The Man at Work

Wamboozled!

I think someone was just Wamboozled!

An Unlikely Seat Draw

2050 players on Day1A and David Grey (left) and TJ Cloutier (right) draw seats right next to each other.

The Craziness Begins Today!

Event #2 begins in a little over three hours, and Dan is slated to start the event today. I don't start until tomorrow. Dan's drew for his seat: Amazon Room Red, Table 16, Seat 7. They have the Amazon room broken in to quadrants I guess to make it easier to locate tables. I wish him the best of luck, and if I have any news to report I will try to post it via the phone. Hopefully, you can also follow Dan on Cardplayer's site as I'm sure he will be the Day 1A chip leader throughout most of the day and Cardplayer will have their own blog of significant hands and chip stacks on their site.

Dan and I were able to get some poker in yesterday, and I ended an 8-hour session down $90. I had initially started out very well, being ahead a little over $250 after about two hours. Then I lost my whole stack (except for $1...I had him covered) in a hand where my opponent rivered his 5-outer for two pair. That took me down $300 overall. After rebuying, I worked my stack up to a little over $850 (net +$250) over the next 5+ hours, when another 5-outer for two pair on the river took a bite out of my stack to leave me ending the session down $90. I felt I played well, and was making good decisions, just got a little unlucky in two larger pots. I plan to turn that around today as I build my stack up today.

I'll do my best to keep you up to date! Talk to you soon!

Welcome to the 2008 WSOP!

Well, Dan and I are here! We've observed some of the $10K Pot Limit Hold 'em, and I got to spend some quality time with Jennifer Tilly. I happened to be next to her while she was registering for the same event as Dan and I. Unfortunately, it was after she had been knocked out of the $10K event. We talked for a couple minutes, and she was gracious enough to go over the details of the hand that knocked her out of the tournament.

Jennifer found herself a little light on chips after losing a large pot with pocket 8s in the hand prior. She was then dealt AQsuited, a player in late position had raised, and Jennifer thought the player was stealing so she reraised. The player then came over the top of that bet with another raise, and after Jennifer thought for a while and calculated that she was committed with her hand, she called with her remaining chips. Her opponent had pocket Jacks, and the flop was 8-9-T, with two of the suit that Jennifer had. Jennifer was pretty sure that she would have gotten it all in there anyway if she hadn't reraised preflop because of the gutshot straight draw, nut flush draw, and two overs. The turn gave her opponent the straight, and in poker cruelty, the river was what ended up being a meaningless Ace. She was knocked out, but she mentioned that she did outlast TJ Cloutier and Shannon Elizabeth. She may have mentioned something else about Shannon that I thought involved herself, Shannon, and me, but that may have just been me doing some daytime fantasizing at that point, too.

We discussed that a little bit, and she was telling me about some of the stuff she had done to prepare for Pot Limit poker because she hadn't played it before that event. We talked a couple more minutes, but I don't think she's leaving Phil for me...yet. We both drew a Sunday start date for Event #2, so maybe I'll get lucky and get another shot if we draw the same table. :>

...must focus on poker...must focus on poker...

I can't stand it! I need to be in Vegas...NOW!!

Well, we are within a day of arriving in Las Vegas for the 39th Annual World Series of Poker. Dan and I are scheduled to leave Milwaukee at 7am tomorrow and arrive in Vegas at 9am. That should give us plenty of time to drop our luggage at the Bellagio and get over to the Rio for opening ceremonies and to take in some of the eye candy that will be in the halls around the convention center. The opening event is a $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold 'em Championship. I won't be entering that event, in case you were wondering. Maybe next year. I plan to try and capture a photo or two of some pros at the tables and then make my way to the cash games that will be taking place.

For those interested, I have provided a link to view the structure of the event which Dan and I plan on participating, which is Event #2, a $1500 No-Limit Hold 'em event. There will be two starting days, so I don't know which day will be day 1 for either of us.

Based on the structure and that it's a got a two-day start for Day 1, my goal for the event is going to be to try and double up in starting chips by the end of Level 4, and then again by the end of Level 7. Play is supposed to be completed at the end of Level 10, and if I can double up one more time by then I would be happy as well. Obviously, I'll collect anybody's chips at anytime I can, but I feel that I will probably be able to "play comfortably" if I have a chip stack that equates to the amounts I stated by the time I reach those levels. Hopefully it will work out so well that counting my own stack won't be a high priority...wouldn't that be nice?

Also, I have figured out and have tested posting to the blog using my cell phone, so I may try to post some pictures that I capture with my cell phone and will also try to do updates when on breaks. The posts that come from the cell phone won't have any titles/headers, and may be brief and contain cell phone shorthand, but that's the best I can do until I actually get back in front of the computer and type up an "official" post. I will try to do that when that opportunity arises (Hopefully, not until play is completed on Day 1, and then again until play is completed on Days 2 & 3!). Talk to you soon, and hopefully I'll have some good news to report!

