The WSOP Summer Grind (Blog)

Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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For those of you who don't know who I am: My name is Ryan Laplante, I am a 28 year old poker professional. Over the 9 years I've played professionally I've played more than 40,000 tournaments, cashed for more than $4,500,000 and have been fortunate enough to win a wsop Gold Bracelet as well have many other large live final tables.

I've decided to do a small blog series for the WSOP/Summer grind this year. Due to my ridiculously busy schedule I can't promise any regularity with this, nor do I know how many of these posts I will write, but if I have time and desire to do so will get as much of these out as I can.

I've done a few WSOP blogs in the past (2011) (2012) and also had a long running BLOG as well.

I thought it'd be nice to do another for this year's summer grind. :)

(Note: "Summer grind" effectively starts with the last WPT event of the year on 5/21 and runs until the last major event of the summer: 7/21)

The last few years the summer has been the best time of the year for me. 2016 I won my first bracelet, set a record for most cashes in the wsop in a summer, set record for winning record breaking field, and was leading the WSOP POY for almost 2 weeks. It was a dream come true in many ways. It was a heartbreaking year as well though, as the night I won my bracelet, the worst mass shooting in US history (at the time) occurred in a gay night club.


2017 was almost better for me. Last summer I made 4 final tables, in which I chopped 2 of them for 2nd place money, and had a 2nd place in a WSOP plo/nlhe event as well. The smallest FT I made was 1 of the most memorable as it was in the tag team event with 1 of my best friends, and was her first FT at the WSOP.

Going into this summer I don't really have true expectations. After having 2 incredible years the last few, even hoping to repeat seems a bit "greedy". That being said, I'm going to go into every tournament with the expectation that anything is possible, and that as long as I stay happy, focused, and determined that maybe I can achieve something great.

My summer grind started yesterday with the $10,000 World Poker Tour "Bobby Baldwin Classic" hosted at the Aria. It attracted a bit more than 150 entries, with many of the best players in the world in the field.

I started the day showing up 10 min early, ready to play a strong and focused game all day. Was a very friendly starting table, playing with Daniel Strelitz and Joey Weissman, and few players I didn't recogonize. We all introduced ourselves, and set the tone for a very friendly and chatty first few hours of the day.

As the day progressed the table got progressively tougher, with players like David Sands, Nick Schulman, Justin Young, Byron Kaverman, Cary Katz and a few others. Many of them busted and got shifted around, but there were generally a few well known other players at the table; To be expected in a field like this.

The most memorable hand of the day:

Big Blind 800, I have 23000 in chips and am in the big blind with AsKc.

UTG (unknown) opens to 1600, folds to Katz in MP1 who calls, then folds to my big blind.

With AKo here I have 2 reasonable options, I can 3bet to a sizing like 6-8k, or I can shove all in. As there is no ICM pressure on me, I decided the higher variance line of 3betting to 7k would be better than just jamming.

UTG calls and Katz calls.

Pot:22,300

Flop:Jc7s6c

I have only 16000 in chips and the pot size is 22000. This is a fairly wet board and either of my opponents can pretty easily have top pair, sets, straight draws or flush draws. That being said, with less than 80% pot in my stack, 2 overs and some back door draws, I believed that this was a pretty typical shove spot for me.

So, I went all in for 16,000, UTG folded, and Katz called with 23cc.

I dodged his pair and flush outs and vaulted up to 54k, after having been at a low point once of 13k!

With 2 hands left in the night, David Sands shoved 18bb from the sb, I was in bb with Ad2s, and made a very begrudging call. I held vs his JTo, and thus I bagged 78k in chips to end the night.

Day 2 is in only 3.5 hours, and it will be big blind 1200.

I hope to run well today, and continue to play my best!

Thank you all for reading and best of luck at the tables!
 
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FailX21

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Wow, good luck for today man !

I'm looking forward for further posts. I really enjoy these kind of blogs, especially when it's from a good player !!
 
