been high, the wins and losses have been kept in balance.

Let’s try this out…

Lost the $5k today, but beat the $25/$50

For the first time in my short-lived life I had a really good shot at actually winning a healthy sized buy-in tournament with a healthy sized field of about 300. I was playing extremely well, surviving two cold decks during the tournament, one time having pocket Kings vs. pocket Aces and another having a flopped set of 7′s beat by a flopped set of queens. The problem is, I came down with a case of FPS (Fancy Play Syndrome) when I had over 10% of the chips with 20 players left in the tournament.

The blinds were 1500/3000 with a 500 ante. Roy Winston made a raise to 9000 in early position. I look down to see my cards and wake up to AA. Rather than reraise, I decide to ask Roy how many chips he had, which was about 80,000 to 90,000, and smooth call. No other players entered the pot and it was heads up.

The flop wasn’t “terrible” to say the least, but it was pretty bad looking. Three hearts, jack high and I didn’t hold the ace of hearts. Roy bet his hand out 15,000 and I raised to 40,000. He almost immediately moved all in and I called. Unfortunately for me, I had put Roy on AK or AQ with the A or K of hearts, now thinking that he may have actually had AJ with the A of hearts. However, I found out that my Aces had very slim chances to win as Roy had flopped the King high flush with KhQh.

I got stacked, and only had about 25,000 remaining chips to play with.

I lasted quite awhile longer, and got my stack back up to 45,000 before Roy took another shot at me. I called a raise of 10,000 during the 2000/4000/500 level preflop with J10. After hitting a 10 on the flop, I thought I may have had a chance at the best hand. Little did I know that Roy his his King at the same time and was about to bust me out of the tournament.

I placed 12th, hoping to do better next time. I learned a valuable lesson during this tournament, play straightforward poker, and never slowplay pocket aces preflop to a raise.

I haven’t been presented with a good game in awhile. In fact, I haven’t been near a game where I didn’t know at least three or four of the players sitting at the table. How is it so hard to get a bunch of tourists who just want to try their luck at poker sitting together at one table?

I like to stalk my prey before I go in for the kill, but the Vegas poker rooms seem to only be full of predators lately. My first stop tonight was Bellagio. I wasn’t planning on playing poker, but I had to drop off $500 that a friend loaned me to place a bet on Memphis to win the NCAA Championship game (Dohhh!!). As I was paying off my debt, I noticed my friend Lisa flailing her arms in the air trying to flag me down from across the room.

Lisa came over to chat for a bit and informed me that the $10/$20nl games at were terrible tonight at Bellagio, but that there was a decent $5/$10nl game over at the Wynn. I decided a long time ago that this girl knows what she’s talking about when it comes to Las Vegas poker game selection, so I said “I’m in!” and we headed over to the Wynn.

There was a whopping two games going on when we arrived, a shorthanded $10/$20nl with a majority of tough players and a $5/$10nl with a majority of fish. I sat down at the $5/$10nl game while Lisa gave up her seat to a fish so the game would be better when she began to play. My how I admire her patience…

The game was good, but I made a bad play early on. I picked up Qs10c in late position and limped preflop behind a few other limpers. The flop came down 9c Jd Qd and I liked what I saw. Seat 1 bet $40, seat 2 called $40, then seat 3 raised to $160. It was my turn to act and I contemplated my move. For some odd reason I decided to reraise the $160 bet to $460, forcing everybody at the table out of the hand, killing my implied odds. Seat 3 moved all-in for another $250 and I was forced to call, hoping for my straight card. The flush card came, but it didn’t matter because all I had was a straight draw, which I missed. My opponent showed AQ and took the pot down.

After realizing that I shouldn’t be blasting at the pots so much with shitty draws, I hunkered down and ended up winning about $350 for the $5/$10nl session, coming back $1000 from being stuck $700 after that hand. As I was about to cash out, I noticed that a tough player had left the $10/$20nl game and a fish had sat down with over $5000. I told Lisa that I planned on playing and had the cashier change the color of my chips up.

I bought in for $2350, my original $2000 buyin at the $5/$10 plus my $350 in profits. In addition to this, I had a Bellagio flag and $1k chip watching over the lint in my pocket. At first, there were just four of us playing, but the game kept getting better and better. Fish after fish sat down and before I knew it, the game was full and extra live. I had AJ, the Wynn’s high stakes poker floor person, change my Bellagio chips to Wynn chips and added them to my stack. Even Lisa came back upstairs to play, and she was just about walking out of the poker room when this table caught her eye.

I was on fire, getting every big pocket pair at least once during my session. I was getting them, but I wasn’t getting as much action as I wanted at first. I’d look down every other hand and see something like AA, KK, QQ, AK, AKs, and JJ. If it wasn’t a big pair, then it was an easy fold like 62o. I looked down to see JJ one time and called a $100 preflop raise in middle position. Four players called and the pot was $400. The flop came J78, all diamonds and not exactly a great flop for me to see. I checked my set, and my opponents checked as well. The 2c came on the turn and I made a $200 bet to take down the pot.

After only two hours, the game was about to break. However, my and an Asian fellow (who only had $300 left) decided to play heads up for a little while. It went back and forth plus/minus $100 until I woke up to AKo on the Dealer button (small blind). I limped preflop and my opponent raised to $100, having another $280 behind. I moved all in and he called with As4s to catch the nut flush. He now had about $760 in front of him and posed more of a threat. We played a little bit longer, and I won a few hundred more off of him. He was down to $490 when he asked if I wanted to do all-in flips. I had over $10,000 behind now so I figured that my chances of winning that $500 were high.

The first flip came and I was dealt Q9o and he was dealt 64s. I missed and he hit a 6 to win the first flip. Our second flip (for $1k each now) consisted of my being dealt KJs and my opponent being dealt J5o. Again, I missed and he snapped off a lucky kicker card. Now his original $300 stack was at just under $2000. I convinced him to do one final all-in flip and he agreed. I was dealt Q6o and hit a 6. He turned over a paired 2 and mucked his other card.

After I cashed in my chips I decided to do a little bit of gambling. I hit a slot with a nice looking progressive and lost $250. I hate losing to the casino so I took that $250 and bet it on one hand of blackjack, which I lost. I then bet $500 on a single hand of blackjack and lost! Soon after, I moved over to the craps tables and bet $200 on the pass line, with $800 on the odds. I hit a 7 before a number was rolled to win $200, but once the point was rolled I lost once again. I pulled out yet another $1000 and put $200 on the pass line, rolled a point… and LOST!!!

I was getting sick of being beat so badly… I pulled the $5k flag from my pocket… walked up to a dealer at an empty table and asked her “Would you mind dealing me just one hand miss?” to which she kindly obliged. I was dealt 84 and the dealer was showing an 8. Surely I was fucked and there would be a ten coming right? No. Instead, I hit and received a 7 for a total of 19. The dealer rolled over a 5 and hit to receive another 5, making her total 18. I WON!!!