The Gambler, the Card Rack, and the Jersey

As I make my final preparations for the trip to the World Series of Poker there was, over the Memorial Day weekend, the sixth of seven Cream City Poker League Events. The event has been a popular event, having been hosted over Memorial Day weekend in years past at the same location. Pete and Angie do a great job with hosting the event, and the tournament went off without a hitch. There were 19 participants. As usual, the tournament got off to a slow start. There were only two rebuys in the first three levels when participants are permitted to rebuy once if their stack is lost to another player. We only had two tables, one consisting of nine players and the other of ten. It just so happened that the table of ten was the table that had both of the rebuys, so after the rebuy period was over the table of nine was beginning to run low on chips in relation to the blinds that have to increase during play.

I was fortunate enough to be at the table that started with ten players, and I didn't find myself in trouble early with my chip stack, so things were going pretty well. One of the players was accumulating a lot of chips and playing lots of pots. He had made trips early in one hand, and then flopped a straight in another hand. Also, he was playing lots of hands and not having to show down very many of those hands so it was hard to put him on what sorts of hands with which he was coming in to pots.

Because this was the last CCPL event before the WSOP I wore my Full Tilt football jersey. It has my name on the back along with my lucky number, #11. During the first break I ran in to Mark while grabbing a beverage and he and I started discussing a hand that he had played, and I explained how I would have played it at which he commented, “That’s why you’ve got a jersey…Hey, do you mind if I wear that when we go back in from break?” I thought it would be funny so I gave Mark my jersey to wear for the remainder of the tournament. It became even funnier because he commented to me that I would have to knock him out to get my own jersey back! More on that jersey later though.

After the rebuy period ended the table of ten was the first to lose players, and to keep tables even the table of ten actually had to pull one of the players from the table of nine away, taking more chips away from them. I was sitting somewhat comfortable in chips when I got involved in a pot with an all in short stack. I held AsQs and my opponent had a small pair. I lost that and it cost me about 1/3 of my stack. The blinds were starting to creep up, and with the blinds at 200/400, my stack at about 1900, and I was one off of the button, also known as the cutoff, I elected to raise with a pair of 2s in an effort to steal the blinds. I hate 2s because if you end up playing against someone with them you know that you are either in a coin flip/race situation, or you are way behind because everything is either an overcard or overpair. I only had to get past the button and the blinds, and I hadn’t been showing down ridiculous hands so I moved in. Well, the button (also the large stack), called immediately. The blinds folded and I was shown:

Kc Kd

which left me drawing pretty slim. As the flop was dealt a deuce appeared and I was spared momentarily. The rest of the board bricked out for the Kings, and I had doubled up through the chip leader!

Shortly after that I went on an incredible, albeit brief, run of great hands. With each table at 5 players and waiting for the final table to be set, I was dealt QQ and a player moved all in ahead of me. I called, and my Queens held up against my opponent's AJ. That set the final table, where I drew seat nine. I was then dealt the following hands: Hand #1 - Ace-Jack suited and a player called with Ace-Ten, Hand #2 - Ace-Queen and a player called with Ace-Jack, and Hand #3 - after a player had moved all in ahead of me I looked down and had Ace-King (my opponent had Ace-9). In all three instances I had more chips than my opponent and my hand held up. In an extremely short amount of time I had eliminated four players and moved in to the chip lead. When a player is getting an absurd amount of good starting hands they call that player a card rack, and I certainly was a human card rack for a while.

Since I was now the chip leader I could afford to sit back and let some of the smaller stacks take each other out of the tournament. Eventually we got down to the four people who would get paid: Rock, Mark (still wearing my jersey), Woody, and I. I went on another brief run and was able to knock out Rock and Mark. After Mark’s elimination he took off the jersey, but now Woody wanted to wear it for our heads up match! I guess the only way I could get it back was to win it back! :) Woody and I bounced back and forth for a brief amount of time, but then I got very lucky against him in the last hand of the tournament when my A8 went up against Woody’s A9, and I caught an 8 on the flop and river to make the winning hand and capture my second CCPL win this season. In all honesty, I think that whoever drew seat 9 for the final table probably would have won this tournament with the cards that I was getting. It was a nice way for me to finish in a tournament before heading to Vegas.

We played a cash game afterwards for a while, and Mark started up his blog. I hope that I can report what the link for that will be in my next post as I look forward to reading it!!

It’s only four more days until the World Series of Poker, baby!! Shuffle up and deal!