watching the bubble
21 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
[I wrote this post a week and a half ago, and it seems to have been published and then “unpublished” for reasons unknown. If you’ve already read it and you just got a duplicate email message alerting you to its existence, many apologies]
I’m standing with Mark at the edge of the Amazon Room as Vanessa Rousso (hopefully) navigates her way through the bubble. I’ve gotten to know her a bit, so I’m happy she’s close to cashing in the main event (it’s been a rough series for her, and this will be her first main event cash), but it’s a bit depressing to be watching it from the sidelines this year. Two years ago the bubble was a serious nailbiter for me, but last year it was damn fun. I really wish I could have made it here again.
The hand for hand period has just ended, everyone (including Vanessa) has made the money (minimum $21000 and change) which means that I have at least another $200 coming to me because Vanessa and I swapped 1% of our main event action. If she wins the main event I get $90,000, so there’s still hope for me to have a profitable world series.
And … just like that … no such hope. I had left the Amazon Room to go to bed, but hadn’t even made it to the elevator when Mark called me to tell me she had just busted. I turned around and went back to say good job and goodnight and goodbye, and to collect my $210. I guess I could squint my eyes and say that I cashed in the main event after all.
I realize I still haven’t posted hand stories of my decline and demise - actually Vanessa and I got crippled on exactly the same hand matchups - our 77 vs opponents’ 66, but she got all her money in preflop as a big favorite while I got quite a bit of it in after the other guy had turned quad sixes. Maybe that’s why she’s a famous top pro and I’m just a humble wayfaring poker sort-of-pro.
In 24 hours I will be asleep in my bed in Seattle after a month and a half in Las Vegas, something like 80 poker tournaments ranging from the 2AM Planet Hollywood $60 donk-fest to the $10,000 Holy Grail of poker. I haven’t totaled up how much money I’ve lost, but I know it’s not a very big number. I’ve had some good wins, some very frustrating losses, I’ve cemented my reputation as a super-satellite expert but lost my unbroken record of cashing in WSOP events (the opposite would have been much preferable). I’ve hung out with and played against poker celebrities, luminaries and low-lifes. I’ve eaten some fabulous meals, and discovered an excellent Thai restaurant (”Lotus of Siam”, alleged to be the best Thai restaurant in North America, a claim that made me sneer until I saw the menu and ate the food - I don’t know about best in N.A. but it was pretty damn good). I’ve had a good time hanging out and strategizing and bantering with Mark, in spite of each of us infuriating the other at various times, and I’ve been pleased to meet and pal around with Vanessa - I look forward to watching her progress in all the big tournaments around the world.
Hopefully I’ll be back next year, and every year until I get sick of the game or my fingers get too stiff to hold cards. I’m ready to get the hell out of this weird-ass city and return to the normal world, and this certainly hasn’t been a financially successful World Series for me, but it hasn’t lost its pull or its charm for me.
Signing off from Sin City,
-huge
quads
9 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
I’m out. Details later. My pocket sevens were no good against quad sixes…
out of hiding but low on chips
9 July 2008 | Poker | 1 Comment
I was flying under the radar because Eric Haber, aka “Sheets ” aka co-founder of PokerXFactor aka poker superstar, was sitting on my left today. It semed unwise to let him know that I was a subscriber if I could avoid it. I watched several of his videos over the last two days to get ideas of how to deal with him and posibly trap him into thinking I had a weak hand, but the opportunity never really came up. Another player busted him (everyone else can win with AQ!) so I can come out of the wodwork now. I’ll start posting to the updates site again.
I have 26000 chips - still playable, but not a happy stack.
back to the battle…
-huge
stealthiness
9 July 2008 | Poker | 1 Comment
for reasons already hinted at, i’m not texting to the live updates website, but my first level today was a bad one. After losing a few small pots, I got a short stack all in with my AQ vs his A7. Seven on the flop and I’m slashed down to 18000. He picks up his Ace and points it at me, saying “the first one I’ve seen all day” as if that were a good excuse. I’ve clawed back to 22000. Still room to maneuver.
