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Check in to follow the life of professional poker player and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Grant Hinkle.

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WSOP 2009 Recap Event 4

Thought I'd give some details on this year's World Series events a little over one week into the madness.

Event 4 - 1K NL Hold 'em (Sunday, May 31)

I tried to get registered to play Saturday, but they had already sold out and the registration counter said that Sunday was close to selling out. This was good news because typically the larger the field, the softer the competition. It ended up selling out by 10 am on Saturday.

Pretty impressive turnout and a good sign for poker.

My starting table was pretty soft, but I took an early hit when I opened T9 and was called in late position. Flop came T93 and I bet about half pot. He called and the turn was a 6. I bet about 2/3rds pot this time and he called again. River was a 7 which I wasn't too pleased about. I checked to induce a bet from any missed draws he might have had and also to keep the pot smaller in case he did have me beat. He bet about 1/4ths pot and I called. He had 88 and made the runner runner straight.

That set up my exit hand in level 3 with 50/100 blinds I had about 1700 in chips. A late position player opened and I just called with AA. The big blind called as well and the flop came ten high. The late position player continuation bet and since it wasn't very draw heavy I elected to just call hoping that player might hit something on the turn if they didn't have anything already and I can get all in. Turn was a brick and the player bet all in and I called immediately. Unfortunately he had TT and flopped a set.

Disappointing, but it would have been the same result if I shoved preflop since he would have called with TT based on our stack sizes.

One interesting hand that happened before my bustout was when Marcel Luske got moved to my immediate right and was nursing a short stack of about 900 chips at 50/100 blinds. He ended up getting blinded down to 600 before the following hand took place:

Under the gun player raised to 300. Marcel Luske says "I call for value" and basically commits half his chip stack. It folds around and we see a flop of AJ9. The UTG player now bets enough to put Luske all in and Luske calls and flips up J9!

The whole table had the WTF expression on their face.

The UTG player flipped up his AT for top pair. Of course an Ace binked on the turn to eliminate Luske.

Pretty interesting short stack play by Mr. Marcel Luske.

The entire crew out here went 0-fer in the 1K, but it was a fun event to kick off the World Series.

Holla!

Grant Hinkle

Close in the Full Tilt 750k Guarantee

Had a good run in the Full Tilt 750K Guarantee yesterday. Had a top 5 stack with about 26 left to go.

Unfortunately, I was assigned a pretty tough table/seat assignment where I had the overwhelming chip leader "Chad Eveslage" on my immediate left and two other aggressive players with good stacks on his left. So I was handcuffed a bit, especially compared to my previous table.

I had won a few decent sized pots against Chad and established a short history with him before the following hand came up.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 8000/16000 Blinds 2000 Ante (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

saw flop | saw showdown

Hero (SB) (t763573)
Chad Eveslage (BB) (t1286110)
UTG (t439712)
UTG+1 (t276462)
MP1 (t406831)
MP2 (t718029)
CO (t317264)
Button (t515014)

Hero's M: 19.09

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, 9
6 folds, Hero bets t48000, Chad Eveslage calls t32000

Flop: (t112000) Q, A, 8 (2 players)
Hero bets t60000, Chad Eveslage raises to t151550, Hero calls t91550

Turn: (t415100) 3 (2 players)
Hero checks, Chad Eveslage bets t303075, Hero raises to t562023 (All-In), Chad Eveslage calls t258948

River: (t1539146) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t1539146

Results:
Hero had A, 9 (three of a kind, Aces).
Chad Eveslage had 8, 8 (full house, eights over Aces).
Outcome: Chad Eveslage won t1539146

I ended up weighting Chad's range more towards a bluff because he was a good aggressive player, the chip leader and our history at the table to that point.

I felt like preflop he would reraise with bigger aces, pocket queens and also pocket eights, so I could discount those hands from his range when he raises me on the flop.

Hands he can have that beat me:

AA: The number of combinations are reduced due to having an ace in my hand.

88: I felt like most of the time he would raise with 88 in this blind versus blind situation, but would call some small percentage of the time.

