WPT Bahamas

I'm out

2007-01-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a pretty messy last hand. But before I get to that.. basically for 4 levels I got hardly any playable hands. A few small pairs that went no where, got reraised off a few steals, but generally played very tight until the last hand. Was blinded down to about 21k with nothing very eventful happening. No big pots, just a pretty quick blind structure and high antes. With blinds at 600/300 and a 7 ante I raised to 2000 with 9d7d in second position. This was the loosest raise I had made all tournament and figured I'd just take the blinds. Every hand I won before I had showed down AA, KK or AK. Big blind, a pretty bad internet player who got very lucky before calls. Flop is 843 one diamond. He bets out 2k I raise to 7k to represent an overpair. He calls. Turn comes 6d to give me an open ended straight draw as well as a flush draw. He checks, and think for a bit then jam in the rest of my chips. He hums and haws and almost folds then calls with A5o! Ugh.. river comes a 6 and I one again fail to make a big draw in a big live tournament. I should probably learn but it's probably too late for me to mend my ways. That's it for me for now, time to enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Holy crap

2007-01-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

First break.. with starting stacks of 20,000 chips, I'm at about 44k. On the 10th hand of the tournament, managed to double up with AA vs KK when we got it all in on the T high flop. Then proceeded to pick off the guy with 88 vs AQ a few hands later so I was the early chip leader and knocked out the first guy of the event. Picked up KK twice, AA once, AK and that's basically all the hands I've played.

Table 12, seat 6

2007-01-05T11:08:00.000-05:00

The few moments before a poker tournament reminds me a lot of exam time. Many young, boisterous people gather around the entrance trying to convince themselves that they know what they're doing and perhaps intimidate their peers. This is especially the case here were the age required to play is only 18 or 19 years old, versus 21 in the US so they stereotypical internet pro is disproportionately represented here. In the lobbies where wireless access is available you can't look around without seeing someone multi-tabling poker on their laptop at all hours of the day.

The poker room this year takes up the grand ballroom where over 40 tables are set up to accomodate the tournament and side games. Not quite the spectacle that was the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas but still quite impressive. A quick glance over the starting table list reveals no one recognizable at my table, so hopefully I'll have a fairly soft table. My goal this year is to hit a flush draw and not bluff off my chips when I miss.

The poker express

2007-01-04T10:11:00.000-05:00

So the adventure begins again. I'm just about to board the flight for the bahamas which is sending at least a dozen poker hopefuls on their way to fame and fortune. The departure area is full of bad beat stories, suckouts and tales of huge pots. Defending champion steve paul-ambrose is also here, taking a westjet flight like a true balla. I'm playing on the first day of the tournament tomorrow but it's unlikely I'll be able to post live updates since the blackberry probably doesn't work down there There will probably be coverage on pokerwire.com and cardplayer.com as well as the official pokerstarsblog.com so perhaps if I get knocked out by someone famous ill be mentioned.

PCA Qualifying Tourney Report

2006-11-26T15:53:00.000-05:00

The structure of these tournaments is pretty good: 2500 chips to start, blinds 10/20 and 30 minute levels (double the normal length and more chips to boot) so it was my intention to play a very conservative game. I figured that most people wouldn't adjust well to this structure, being too aggressive and ending up playing big pots far too early. For the most part I stuck to this strategy until closer to the prizes when most people went a little too conservative, although in a satellite tournament with a flat prize structure this isn't too wrong. I actually get very few decent starting hands until deep into the tournament so the first few paragraphs are pretty boring. You can skip down to the later ones where more interesting things happen.

Not much happens for the first few dozen hands.. I do tight things like fold KJs to a limper, open fold 75s and 63s. The first hand I somewhat get involved with is hand #24 where I call 2 limpers and a raise with 98s and check/fold a JAQ flop. In the next 40 hands I get 88,77,22,44 and whiff on all of them except for winning with 22 in a four way shown that's checked down flop, turn and river. It's a pretty boring tournament so far. I finally pick up QQ, raise and get 4 callers!? Do they not see how tight I've been playing? I bet the 8J9 flop, get raised and reraise (a massive overbet push) and have to lay it down. Ugh. Down to 1805 now. It's still early with blinds 15/30 so not terrible yet but going in the wrong direction. I win a small pot with AQ to get back over 2000.

The blinds are up to 25/50 now and someone is doing idiotic things re-raising AKo all-in preflop with 50+ big blind stacks. Let's call this guy Pauly since he comes into play in every hand for the next little while. Lucky for him he's up against KK and obviously sucks out with an A on the river. The next hand I play (#93 - yes, quite a lot of folding.. I am both playing tight and getting no cards) I tangle with Pauly. I raise UTG to 150 with AKo, get a caller and the Pauly reraises to 750. I know if I jam here I'm getting called so I reluctantly fold and tell myself there's still plenty of time. At hand 104 I finally flop a set with TT and pick up some chips from Pauly, so I'm above my starting stack for the first time at almost 3000.