Just once I’d like AQ tohold up against a dominated hand.
Two hours and counting…
9 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
And I’m off to Day 2. There’s good news and bad news about my table assignment – no-one at the table has much more than me, so I can bust or cripple anyone at the table, and the two guys who have a little more than me are on my right, and no-one else at the table has any tournament cash record to speak of, with one exception. So that’s all good, except for the exception, which could be pretty bad or could turn out OK, and I’m gonna be paranoid and not post it in my blog just in case putting that info out into the world might come back to bite me. I’ll explain later.
Noon Pacific Time it all starts over. Updates HERE
-huge
Day 1 Bagged and Tagged
7 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
Those of you who followed the live updates website know that day 1 was a serious roller-coaster for me. In fact, I had a great first level, faltered in the second, sailed forward in the third, crashed badly in the fourth and staged a partial recovery in the fifth. If I could have just played every other level and sat out 2 and 4, I’d be sitting on 80,000 chips for day 2. But at the end of the day I more than doubled my starting stack while half the field went broke, so I can’t really complain.
I remained at my starting table from noon until half past midnight, a half hour before the end of the night, at which point I was moved to a new table and (uncharacteristically for me) had no drama in the final hands of the night. But there was plenty of drama at the starting table, some of it involving me and some not. I dropped a few chips early, seeing flops with decent hands but not catching anything or raising preflop and then giving up the hand. In the first 20 minutes I dropped from 20,000 to around 19k – not what I’d hope for, but nothing to worry about. Then a hand came up that would set the tone for my first level: I called a raise from the big blind with J-T-suited, seeing a flop of Q-T-8, giving me 2nd pair, a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw. My opponent seemed like a guy who would always make a continuation bet, so I checkraised the turn, figuring that I might well have the best hand but if I didn’t I had a lot of ways to improve. When my opponent called my checkraise unhappily I wasn’t sure which of those possibilities was more likely. When a blank hit the turn I fired again, perhaps unwisely, and my opponent made another sad call, this time seeming resigned as if to say “if you’ve got me you’ve got me, but I’m not folding this hand”. So that seemed pretty bad for me and I was ready to give up on the hand and lick my wounds when another Ten hit on the river giving me trips. I was pretty sure I was up against AQ, and I was pretty sure he would call a reasonable size bet, so I fired 2500 chips and he sort of shrugged and called. I tabled the J-T and my opponent looked puzzled, then alarmed, then incensed as he turned over his A-Q to demonstrate how lucky I had been. He started laughing and ribbing me about how bad it was to “chase”, and it didn’t seem like the time for me to articulate a distinction between semi-bluffing and chasing so I just threw up my hands and said “Yeah! That was pretty lucky for me, huh?”.
I proceeded to have three more hands in which I caught the winning card on the river, each time making two pair to beat an opponent’s higher pair, each time eliciting comments and raised eyebrows. In my defense I can only say that in none of these hands did my opponents do anything to drive me away, so they really only have themselves to blame, and also “Yeah! That was pretty lucky for me, huh?”.
On the final hand of the level my right-hand neighbor called my under-the-gun raise (I had Queens) and we saw a flop of K-K-7. Not a bad flop for me – sure he could have a King, but he could easily have AQ, AJ, AT, JJ, 99 or even QJ. I want to find out where I’m at so I bet the flop and he calls and I’m getting a little nervous. When an Ace falls on the turn I’m ready to just fold since even the lowly QJ has just passed me by, but my opponent checks to me and I try to make it look like I’m thinking about betting but then check behind. Guess what card comes on the River? Yep, I’m a lucky bastard … Queen on the river for Queens full. My opponent makes a large and ill-advised bet of 4500. I can’t be remotely sure that I have the best hand – there are hands he could have been trapping with that would give him a bigger full house – so I flat call and am relieved when he says “your King is good”. I say “I’ve got better than a King” and he says “better than a King?” incredulously, trying to piece together what hand I could possibly have not involving a King that would be better than a King (Aces presumably), and when I turn over my Queens he throws his cards (hard) into the muck and storms out of the room. More accurately he storms away from the table until he meets the horde of players trying to get out of the Amazon room to go on our 20-minute break (it took up half that time for us to get in and out of the room, and the other half to wait through the bathroom line – break time at the WSOP is one of those rare scenarios in which there are always massive lines at the men’s room and women can just breeze in and out).