Debi

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So glad you are doing this - we do amazing cyber rails at CardsChat! We know you may miss some updates etc - your schedule is insane - but we will love every update that you make for us!


You have a lot of support here and we look forward to going along for the ride!
 
terryk

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I'm sure your going to make this "The summer of Ryan!" :top: Make it happen Dude!! :girl:
 
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Awesome, look forward to reading this and getting some insight from the WSOP. Best of luck fella from the U.K.!
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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Thanks everyone, im glad you're enjoying it!
 
Debi

Debi

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Oh yea - good luck in day 2 of the 10k today!
 
sryulaw

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I am happy to see post so, it encourages us to want to play better every day.
Good game for you, and let another FT come. Success Friend!
 
gabpoker

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I am also glad to see you doing this. Its great to see your insights to the plays you are making. It has really helped my play.

Been following you since I got back seriously into poker last year after finishing 14th in the Goliath warm up event that you won. I had no idea what I was doing and just good incredibly lucky. After that I started studying everything I could. I am looking forward to playing the best I can this summer.

Good luck the rest of the summer. Too bad about today. But now I know that was a standard shove against a good BB contrary to Twitter.

But still hope to outlast you and the rest of the CardsChat team in the Colossus.
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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I am also glad to see you doing this. Its great to see your insights to the plays you are making. It has really helped my play.

Been following you since I got back seriously into poker last year after finishing 14th in the Goliath warm up event that you won. I had no idea what I was doing and just good incredibly lucky. After that I started studying everything I could. I am looking forward to playing the best I can this summer.

Good luck the rest of the summer. Too bad about today. But now I know that was a standard shove against a good BB contrary to Twitter.

But still hope to outlast you and the rest of the CardsChat team in the Colossus.
Thank you!

Best of luck this summer!
 
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ShareMyPair

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Nice job with the blog

This sets up perfectly for using the new-and-improved ShareMyPair embedded hand replayer -- particularly using the CardsChat tabletop skin.

Please contact me at steve@cardsharkmedia.com should you have questions.
 

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ShareMyPair

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Check out this mockup with the embedded ShareMyPair hand replayer.
 

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8bod8

8bod8

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Thanks Ryan, I'll be following, fure sure will pick up lots of missing pieces for my poker puzzle.
Good Luck (even for it'll make life more easy)!
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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Day2 of the $10k started off wonderfully.

bb1200, 80k effective, I raise QdQh to 2500 in mp1, btn calls, bb calls.

Pot:9900

Flop: Th9h2s, bb checks

I have 2 legitimate options here, I can make a fairly large cbet or check raise. Which I choose is fairly opponent dependent. My btn opponent this time was a fairly aggressive recreational player, so I assumed he'd be willing to blast off if I let him.

I check, btn bets 8k, I raise to 32k, he shoves all in for 80k effective, and My QQ holds vs KT!

This hand shot me up to over 100 big blinds and 2x avg with around 60 people left and 21 paid.

Unfortunately not long after this I got moved to a new and much tougher table, I wasn't too worried about it as I had a great stack to battle with though.

But the following hand started my downward trend, that lead me to busting not long after...

BB1600, I raise QdQc to 3500 in the highjack, cutoff is Darryl Fish (just had a $1 mil score in montreal) he 3bet to 12500.

Darryl has only 80k when he 3b me, and with LP vs LP this is a very reasonable spot for me to 4b my hand for value and stack off. That being said, without too much info to how he plays and without a lot of history I believed it would be best to call and try to keep his range as wide as possible.

I call.

Pot: 28k

Flop: Js6s5c, I check he cbets 8500

Raising here would be a reasonable option, however I believe it is best to protect my calling range. Thus I call.

Pot: 45k
Turn: 4h, I check, he bets 13k

This is where the hand starts to get pretty interesting. I thought based on his sizing that he'd not have hands like AA/KK and because of that I assumed he would have a lot of bluffs here, and while some of those have a decent amount of equity (flush draws) most of his bluff combos are AK/AQ, thus I believed it would be best for me to continue to call down and set the trap for him bluffing the river.