Blinds are now up to 50/100 and Pauly is still providing entertainment (and blog content). He's still got a big stack from the suckout, about 6000. It's folded to him in the SB and he jams vs the BB's 1000 stack. He's got K3o, and the BB calls with AA. No one is surprised when the flop comes 733. Although everyone is surprised when the river comes... A! Nice suck/resuck. I win a pot c-betting AQ on the flop, then lose a pot c-betting 77 on the flop. I flop a set of 44 vs Pauly and play it poorly, letting him off the hook by check raising all-in on the flop and he manages to somehow find a fold.

With blinds up to 75/150, I get some more chips off Pauly with this questionable play. I raise in mid position with TT, Pauly calls in the big blind. Flop is 347 rainbow. I bet, Paul calls. Turn 8. I push slightly more than the pot and he folds. I'm not sure what that push accomplishes since he calls with 56, a set, or an overpair and folds everything else. Or maybe he's the type of guy who would call with A7 there? Or a bare 5 or 6? Who knows. Anyway, we're 150 hands in now and I haven't seen AA or KK yet so I'm starting to feel I'm due soon. I win a small pot with AQ vs Pauly. Looking back at the record, it's amazing how many chips I've peeled off him. I think I can safely say I owe him for this win.

I build my stack up to 5000 with the blinds 100/200 by reraising all in with 44 to a mid position raiser. Image resteal there since I've been very tight. We're at hand 180 now and I've documented every hand I've played so far, which is not very much. Here's another pretty questionable play by someone else which I'm thankful for. UTG limps, I call with 22 in mid position and the big blind checks. Flop comes 6T9 with two hearts. Checked around. Turn is an off suit 8. Checked around again. River 2. Checked to me and I bet and get called by UTG's QQ. Score! I can't believe she didn't put any chips into the pot before the river. I fold AQ to another massive over push reraise and am at 6500. I get up to 7100 by reraising with AK and taking it down, then blind down to 6300. I steal the blinds with TT at hand #225.

At hand #230, I encounter the only peril I'd meet for pretty much the whole tournament. The button raises to 600, and I re-raise to 2000 with JJ in the SB. The big blind pushes and I hesitate before calling the rest of my 4300 chips. Luckily the BB has AK and I double up on a blank board. I'm finally in very good shape now with 13,000 chips and the blinds 100/200. I pick up some more re-raising with QQ vs a raiser and a caller. I lose a bit with 99 trying to pick up the pot on a KQ4 board but get raised off it, then win the blinds with AQ. 250 hands now and no sign of AA or KK yet, odd of this are like what, infinity to 1. Pick up another pot with AQ re-raising on the flop. So far no one's played back at my re-raising so things are going very well.

At hand 266 the table breaks. A shame since I've been the same table for the whole time and have pretty good reads on most people. 6 hands into the new table I play two hands which I'm very proud of. I've folded everything so far. The first hand, with the blinds 200/400, it's folded to 'Pwnasaurus' in the SB. He raises to 1000. I figure with a name like that he's pretty aggressive so I reraise all-in (to 9400) with 44 and he folds. The very next hand, he raises again to 1000 on the button. I have AQd in the SB and just call. I figure if I reraise him again I'm going to get called and I didn't want to flip for my stack just yet. It seems unlikely he'd be trying to steal after getting caught in the previous hand. Flop comes AT3 two spades. This was the perfect flop for me since I can represent a flush draw, a gutshot straight draw, or a pure bluff and can get called with pocket pairs or other semi-weak holdings. I check, he bets 1400 and I raise all-in. He thinks and thinks and thinks and finally calls with JT! My hand holds and I bust him. I resist the urge to type 'pwned!' in the chat window. I guess he really didn't believe my two all-ins in a row. I pick up a few more blinds preflop with 88 and QQ, fold AK to a raise and reraise, fold AJ to a raise. It's been a really long time since I've been playing deep stacks and so it feels odd to be folding things like that.

We hardly see a flop anymore since the prizes are in sight now. Blinds are 400/800 and we've been playing for 5 hours now. I can quickly tell who the really tight players are and start stealing their blinds at will, meeting absolutely no resistance. There are two of them in perfect position, one to my left and one 3 to my left. Unfortunately someone else to my right also picks up on it so they start stealing those blinds before I can get to them. I win preflop twice in 5 hands off the stealer by re-raising first with AA (finally!) and AK. I'm really surprised I didn't get called the second time since a) I thought he'd have something raising again so soon and b) he didn't think I'd have something re-raising him again. But whatever, thanks for the chips. This boosts me to 29k and pretty healthy with the blinds 400/800 and very tight play.