There were a lot more interesting hands, good and bad, in the next eight hours of play. I’ll try to write some more later. Suffice it to say that those first two hours I established a very *special* image at that table, and in the ensuing levels I tried to take advantage of that, sometimes successfully and sometimes not so much. I flirted with the 50,000 mark, then melted down to 22,000, and then recovered in the last level.
I made it through Day 1. I’ll have 41,900 chips heading into Day 2 on Wednesday. That’s nothing to celebrate about, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either. I’ll have a healthy if not intimidating stack, and now I just have to wait for them to publish the table assignments so I’ll know who the other players and stacks are at my table. Now I’m going to sit by the pool…
-huge
here we go
6 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
Breakfast good and hearty … heading over to hit the Rio and go after the chips…
You can also check on the big news in my day 1 HERE. If you click on it right now, the only thing you’ll see is this:
Massive Day 1d Field Expected
With roughly two hours to go before the noon kickoff for Day 1d play, roughly 2,200 players have registered. This will make the Day 1d opening session by far the largest of the four opening sessions, easily topping yesterday’s 1,928-player turnout. It’ll be a star-studded field on Sunday as well, as many of poker’s biggest names have chosen to wait until the last opening day to play.
The big turnout will force the use of virtually all the overflow areas at the Rio, making for wall-to-wall, high-stakes poker. We’ll have the latest reports from the Main Event’s final opening day, beginning at noon, right here on PokerNews.
11 hours and counting
6 July 2008 | Poker | No Comments
Just returned from a fabulous dinner (courtesy of my generous friend Mark) at Craftsteak, consisting of heirloom tomato salad, asparagus, potato and leek gratin, Foie Gras with cherries, charcuterie sampler, seafood sampler, Kobe skirt steak (actually 2 – one for me and one for Mark), 2.5 lb Main Lobster (for Rachel), chocolate soufflé, and an ice cream & sorbet sampler. I’m getting ready for a little poker reading (Vanessa Rousso recommended the small-ball chapter from Daniel Negreanu’s new “Power Hold’Em Strategy” as good main event preparation, so Mark – generous again – went out and bought me a copy) and hopefully a good night’s sleep, room service breakfast and the short trip over to the Rio for my Day 1 of the Main Event. I’m feeling pretty good about the recent good turn in my poker fortunes and hopefully that will translate into comfort and confidence at the table tomorrow. My change in plans for the choice of Day 1 (tomorrow is the fourth and last Day 1) has good and bad sides – it will certainly be the biggest day 1 field, and I’m hoping that will mean it has the highest concentration of random amateurs who either flew in or drove in from L.A. today to take a stab at the big event, or who finally managed to win a satellite today after trying for the past week. The downside is that I’m moving (from Caesar’s back to the good old Gold Coast) tomorrow, so that’s poor timing, and Rachel is flying home tomorrow so she won’t be there to watch and meet me on breaks. The other minor drawback is that those of us playing on day 1C and 1D who survive the day will then play on day 2B, and then, if we survive again, will not get a day off between 2B and day 3. I guess that’s a problem I’ll be happy to deal with.
Once again, I’ll be reporting my progress by texting to the live updates service on PokerXFactor, which you can check HERE
Eleven hours from now, Noon Pacific, I take another stab at the main event. I’ve lost the WSOP-event-cashing streak, but the Main Event streak is still alive at 2-for-2, and I’ll be very happy to extend that. Cross ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.