A8: This is the hand I was most concerned about since there are the most combinations and I felt like he would definitely just call preflop with this hand.

With that in mind, I really felt like bluffs made up the majority of his range when he raises me on that flop. So I decided to call him down (shoving once the call on the turn is pretty much pot committing myself).

He showed 88 and I thought he played it really well. I did feel pretty unlucky though as that flop texture led to me calling off my whole stack. There are a bunch of other flops that probably let me get away a lot easier, but that flop has such a narrow range of hands he could have that beat me given the action.

Oh well, good deep tourney practice heading into the World Series of Poker this year.

Shout out to Pat JONES...
Shout out to Turkey BACON....
Shout out to Papa ANIMAL...

Holla!

My World Series of Poker Schedule

I've reviewed the schedule for the 2009 World Series of Poker and set aside my budget for the events I intend on playing.

Tentative schedule looks to be 20 total events and about $43,000 in buy-ins. To reduce some of the variance of the total buy-ins I will be selling some 5% blocks of my action. I haven't decided how much I am going to offload yet, but I will post as soon as I come up with a good number.

That is basically the maximum amount of events I will be playing. Obviously if I make some day 2's and hopefully a day 3/4 then it will cut down my total events played. Also, if I am lucky enough to have a final table early in the schedule, then I plan on adding all the 5K no limit hold'em events to the schedule as well.

Anticipated Schedule:
May 30, 2009 Saturday 12 PM 4A No-Limit Hold’em (4 day event) $1,000
June 2, 2009 Tuesday 12 PM 7 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 3, 2009 Wednesday 12 PM 9 No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed (3 day event) $1,500
June 4, 2009 Thursday 12 PM 11 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $2,000
June 5, 2009 Friday 12 PM 13 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $2,500
June 8, 2009 Monday 12 PM 19 No-Limit Hold'em / Six Handed (3 day event) $2,500
June 9, 2009 Tuesday 12 PM 20 Pot-Limit Hold'em (3 day event) $1,500
June 10, 2009 Wednesday 12 PM 22 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout (1,000 player max) (3 day event) $1,500
June 11, 2009 Thursday 12 PM 24 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 12, 2009 Friday 12 PM 26 Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 13, 2009 Saturday 12 PM 28 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 15, 2009 Monday 12 PM 32 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $2,000
June 16, 2009 Tuesday 12 PM 34 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 18, 2009 Thursday 12 PM 36 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $2,000
June 19, 2009 Friday 12 PM 38 Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $2,000
June 20, 2009 Saturday 12 PM 39 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
June 24, 2009 Wednesday 12 PM 47 Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No-Limit) (3 Day event) $2,500
June 26, 2009 Friday 5 PM 50 Limit Hold’em Shootout (1,000 player max) (3 day event) $1,500
June 27, 2009 Saturday 12 PM 51 No-Limit Hold’em (3 day event) $1,500
July 3, 2009 Friday 12 PM 57A World Championship No-Limit Hold'em Day 1A $10,000
July 4, 2009 Saturday 12 PM 57B Day 1B
July 5, 2009 Sunday 12 PM 57C Day 1C
July 6, 2009 Monday 12 PM 57D Day 1D
July 7, 2009 Tuesday 12 PM Day 2A (1A + 1B)
July 8, 2009 Wednesday 12 PM Day 2B (1C + 1D)
July 9, 2009 Thursday Off
July 9, 2009 Thursday 1 PM Media Event
July 10, 2009 Friday 12 PM Day 3
July 11, 2009 Saturday 12 PM Day 4
July 12, 2009 Sunday 12 PM Day 5
July 13, 2009 Monday 12 PM Day 6
July 14, 2009 Tuesday 12 PM Day 7 (Play down to 27 players)
July 15, 2009 Wednesday 12 PM Day 8 (Play down to 9 players)
November 7-10, 2009 TBD Final Table

YouthFriends Charity Poker Tournament a Success

Congratulations to Michael Malish, the 2008 AnteUp for YouthFriends Champion!