At hand #369 I have 30k chips and am probably in the top 16 with maybe 30 players left. A pretty quiet guy with 16k raises to 4k (blinds 400/800 still). Folded to me in the BB with JJ. I fold!?!? My thinking was with such a large raise, he's committing his stack so I'm not sure I want to flip or run into an overpair. I have a healthy stack and plenty of blinds to steal. I'm not used to this conservative style of folding JJ to a single raise but I think its the right move.

At hand #397 (600/1200) I make a really questionable play that I think could have cost me the seat. I have 32k and raise to 3000 with KQs in mid position. The button re-raises all-in for 11.5k. I have seen his name before at a final table of the Sunday million tourney (more than once I think) so I know he's good and observant. So he's seen me steal a lot, especially versus these blinds in particular. So there's about 15k in the pot and I have 8.5k to call. In a cash tourney it's an easy call since I'm easily getting the right odds vs his range of hands (any pair, probably almost any ace). But in this sort of satellite survival is the goal, not winning. I think for about a minute before my finger clicks the call button without me commanding it to do so. He has A6o and I fail to suckout. I'm down to 20k and not feeling great with the blinds 600/1200. My gut says it was the wrong thing to do, but I really wanted to defend my raises to make others things twice about re-stealing from me.

Less than 10 hands later, I pick up AA in mid position and raise to 3k. I get reraised all in by someone with 23k (like I said, no small pots around here) they hold up against AQ. So with 42k, I'm comfortably in the top 10 and coast to the seat, picking up the blinds with AQ twice, JJ and stealing a little here and there just to stay even. Play is really tight and conservative and takes about 70 hands to bust the last couple of people since no mid size stack is willing to play back with anything less than AK.

WPT Bahamas, redux

2006-11-26T00:20:00.000-05:00

At long last the blog can once again rightfully be called the WPT Bahamas blog as I have just qualified for the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure 2007 (held Jan 4-11 at the Atlantis Resort and Casino

Luck was definitely on my side this year as I played only 6 tournaments to qualify, a $33 rebuy, a $80 satellite and 3 $22 rebuy tournaments. I won one of the $22 tourneys to qualify for a $650 super satellite. In the $650, there were 318 players and 16 packages awarded. Total investment, $310.

Details to follow tomorrow.

Some more pics

2006-08-02T00:22:00.000-04:00

The crowd to fight your way through to get to the tournament area

Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG) who now writes for PokerStars

Still happy before it started

Finally thanks to everyone for their support and for reading this!

WSOP Wrap Up

2006-08-01T23:05:00.000-04:00

After having some time to reflect on it, I think I have a lot to learn about deep stack live tournaments. I'm going to attempt to write down these thoughts in hopes it'll be useful if I ever play any other large tournaments.

Small pots - I'm sure I could have conserved a lot of chips by playing less aggressively and keeping pots small. Ironically, I went into the tournament with the intention of playing more aggressively and stealing more pots. Those kind of were at odds with each other since everytime I took a stab at pots I'd be bloating them up and it would result in more chips required to push someone out and making it more likely to get called since the pot is so large.

Physical tells - not sure if I had any but I got picked off on two big bluffs so it's something I need to consider. I think I need to pause and act more deliberately each time. It would also help a lot at thinking through the hand. I'm still too used to having only 15 seconds to think online and usually just go with my instincts. Against most of the people at the table I wasn't too worried about giving off tells but there was one guy who was obviously much more comfortable playing live most of the table.

Identifying the fish - one thing I've read a few times is that you must identify the people who can't get away from top pair types of hands and stack them early before they lose their chips to someone else. Very good advice. I think I did a good job of doing so, but just wasn't able to get involved with them with a decent hand.

I'm pretty sure I'm able to play strong hands much better than I can play mid/weak hands. That might be an obvious statement but I think I am reasonably good at getting max value out of strong hands, as opposed to keeping the pots smaller for weaker hands.

Some other interesting hands, from memory:

Early in the first level I get QQ UTG+1 and raise to 150. Aggressive guy makes it 500, everyone else folds and I repop him to 1500. He reraises to 3000. I think, look at him and ponder. He has been very active but says reasonably confidently "I have a monster, no bs, I'll show you if you fold". Immediately I discount AA but not 100%. But what does he put in a 4th raise with? And a min raise at that. Hellmuth says 4th raise = AA. So I think KK is most likely. I fold, he shows QQ I quietly puke in my mouth and manage to agree when someone asks if I have AK.