-huge
P.S. in late breaking news, I just read that Dmitri Nobles was eliminated a few hours ago. All I can say is “SEND HIM OUT ON A STRETCHER!”
Four and a Quarter
5 July 2008 | Poker | 8 Comments
As usual this trip, I just haven’t had time to write up events as they happen, and things have definitely been happening. Since my last post, I’ve won two-count-em-two more mega-satellites, this time without any deals being made (and without getting screwed over by my table-mates to end up with $3500 instead of the agreed-upon $7000), so both yesterday and today I was able to take home the full $10,200 prize.
As a result of this lovely turn of events, I am now definitely playing the main event, but for various reasons I will be playing my Day 1 on Sunday instead of Saturday as previously thought. I have already bought in to the event, and I *STILL* don’t have the cringey experience of handing over a $10,000 wad of $100 bills to enter the tournament - when I won the satellite and went to the cashier’s cage she counted out the $10,000 in tournament chips and said “Do you want to keep the chips or buy into the main event?”. At that point I knew I was playing on Sunday, so I said “go ahead and sign me up”. I guess I should have made her slide the chips over to me so that I could have handed them back, so that I could see what it feels to hand over $10,000 to someone in exchange for a little piece of paper telling me which table to sit at in order to play a card game.
It’s time for bed - tomorrow is study day, to get myself out of satellite mode and into cash-tournament brainwaves. Sunday at Noon Pacific time I’ll be taking my third stab at the main event of the WSOP - cross your fingers.
-huge
P.S. Almost forgot - the title of this post refers to the number of WSOP seats I’ve won this year: The online satellite on bodog before I ever came to Vegas, he $9,000 negotiated-settlement, the $3500 travesty of injustice, and two outright victories yesterday and today, for $10,200 each. Not a bad day’s work.
Planet Hollywood, 2:00am Report
3 July 2008 | Poker | 2 Comments
(Ask and you shall receive.)
By Peter Burford
I’m not sure who first thought this was a good idea, but I will go ahead and blame Dan.
Planet Hollywood offers the best (by far the best) poker tournaments for under $100 in Las Vegas. And they offer it 4 times a day. At 10:00am, 2:00pm, 7:00pm, and 2:00am. Dan and Maya had been playing this tournament at least once a day for their entire trip, and I (Pete) had been playing it ever since finishing my ‘big’ tournaments at Wynn and Caesars. (These “big” tournaments for me are the “little” tournaments that Laurence had been playing when the Super Satellites weren’t going.)
Most of us had done very well at this Planet Hollywood tournament: Dan had agreed to a 5-way split in one tournament winning himself $650. And Maya had been the chip-leader in one of their other tournaments when the other players wanted to do the split. She agreed to take $500, giving the rest of the field $375. I didn’t cash in anything.
Deb was scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas Saturday evening, just in time to catch the Cirque du Soleil show “Love” with the rest of us. In a couple last-minute changes, “the rest of us” did not include Laurence who instead played one of those super-satellites, but it did mean upgraded seats for everyone else when we switched from 7 tickets to 6. We were finishing dinner when Deb arrived and we told her of our ‘great plan’ to play the 2:00am tournament at Planet Hollywood because that was the only chance for all (most) of Team Huge to play a tournament together. This, specifically, was my fault because I flew out Sunday morning early. Dan and Maya didn’t fly out until Sunday night so they could play the 10:00am. Deb thought that playing a tournament at 2:00am was a stupid idea and I can’t really fault her for that. It seemed as though this great plan may fall through.
And we’re off to “Love.”
If anyone reading this hasn’t seen it, go see Love the next time you are in Vegas. It is Cirque du Soleil set to Beatles music. It is truly an amazing and awe-inspiring show. Even if you aren’t a Beatles fan, you probably will be by the end of the show.