High Stakes Fantasy Football

Normally I participate in two or three fantasy football leagues every year. There's usually one that is a higher buy-in and the other a cheaper one with friends. This year I have more free time so I decided to enter five leagues total including two higher stakes leagues.

The high stakes leagues are mostly made up of other poker players and sports handicappers. I've listed my line-ups below. Both follow the 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 DEF and 1 K starting line-up format.

$500 Baller League - 10 teams
QB: Matt Hasselbeck
RB: Adrian Peterson, Michael Turner, Earnest Graham, Ronnie Brown, Ahmad Bradshaw
WR: Braylon Edwards, Larry Fitzgerald, Greg Jennings, Hines Ward, D.J. Hackett
TE: Todd Heap, Tony Scheffler
DEF: Patriots
K: Stephen Gostkowski

$200 Hall of Fame League (Defending Champion) - 12 teams
QB: Matt Hasselbeck, Aaron Rodgers
RB: Darren McFadden, Michael Turner, Earnest Graham, Felix Jones
WR: Randy Moss, Braylon Edwards, Lee Evans, Derrick Mason, Devin Thomas, Eddie Royal
TE: Tony Scheffler
DEF: Patriots
K: Mason Crosby

According to ESPN projections I am a 28.6 point favorite to win the Hall of Fame game this week and a 24.1 point favorite in the Baller game. Of course there is a lot of variance in fantasy football because of the non-linear scoring system, but its always nice to have the projected best team going into each week.

Holla!

Grant Hinkle

NIN 8.20.08 @ Scottrade Center, St. Louis, MO

Attended the Nine Inch Nails show in St. Louis on Wednesday. We had fan club tickets and were on the floor about 6 people back and a little right of center from the stage.

Nine Inch Nails put on another powerful performance. Trent Reznor is the consummate professional and you can tell he has his hands in every detail. The light show that accompanies the music takes the entire performance to the next level.

I've included a few video clips of the biggest show highlights for me. Thanks to pimphand007 for recording from their seats:

March of the Pigs:

The Wretched:

Closer:

Me, I'm Not:

Reptile:

Photo of Full Set List:

Jerry Seinfeld at Caesar's Palace

Just got back from a quick Vegas trip to see Jerry Seinfeld at Caesar's Palace.

My friend Andy had a birthday recently and his girlfriend got him two tickets to see his favorite comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, at Caesars Palace. Since it was Andy's present he opted to take me instead of his girlfriend.

Good choice Andy.

Just to rub more salt in the wounded girlfriend, it was announced a few days before our Vegas trip that Seinfeld was now coming to Kansas City. So after spending close to $300 per ticket, paying for airfare and then not getting to go to the show, she gets the news that we could have all gone to see him here for $75 bucks in the best possible seats. Ouch.

Rest assured, we had a great time in Vegas. Thanks for the tickets Janice!

 

Strange happenings at KC Royals games

So I went to the Royals-Red Sox game this past Tuesday. I am not a huge baseball fan, but I always warn my friends that something crazy usually happens when I attend.

For instance out of the few games I have attended, I've been lucky enough to witness:

• Four inside the park home runs including Mark Teahan's recent game winning inside the park home run earlier this year.
• Ken Harvey's walk off home run.
• Tony Pena Jr.'s two triple game. For non-Royals fans he is hitting .148 on the season.
• Maybe craziest of all, the Royals usually win when I attend.

So now that the stage is set, here was the crazy play I got to witness Tuesday night:

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

2008 World Series of Poker Episode 3

The clips from Tuesday night have been uploaded to YouTube. You can access them here.

Episode 3 Part 1/5

Episode 3 Part 2/5

Episode 3 Part 3/5

Episode 3 Part 4/5

Episode 3 Part 5/5

2008 World Series of Poker Episode 4

YouTube clilps of Episode 4 listed below.

WSOP Episode 4 Part 1/5

WSOP Episode 4 Part 2/5

WSOP Episode 4 Part 3/5

WSOP Episode 4 Part 4/5

WSOP Episode 4 Part 5/5