Last hand before a break. I pick up JJ and raise. Bad/loose guy (who raises KJo UTG, plays many Ax hands out of position) reraises out of the SB. Knowing he over values hands I reraise him and he calls. Flop Axx. Most of the table has left for the break but one guy stayed behind to watch the action. the SB leads out with a healthy bet into the pot. I think and he says I'll show if you fold. Ugh.. that dreaded line again. I ask him if that means if it's good or bad and he shrugs. I think AK is most likely here since AA and KK probably would have gotten all the chips in preflop. I think I make the easy decision to fold and he shows QQ. Bah.. at least I was behind but I really didn't think he had it in him to make a move like that with and A high flop and so much raising going on preflop. The guy watching says I laid down KK there and I don't do anything to disagree with him. So the moral is if they want you to fold (by offering to show), it's usually a good hand that can't stand too much action.

The bust out hand. I think I cold called because I gave the UTG raise too much credit. I had only played about 2 orbits with that table and the normal raise was 800 (too high in my opinion). I didn't expect much action but I think Agustin might have been right for me to reraise and hopefully isolate with position or fold to a reraise. I also regret leading out and bloating the pot but after two checks to me I habitually stab at it. I think that was a big mistake though because someone has AA/KK/QQ/TT/JJ and none of them are going anywhere. Once I did that though I was committed.. running the numbers I'm 33% vs a set, 55% vs QQ or KK and 45% vs AA. So an easy call even if I go home 2 out of 3 times.

The day after busting out I played about 6 hours of mixed games at Treasure Island (they call it "tangerine" for some reason). We played Razz, 5 card draw (no one ever plays that anymore), stud (high), omaha hi/low, 2-7 triple draw low, crazy pineapple and eventually badugi got thrown in. It was originally 4-handed with 3 other internet players who had been up all night playing those games for mostly the first time. It was a friendly game with lots of discussion about the hands. I was extremely impressed with how sharp they were in their analysis of other players hands, making good value bets or making good folds. I mean really impressed, especially since they had been up for more than 24 hours. I was a lot of fun until some local pros showed up and actually tried to play seriously. Very educational though and much more fun that just grinding out hold'em even if I gave back all my winnings from the previous days. I think we'll start to see these other games grow in popularity on the online sites pretty fast. Stars is going to start offering HORSE soon and it'll even be their biggest tournament ($5000) in the upcoming World Series of Online Poker.

I'm out

2006-07-31T00:08:00.000-04:00

Well, that didn't last too long. The table broke shortly after the break and I got moved to another table. Folded for a round or two then comes the fateful hand. Utg raises 800 with the blinds 100/200/25 ante. I call with AKc. Late position calls and BB calls. Flop comes J6T two clubs. BB checks and utg checks. I lead 1500 and the limper raises to 5500. I'm getting ready to fold when the BB cold calls 5500. Ugh. I've got about 7500 behind. At this point I figure that there's got to be a set out there but I have the nut flush draw and the gutshot queen draw also should be be good. So I jam in the rest of my chips. Some contraversy occurs about whether the limper can reraise (he can't because I didn't raise enough). With the pot so large I don't think I can fold there. So obviously the turn and river brick out and I'm going home.

Dinner break

2006-07-30T21:55:00.000-04:00

Down to 7000 pretty card dead and only played about 6 hands all during that level. Lost a sizeable pot with JJ vs QQ on the last hand before the break. Ah well, still got some room to maneuver and I'm certainly due for big hands now.

Second break

2006-07-30T19:52:00.000-04:00

Back down to about 12000. Not much action. Made one full house and got paid off then chased 3 flushes and didn't hit any and got 2 bluffs snapped again. No more bluffing!

Sick sick poker

2006-07-30T17:44:00.000-04:00

I started out ok, calling with pairs and high cards and completely missing flop. Got involved with some aggro guy and bluffed off about 2000. Got involved with another ok guy and bluffed on a 789Q board and got snapped off for another 2000 or so. Ugh, I have a terrible image now. I get AK twice in two hands, raise and get called and get checkraised off my hand both times, once in a raised pot and once ina reraise flop. I almost called once but the guy had been so agg that I didn't think he would do it again. After about an hour and a bit I was down to 2000 ish and was having my dreams crushed once again. So sick.

I tighten up and decide for a hand to commit to and double up but nothing comes. About 20 mins before the break I get AA utg+1 and limp 50. I had limped a fair amount in various places so not strange. Utg+2 raises to 300 and I repop to 1000 hoping its not too obvious. He makes it 1500 and I call and my hand holds up vs his QQ. Very next hand I get KK utg and raise to 200. Late position makes it 700 and I call. Flop 642 and I check raise him all in and my KK holds against QQ again. About 10 hands later I call a raise on the button with 86o with about 4-5 players. Flop comes 975 two spades. Aggro bets, I call, the QQ guy from the first hand makes it 3000. Aggro folds and I jam for about 4000 more. He flips 55 for a set and I sweat the board not pairing. I snap a bluff with 94o on a 6433K board and feel like I can do no wrong. I end with about 23000 in chips after being down to 2000 in the first break. So sick.