After the show, Dan and I were jazzed and decided that we were going to play the 2:00am tourney regardless of what anyone else did! Maya made clear that she was NOT playing it no matter what anyone else did. By this time, Laurence had (sadly) busted out of his satellite so we started working on him to come down and slum-it with us. He ultimately agreed, and so did Deb. As the 4 of us were driving over PH, we wondered how many people would play a 2:00am tournament. 15 to 20? Certainly no more than 25, right?
We got there and the poker room was packed! The four tournament tables were full (40 players) and there was an alternate list. We all signed up as alternates. About 15 minutes into the tournament, I (Peter) got a seat. About 5 minutes later, they opened up a 5th table and brought in most of the alternates—this meant that Deb, Dan, & Laurence were all starting at the same table—indeed they were all seated right next to each other. This is not good. While none of us have a problem taking chips from each other, we would much rather take them from strangers initially and then fight each other at the final table, once we’re all guaranteed some money.
At the first break (3:00am), they announced that there were 61 players total.
Shortly after the break, Deb busted out. She said she was exhausted and was taking a cab back to her hotel.
Let’s say a half-hour later, Dan busted out and decided to go play cash-poker for a while so he wouldn’t abandon Laurence and me (since he had borrowed the car we had, and was driving.)
A while later, I busted out. It’s now about 4:00am. There are maybe 25 players left; Laurence is still in, but very short-stacked.
I’ll digress for one story from my table. A nice girl from Olympia was seated to my left and we had been chatting for the first part of the tournament. There was also a talkative frat-boy guy seated to my right. Frat-boy clearly thought he was a good player, although I disagree with him on that—and he regularly offered advice on my and Olympia’s play. Anyway, on this hand, I was in the big blind. Olympia-girl is first to act and she limps in (calls the big blind without raising) and then the next player makes a standard raise. While the rest of the table is folding around, Olympia-girl slides her cards closer to her, right up to the rail around the edge of the table. She plops her card protector on them, and then combines her stacks of different chip denominations into one big pile. It doesn’t take a…well…a Laurence to figure out what this sequence of actions means. When the action gets back to frat-boy he calls the initial raise. I fold. Olympia pushes all in…
Frat-boy says, and I quote: “YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT!!”
I bite my tongue to keep myself from yelling “SHE DID!”
A while later, I shove from late position with A-10 of diamonds, and one of the blinds ended up having J-J and I’m out. Let’s call it 4:20am.
So now they’re down to two tables. Dan has quit playing the cash game, and he is down another $30. Blinds are 500-1000 and Laurence has something like 2500 or 3500 chips. Quietly, Dan and I both wish he could just lose a pot so we can be done with this and go home.
Around this time, Dan and I become aware of the tournament’s chip-leader. He is a very active and talkative guy. Friendly, and having a good time. On one big pot, he had another player all-in and he made 2-pair. No one at the table (including the dealer) noticed that the opponent had made a random flush using 4 of the board cards and maybe a 2 or 3 from his hand. The chip leader stops the dealer as the chips are coming his way and re-directs them to the opponent. Clearly, this guy does not have a care in the world. And with 3-4 times the chips as 2nd place, he doesn’t need to.
And yet Laurence still was hanging on. I may even remember something like him getting all-in with A-5 vs. A-Q (something like that) and catching his 5. “The Luckbox is open.”
Let’s call it 5:00am now, and we finally get to 1 table. Blinds are 1000-2000 and Laurence has 4500 in chips. He can’t push anyone around, he HAS to catch cards. He raises all-in (2.5 times the big blind—a very small raise) from 1st or 2nd position and the ENTIRE TABLE FOLDS! Well, I guess he can still push people around. Come on, table, I’m tired bust this guy already! Oh, wait, I guess I should still be pulling for him.
