Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Table 181 - starting table

The day started slowly enough with the blinds at 25-25, and I managed to work my stack up to about 2200 chips in the first hour without having met much resistance. We were playing 11-handed, and Barry Shulman was seated to my immediate left, so when I have to pay my small blind he is in the big blind. Barry has been somewhat loose and aggressive with his chip stack fluctuating greatly. The first cards that I was dealt in my first WSOP event were: 8h-4c. Yes, I folded. The first hand where I put in an actual bet was pocket 8s when I was in the small blind. Barry made some comment about him just giving me his big blind, and I'm sure he was just fishing for information on my hand.

Play continued, and Barry got busted early by going in when he flopped the second pair on the board, but his opponent had flopped top pair and top kicker and Barry was gone. Barry was replaced by a WSOP bracelet winner, Todd Witteles, who won last year's $3000 Limit Hold 'em event and took 3rd in the $1500 Limit Hold 'em event. The player to my immediate right was busted, and he was replaced by none other than Hasan Habib. Habib took 2nd in the WPT championship two years ago, and 3rd place in the WPT championship last year. I was dead smack between two experienced players.

These guys know the type of intimidation they bring to the table, and they were using that for all it was worth. I had a hand where Hasan had raised it to 3x the blind preflop and I decided to call with A7suited. The flop came A-J-2, and Hasan bet 250. I had about 2000 in chips. I decided to raise him and I took it to 500. He laid it down, and it was then that I finally felt in my comfort zone playing with these guys. Shortly after that I ended up in a 3-man pot with both Todd and Hasan when Hasan had limped from the button. I raised to 3x the blind, and Todd and Hasan called. I was holding Ad 6d and after a K-5-5 flop I led out and bet, and they both laid it down.

Hasan and Todd were both really nice guys. Being seated next to the both of them made it easy to start conversations with them. I was asking them questions about how many events they planned on playing, how many "big" events do they play in a year, things like that. Hasan went broke when he moved his remaining 175 chips in to a 4-player pot, but he was really very gracious and extended his hand to me when he got up to leave.

It was around this time that I had worked my way to being near the table chip lead with about 3400. We were still only in Level 2 so I had reached my "double up by Level 3" goal without having to really risk my chips. I was getting confident enough that I was even picking up blinds with medium to medium-bad hands. I only got contested really once, and that was when I was holding A-Jsuited and the flop came T-T-2. I led out and bet and was called. The turn came Ten. I checked and my opponent bet. So much for that pot.

I did win my first WSOP race at this table when I raised from the cutoff position with Kd-Qd. The blinds were at 50-100. The big blind moved all in over the top for another 700, and since he was short stacked I called hoping he was on an under pair. By calling and losing I would have been down to 1300 chips, but the pot was worth enough to call. He had T-T, and amazingly I rivered a Queen to send him to the rail.

Shortly after that I sent another player to the rail when my Qh-9h won a race against a very short stacked player who moved in with 5-5. This race wasn't nearly as exciting as the Q was the first card that came off the flop.

Our table broke down at that point and I got dealt the card that sent me over to table 185 seat number 10.

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