Table 164, Seat 5

2006-07-30T12:14:00.000-04:00

That's where I will be for awhile I hope. One interesting technology they're using for photos this year is FaceIT. You basically sign up by giving your name and having them take your picture. Then as they take pictures throughout the event, they use face recognition technology to automatically label the pictures so you can search for people you know. I've signed up so I'm curious if I'll eventually end up in their DB.

Here's an article about it:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2006/6/high-tech-wsop-facial-recognition.htm

To search for pictures, go here:
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/photo_store/

Warming Up

2006-07-30T11:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I played a bit of baby NL (1-3 blinds, max $500 buyin) to warm up. Good thing I did, since it's been quite awhile since I've played live in a casino - perhaps not since the WSOP last year?

Anyway, I had a pretty bad case of the shakes on the first hand in but got over it pretty quickly. Originally I planned to play at the Wynn but the list was was too long there in mid-afternoon. I ended up back at Treasure Island since it was unbearable to walk more then across the street in mid day. I sat down at 4:00pm and didn't end up leaving until 11:00pm since the table was pretty juicy. There were a couple of really weak tight locals to my left, a couple of ultra aggressive pros to my right, and enough tourists to build pretty big limped pots so perfect position. Many people would sit down with only $100 or so, blow them off and rebuy, repeat then leave. One pretty good guy racked out about $3400 although he had been there longer than I had. Apparently some guy sat down with a ton of blacks ($100 chips) and just blew them off before I got there, although I'm not sure how he managed to get more than $500 in play. Normally you don't see black chips at a 1-3 table but there were about $1000 in blacks in play here.

The aggressive pros would straddle to $10 whenever they could, and induced some tourists to do so as well. Turned into a pretty volatile game but I had great position on the deep stacked pros and managed to win and lose my share of pots chasing straights. The two aggressive pros busted multiple times and probably were down over $1000 each. One of the other locals was just so weak tight it was unbelievable. He was sacred to play post-flop. Some examples: early raise to $10, a caller, and he jammed to $100 from the big blind with JJ, saying he was happy to win the $20 because he didn't want to see overcards on the flop. Another hand, I raised to $10 with QJs on the button and he makes it $40 from the big blind. I make a motion of kissing my chips goodbye and throw them in. Flop comes Kxx and he checks!? I check behind. Q turn and he checks again!? I bet and he folds!?

I stacked AK with 54o, on a A23 flop, called down a bluff with 22, flopped a few sets, standard stuff like that. Nothing too memorable but cashed out up $425, down from a peak of over +$600. One comment from a guy about me: "I'm scared of this guy, he probably does all the math and stuff".

A nice warm up but I will definitely have to tighten up and be more aggressive today. I didn't bluff a single hand last night but that will have to be part of the game plan today.

So it begins again

2006-07-29T16:52:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Las Vegas last night on my first ever Westjet flight. Not too bad, with leather seats and live satellite TV. It arrived about 20 mins early, but traffic at 10pm on a Friday night in Vegas was terrible and it probably took atleast 30 mins to make the short trek from the airport. Oh, I ran into Steve Paul-Ambrose at the airport who was waiting there for his family to arrive on the same flight I took. Steve was the winner of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure this year and hails from Waterloo. Other than him, I haven't seen any well-known poker personalities so far.

I'm staying at Treasure Island this year - tried to slip the front desk clerk $20 to upgrade, but either she didn't see it (I'm just too smooth) or they actually were full. Ended up with a corner room overlooking the strip on the 34th floor anyway which is just fine.

One neat thing about the poker room here is they actually have the waiting list available on TV. At 6:30am there wasn't much of a wait but I thought that was useful.. and signs poker is quite popular, if you hadn't noticed.

I picked up my goody bag of stuff, shown below. Shirts, hats, jerseys, a nice jacket, bag teddy bear, a baseball and trading cards. Not too shabby. The strange thing this year is that Harrah's decided not to allow .com advertising, so all players sporting shirts from poker sites have either had to wear .net (play money) gear or tape over the .com portion of the logo. So there are plenty of people walking around with duct tape on their clothes.

I went to the Rio to finalize my registration which went fine. I was a bit worried because I heard people were getting their days changed without notice but everything is fine and I'm playing tomorrow as expected.

They had a "poker lifestyle" exhibition which was a small trade show. All the major sites had booths with girls handing out free stuff. I managed to accumulate about 10 lbs of hats, shirts, bags. The biggest score was a 1GB flash drive.

PokerStars had a booth where you could play "Battleship Poker" for prizes. It's basically laptops set up face to face and you play a heads-up match. I was out pretty quickly with AQ vs 74s on a Q72 flop (7) turn and the guy who beat me draw a video ipod for a prize. That would have been sweet.