Meanwhile, as Laurence holds on for dear life, the chip leader (Let’s just call him Chip) goes about the easy task of busting most of the rest of the table. He seems to pick up pocket pairs every other hand, gets in with them and wins the coin flip. We’re in the money.
Dan and I each had 10% of Laurence’s “Action.” (He would have had 10% of ours if we had won anything.) So we start calculating what place he has to make for us to break even. For me, if he gets 2nd then I’ll break even. Dan needs him to win (without chopping) to only be down $10—since he had the extra loss from playing the cash game.
Players keep falling, and for some reason Chip never wants to stand up to Laurence so he’s sticking around. It’s down to 3 players and Laurence gets it in against the 3rd player with A-Q vs A-8 or something along those lines. Other-guy is busted and we’re heads-up, but Laurence still only has ¼ or so the chips of the other guy.
I don’t remember what the cards were at all, but Laurence won a big pot to double-up. At this point in the tournament, they were using yellow 1000 chips, and orange 5000 chips. And they guy paid Laurence off using ALL of his 1000 chips! Although his opponent didn’t realize it, this made Laurence’s pile of chips look much bigger than it actually was—since the number of chips in front of him was increased so much, despite the value of them being lower. This is a great psychological tool that I have begun using myself in live tournaments.
After this hand, the opponent had changed… He was no longer happy. No longer talkative. He sat there glaring and angry.
For many hands, Laurence would limp when he was the dealer. The other player would check the flop, Laurence would bet small and the other guy would fold. Laurence was relentless in this. His opponent was out of his depth here, and I think (for the first time) he realized it. I whispered to Dan “Look at him! Laurence has completely broken his spirit! And now he’s just going to grind him down–unless he gets unlucky. Which means we may be here a while.” I especially knew that Laurence would use the “Grind down” technique after his big draw missed at the Wynn two days earlier. I didn’t think he would want to repeat that…
I remember two hands that Laurence Lost: In one, Chip covered his face to block his view of the board, and then checked all the way to the river. On the river, Laurence bet (having made trips!) and so Chip looked, and saw that he had made a full house, but then just CALLED! If he had raised, then the tourney would be over, right there.
On the other hand, Laurence had A-A and made 3 aces on the flop. But Chip made a straight on the river—again, letting Laurence off the hook in the end by betting too small.
Despite those losses, Laurence managed to hold his own by stealing and stealing. He had a slight chip lead when this happened:
Laurence either raised small on the button, or limped—I can’t remember. Chip called or checked. The flop came down K-6-K. Chip bet and Laurence called.
“CALLED!!!!???” A little alarm started ringing in my head. That seemed very out of character for Laurence. It would have been very much IN character for most of the rest of us with a wide range of hands, but it seemed like Laurence would usually raise or fold there.
Chip said something like “I may have a kicker problem,” and Laurence smiled and chuckled.
The turn brought another King. Chip checked. Laurence said “That should solve your kicker problem,” and checked behind.
At this point, several things happened at once: As the dealer began to deal the final card, Chip quickly pushed the rest of his stack into the pot. The dealer paused with the final card only ½ off the deck. Laurence’s hands made the tiniest twitch in the direction of his own chips. Then he stopped, and he remained perfectly still…
The alarm in my head was beginning to sound like fireworks.
The final card was dealt. I think it was a Queen.
Laurence waited, perfectly still. He made sure that Chip’s chips really were in the pot and then called. Chip showed a 6 for the full house. Laurence showed the 4th King.
$800 later we walk off into the sunrise. $80 of that is mine, $80 is Dan’s, $80 is Deb’s, $80 is Mark’s.
When I got to my non-palace-not-even-a-normal-suite-just-a-regular-room hotel room, it was about 6:00am. I had set my alarm for 7:00, so I did not bother sleeping, but showered, packed up my stuff at headed for the airport.
-Pete
PS: I heard that Dan cashed for $250 a few hours later in the 10:00am version of this tournament, and that Deb was still in at the time and and would win even more. But I never got Deb’s final result…