I call

Pot: 71k

River: Ts

I check, he shoves 46k.

When he shoves here it just comes down to whether or not he continues often enough with the bluffs I perceived him to have. Part of why I can call is also based on how high up in my range I am (I have many worse hands than QQ here...) For both of these reasons as well as the great odds on a call I am getting, I felt I had a very begrudging call.

I call, he flips over 78hh and I lose. :(

While I still had 80k in chips after this hand, I busted within an hour of it occurring after a handful of unfortunate defends and folds, and a bvb shove.

Not the best tournament for me.

However!

The final table was a really fun one. I knew 3 people at it. Jonathan Little is a good friend of mine as is Kitty Kuo, and Joe Mckeehen is a fellow CLCPoker Coach.

Unfortunately Jonathan took a brutal AJ<A4 beat to take 6th, and Joe lost a massive AQ<A2 3 handed vs Darren Elias to take 3rd.

Kitty put up a long hard battle vs Darren, but started with a large disadvantage in chips and wasn't able to overcome his large lead heads up.

Was still an awesome night railing friends though and put me in a great mindset for the summer!

spending this weekend with a wsop kickoff bbq/party at my place, hanging out with my fiance and starting the grind monday with a $1100 500k GTD.

Thank you for reading and best of luck at the tables!
 
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FailX21

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Too bad for this one :/

These hands reviews are really instructive for me, I like the fact that you explain all your moves in details, thanks man !
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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Too bad for this one :/

These hands reviews are really instructive for me, I like the fact that you explain all your moves in details, thanks man !
No problem.

Im glad you are enjoying them!
 
8bod8

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Too bad for this one :/

These hands reviews are really instructive for me, I like the fact that you explain all your moves in details, thanks man !
Agree, different level.
For Ryan:
Thanks, enjoy the weekend and good luck next week!
 
Dejange

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Enjoy the weekend Ryan :top:

I am also very thankful to read your hand's reviews and watching your blogs, and the contributions you are doing to our CardsChat forum. Very nice man, and wish you a lot of success in the forthcoming poker journey :top:
 
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Really cool reading this! Good luck Ryan! I'll be reading your posts!
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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Today begins my 1st day of 8 weeks of the summer tournament grind. My 8th year grinding the WSOP. 8 years of incredible success and dreams coming true.

Over these weeks ill play up to 43 unique wsop events, and around 10 other events. Total number of entries will be between 50 and 100.

If you'd like more frequent updates than my blog posts here; please follow my twitter (@protentialmn).

This is my biggest summer ever for buyins and action bought. The last 2 were the best of my life, so im hoping for the 3peat, but I know very well the risks of the game and likelyhood of a bricked summer.

So, while I am excited to get started, I am still nervous about how its going to go. Will give it my all, and wait and see. :)
 
Dejange

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Today begins my 1st day of 8 weeks of the summer tournament grind. My 8th year grinding the WSOP. 8 years of incredible success and dreams coming true.

Over these weeks ill play up to 43 unique wsop events, and around 10 other events. Total number of entries will be between 50 and 100.

If you'd like more frequent updates than my blog posts here; please follow my twitter (@protentialmn).

This is my biggest summer ever for buyins and action bought. The last 2 were the best of my life, so im hoping for the 3peat, but I know very well the risks of the game and likelyhood of a bricked summer.

So, while I am excited to get started, I am still nervous about how its going to go. Will give it my all, and wait and see. :)

Could not said all that better! Good luck, good luck :top:
 
Debi

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Hope your kick-off party was a blast - was gutted to miss it by 2 days! I know I would have loved it!


See you tomorrow morning!
 
Ryan Laplante

Ryan Laplante

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Hope your kick-off party was a blast - was gutted to miss it by 2 days! I know I would have loved it!


See you tomorrow morning!
It was great. See you soon!
 
Peppinotom

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Good luck this summer my hero :cool:
you need to raise your winnings to 6 or 9 millions this year, the 4 million just doesn't fit in your signature.
 
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