Some more pics from the trade show

PokerStars Aston Martin (they're a sponsor)

A view of a poker table with built in screens - no dealer required!

The Bodog poker bachelor pad - complete with lingerie clad girls upstairs. You could line up for a pillow fight with them.

A case with all the bracelet from members of the Full Tilt team in their hospitality suite

It is a happy Canada Day indeed

2006-07-02T01:13:00.000-04:00

I just qualified for the 2006 WSOP Main Event, after weeks of trying. The tournament I won was a $33 rebuy (same as last year) where I beat out 198 other players for the single prize. Near the end of the rebuy period, I was allin preflop twice within 4 hands when I hit a set vs an over pair (TT vs QQ and JJ vs KK) to emerge from the rebuy period with the chip lead. From there I maintained the lead almost wire to wire, never dropping below 15th spot and winning 4 huge coinflips vs other top 10 players including the last hand.

Total investment in this tournament, $93. Total investment trying to qualify this year - too scary to add up.

The tournament starts July 28th in Las Vegas.

I'm out

2005-07-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

Blinded down to about 2500. Utg limps, sb completes, I push with 33 in the BB. UTG calls with QQ and I'm out.

Third break

2005-07-09T20:17:00.000-04:00

4525. Card dead. AK twice once losing 2000 to a short stack allin with TT and once had to fold on 789 flop. Bled off the rest with some bluffs and steals gone wrong. Blinds 100/200+25 ante when I return. Need to gamble for a double up soon.

Second break

2005-07-09T18:21:00.000-04:00

9375. I am a folding machine for the first hour back. Finally a get a monster after two limpers and I raise in late with ATo. One caller. Flop comes JTx. He checks I bet he calls. Turn another rag. Check I bet almost half my stack he folds phew. Thanks ultra tight image.

I get 88 utg and make my standard 3xBB raise. Ultra tight Utg+1 starts to think. I know I am toast if he calls. He looks over at me so I look away and try to feel disinterested. He immediately folds. That's about all the interesting hands I've been involved in.

We lose the other stars qualifer when he check raises allin with the board 679T and of course gets called by 88. He's replaced with a short stack who plays 2 hands, overbetting with pushed each time. The good agg maniac is up to over 15k and dangerous now.

Lost about 25 tables so far. One guy still hasn't shown up yet and is pretty close to me in chips

First break

2005-07-09T16:14:00.000-04:00

7775. Playing mostly small pairs and KK which lost about a 1000 pot to A5o who limped and called my raise preflop. Aand 2 clubs on the flop and I fire two bets before giving up and checking down the river hoping he had a busted flush draw.

Another loose maniac playing about 75% of hands folded to him had been raising my BB 4 orbits on a row. I finally got sick of it and defended his 3xBB raise with 62o. Flop comes K53 and I bet out. He calls. Turn another K. I think a bit and bet again. He calls after thinking. I am 90% sure he doesn't have a king. River 8. I fire my third shot and after about 1 min he calls with QQ. Geez maybe he does get good cards on my BB.

Table is fairly aggressive with few unraised flops. We lost one player after 40 mins. Raised and reraised preflop. Flop rags. Bet call. Turn K. Big 2000 bet. Other person thinks awhile and pushes. Orginally raiser calls with AKs (two spades on board) and pushes has KK for a set. River comes 7 of spades making the flush but also a full house and we lose a doyles room qualifier.

One person to my right hasn't shown up yet.

Gotten 33 44 66 KK and the rest of my hands I've played have been steals.

2005-07-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

No pros. One other PS qualifier. One full tilt one doyles room.

Table 170, seat 4

2005-07-09T13:49:00.000-04:00

10 mins to go until it starts and so far its heads up between me and another pokerstars guy. Easy money.

Shuffle up and deal!

2005-07-07T22:30:00.000-04:00

I managed to get over to the Rio for the opening hand of the world series main event. It was a madhouse there, you literally could not move through the aisles that divided up the 200 poker tables. There was a constant background hum of chips being riffled and you could feel the tension in the airspace over each poker table as everyone had their gameface on.

I hung around for a few minutes after they started, half expecting to hear a dealer yell out “seat open!” Indicating that someone had busted out in the first hand, but it didn't happen.

I headed back to our room at the Venetian, if you could call it that. More like an apartment! I had heard some people (dave caputo I think) mention to tip the front desk clerk when checking in. So I did that, nervously flashing a $20 bill while asking what the best room available was. Turned out that for my $99 priceline.com reservation, she was willing to upgrade me to a 1500 sq ft suite overloooking the strip. 2 washrooms, 3 TVs, living and dining room, jacuzzi tub and a great view. I'll have to try that one again soon.

Once I get internet access I will post some pictures. The other down side of being too cheap to pay 10/day is that I have no idea how the first day went. You readers probably know more about what happened than I do!

The dreams...

2005-07-06T07:19:00.000-04:00

... have begun. Most of them involve Allen Cunningham and two queens. You can interpret that one however you like. Coincidently, Allen is currently the biggest money winner at the WSOP this year - so I was knocked out by the best at the Bahamas. The other weird one started out with me sitting down to play on the first day, but it had turned into CFA writing tournament. That wasn't fun.

My first day of play will be on the third "first" day - Saturday July 9. I'm flying out tonight, so at least I'll have a chance to relax and get over the jet lag. If I make it deep into the tourney it's going to be a long grueling few days. Dan Harrington, whose books I have been studying, noted that last year at the WSOP main event, he was the only person at the final table that played on the second out of two starting days. Players on the first day would have had a day off before the marathon began. So if I don't do well, I'll know exactly what to blame. That and the weird dreams.

So onto the deets (very long)

2005-06-27T21:21:00.000-04:00

I've won an entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event. This is the biggest tournament of the year in poker. The entry fee is $10,000 and I'd guess more than 5,000 people will enter (they've capped the max # of entries at 6600). It takes place on July 7-15 - yes, in just a week and a half - so I just squeeked in just in time.

The tournament I played in was a $33 + rebuy tournament, which meant that for the first hour, if you were at the starting amount of chips or lower you could buy more chips for another $30. There were 252 people entered. First prize was the entry into the WSOP plus $1000 for travel expenses, and places 2 through 8 paid $650.

All you non-poker players can just stop reading here because now I'll get into the stuff only the poker geeks are interested in.

It was the 5th $33 tournament I had played in. I also had 3 other attempts in $650 tournaments, and a couple of $160 double shootouts. Total amount invested in WSOP qualifier was $2130.. which seems like a lot now that I total it all up. Hmmm. Anyway...

I didn't have much success with any of the other qualifiers I played in, so didn't really have high hopes for this one either but was playing a whole bunch of tournaments this afternoon just for the heck of it. This one started off pretty weirdly. I forgot to rebuy immediately as I normally do, but in the first hand I had QQ UTG. Raised and got 3 callers. Flop came J53 and I bet out, got raised, and we got all the chips in. He turns over K5, I win, and he doesn't rebuy! So long and thanks for your chips.

Things are pretty slow and uneventful until the 3rd hand. I get KK, get all the chips in preflop with AQ and win again. He also leaves the tourney! So I've knocked 2 people out of a rebuy, tripled up and became chip leader after 3 hands. Nice.

It's still in the rebuy period so I don't go crazy, just wanting to hold on to a decent stack until the rebuys are over. I probably play about 5-6 of the next 50 hands, which is ultra-tight during a rebuy, but still lose about 1/3 of my chips with hands like AQ against QQ TT and 88, and then defending my BB with KJo. Down to about 2500, it's time to start pushing and hoping to double up before the rebuys are over.
Unfortunately I don't get the chance, but on the last hand there are 3 limpers, I push with A9o and get no callers. 3000 in chips, plus 2000 for the $30 add on and I exit the rebuy period with almost 5000 in chips which is pretty much the minimum stack you could have at this point since if you had 0 chips, you could do a double rebuy (1500x2) and an add-on. Oh well.

So after the rebuys are over, the real poker starts. Build my stack to 6700, whittle it down to 3000 with the blinds 100/200. Normally I'd just go on tilt here and start pushing marginal hands hoping to double up since the only worthwhile prize is first, but for some reason this time I actually have some patience and fold things like A3.
My patience is rewarded, as the next hand I get AKs in the SB with 3 limpers, push and get no callers.

Next hand, blinds 100/200, 3 early limpers, I have 9d8d on the button and call, SB folds and BB checks. Questionable with such a small stack (17.5BB) but hey, I said I'm on semi-tilt. Flop comes 593 rainbow. First limper checks, next limper bets 800, next limper pushes, and before I can react something hits the call button. I know if I waited another 10 seconds I'd have folded there. The bettor calls and I know I'm toast here. They both have me covered. The hands are revealed... AKs and AQs. Wow. I close my eyes, wait 5 seconds, open them to see the board 5935J. I'm suddenly well back into the game with 11k in chips.

It lasts all of 2 hands, when I lose 5k with AJ vs 66 on a 69J board. I tread water for a few hands until Kuzak is moved to my table. This is a fellow who I had met at the Toronto airport when we happened to be on the same plane to the WPT in the Bahamas. He's a great tournament player and a frequent poster to 2+2. I think having him there at the table made me play a lot better.. probably because I didn't want to do something really dumb in front of someone I know. We've got about the sme chips and I resolve to last longer than he does.

I catch a pretty big break when there's one UTG limper, and I check in the BB with 34o. Flop comes 454. Check, check. Turn J. He bets 2BB, I min raise, he calls. Turn T. Bet out 2BB again, he pushes, I call. He flips TJ and I win. It's another form of luck that's not always so obvious like sucking out on someone... but to have the turn and river come with basically the only two cards that will give the other player the second best hand.

We're about 150 hands into the tournament now, and the chip leader shows up at the table with about 61k. Next biggest is 19k, and then I have 12k. It's obvious where he got the chips from, because he starts calling all-ins with mid pair and rivering people. Nice to be able to afford to do things like that.

I get down to about 6000 in chips with the blinds 600/1200.. and then 4500.. amazingly my patience holds out. I win a race with AK vs 99 and more than double up to 11k with some dead money in the pot. Still the short stack, but then I double up with AA when I get a limper, a cold caller and everyone folds to my flop bet.

I have 19.5k now, the average stack is probably 20-25k, and the blinds are 600/1200. This is where the tournament starts becoming crapshooty. Most hands are raised and taken down pre-flop, or raised and reraised and taken down preflop.

I'm down to 16k, blinds 1000/2000. A 30k stack raises to 10k. A 40k stack cold calls!? I push my 16k with TT and both just call. I'm sweating again. Flop comes 2h 8s 7h. The initial raiser pushes into a dry side pot, and I know for sure I'm toast for sure. The cold caller folds, and amazingly, the raiser flips over A3o!? What a terrible play (as the cold caller immediately informs the table) and I agree, except I win a huge pot and am near the chip lead with 52k. He could have easily saved my tournament there since there was a Q on the turn which may have hit the cold caller.

At this point I like to think it turn into the TripleQ stealing show but apparently my memory was a little wrong. I ended up raising about 50% of the hands that it was folded to me, but there weren't that many of them since there were a lot of short stack all-ins at this point.

I manage to steal my way down to 19k with the blinds 1500/3000. The SB has a huge stack of 110k, he raises my BB to 9k and I push with A6o. He calls and flips A5o. Nice. Flop comes 79T, I resign myself to a split pot but pray for a low card. My prayers are answered when the turn comes 5. Ugh. I guess I should be more specific when I ask for low cards. However, it's not over as the river comes a beautiful 6. Hey, best hand won right?

I tread water around 40k. Then double up when a mid position raiser calls off 1/2 his stack to my push. AK vs KT. KT!? He had been a very lucky player, sucking out 5 times to build a huge stack, but luckily for me not this time.

DOwn to about 10-11 people, and I float between 1st-3rd position in chips. There are a few short stacks so I never tangle with the other big stacks and we all methodically bust out the short stacks. We finally whittle down the huge luckbox who comes over the top of a early raiser.. with A8s!? He runs into 99 and is down to less than 2BB, and shortly busts out. I have a brief heart attack when I reraise with AKh, get called my AQo and flop comes Q39 2 hearts. Luckily I make the flush.

We're down to 5, with one big stack and one short stack. One of the guys has his chat turned on, apparently he had it banned before. Often PokerStars will turn off the chat of people who curse a lot or have been abusive to other players. I guess they unbanned him for this table in case he wanted to make a deal. One of the mid stacks busts out when someone calls his top pair all-in with ace high, then rivers the ace.

The short stack hangs on for quite awhile, then finally busts when the SB pushes with 36o, and he calls with 95o getting 3:1. I guess the SB figured his cards were live. We lose the 3rd place guy when he pushes in with Q8 on the 79T flop, only to run into J8 with the flopped straight. Bad beats all night and they keep on coming.

Heads up starts with me at 283k, and N1LE at 537k. I suggest a save (i.e. winner pays loser something), and he offers me $2000 for the seat. Umm... no.
Turns out I made the right decision because he's pretty passive heads up. I start out stealing with 2.5xBB raises, but eventually figure out he'll fold a lot of hands to 2xBB raises so I go with that. He also calls a lot of raises, then folds to a flop bet. It's a pretty long heads up match lasting about 50 hands. Nothing too memorable, except for this hand.

N1LE calls with the SB, and I raise with A3o. He calls. Flop comes J53 two clubs. I bet out, he min raises. Normally I've never seen him play back at me, so would fold to the raise, but for some reason my instincts tell me the min raise is weak, so I quickly push. He's getting about 3:1 to call and has me covered, but he folds! Phew.. in hindsight think if I waited another 10 seconds, I would have folded.

Next hand I think he's upset since he bluffs off 1/3 of his stack with J high to my slowplayed top pair.

3 hands later, we get all the chips in preflop with my 33 vs his A3o and he doesn't hit the ace. I don't think I can really describe how he felt, so I'll end it here with his eloquent comments:

N1LE [observer] said, "FVCK this website"
N1LE [observer] said, "FVCK lee jones"
N1LE [observer] said, "FVCK pokerstars"

And now we know why his chat was banned.