WPT Championship - Day 1

I took my seat on Day 1 in the Bellagio Poker Room, and the first face I recognized, two seats to my left, was Dan Harrington. I actually liked this, because I had watched him play before and I knew he was a very tight player and I could pick on his blinds without too much trouble. Also, I later found out that the player across the table from me was Jeff Madsen. After an orbit or two, I could see that Jeff was pretty reckless, splashing around in big pots with very mediocre hands in the first level. And I thought I was loose, lol. Dan was playing as tight as he usually does, and the rest of the table was pretty straightforward. I spent the first level establishing my image, showing a couple of bluffs here and there, and then waiting for a big hand to get paid off. I ended the level with $48,000 of the original $50,000 starting chips, without much excitement.

Early on in level 2, our table broke, which was unfortunate because now I had to start over and build a new image at my next table. My new table also had a couple of recognizable faces, Josh Arieh and the owner of the EPT, John Duthie. I picked up a few small pots early on and was up to $53,000. The blinds were $100/$200, when it folded around to me in the cutoff and I looked down at A3 of clubs. I raised it up to $350, the button folded, Josh Arieh called from the small blind, and John Duthie called from the big blind. The flop was 952 with 2 clubs, giving me the nut flush draw and a gut-shot straight draw. Josh checked, John bet $800, I made it $2200, Josh folded, and John called. The turn was an off-suit King. John bet out $3000, and I just called. The river was an off-suit 8. John checked, and I thought about betting, but I figured John had a hand when he led out the turn, and I just checked. He showed KT of clubs for a pair of Kings. I just said "Wow", and I showed my A3 of clubs. I felt sick after this hand, as I would have had over $100,000 if a club had come.

I was now down to around $45,000, and nothing else interesting happened in the level and I finished with $47,000. The blinds were at $100/$200 with a $25 ante for the third level. I won 2 decent pots with 53 early on. One time I flopped a pair + straight draw, and the one pair was good enough. The second time I hit 2 pair with it and was paid off on the river. Then came the key hand of the tournament for me. UTG raises to $1000, the cutoff calls, and I look down at Aces on the button. I make it $4000 to go, and the players have just seen me show down 53 in 2 big pots so they know I am capable of having any 2 cards here. They both call, $12,500 in the pot. The flop comes K72 with 2 diamonds. UTG leads out for $9000, and he has been involved in quite a few pots. Cutoff folds, and I go into the tank. UTG has around $28,000 more behind, with me covering him by around $7000. After a minute or so, I decided to shove all-in, and to my dismay, he insta-calls me with 77. In retrospect, I don't see how I could have gotten away from the hand. My opponents shows up with a King or a flush draw at least half of the time in this situation. I lose the pot and I'm down to $7000.

I now go into short-stack mode, and I come over top of a few raises and take down some pots to bring me back up to $18,000 at the break without a showdown. After the break, the blinds were $200/$400, and I was in the big blind with 86. A really bad late position raiser made it $1400 to go, and I called the extra $1000. The flop was Q84 with 2 diamonds. I checked, and he bet $3000 with a shaky hand, just like the last time he was caught bluffing. I pushed all-in, and he went into the tank for several minutes. He eventually folds, and says he mucked two black Kings. I said, "Yeah, right" in a sarcastic voice, and I showed my 86. He says, "How could you think I had nothing?". I responded, "I've played with you long enough. Your hand shakes when you bluff." That really rattled him. I normally don't tell anyone what their tells are, but this was one that he couldn't control anyways.

Two hands later, I'm at $22,000 and I have the button. It folds to the cutoff -1 and he raises it to $2500. I look down at a pair of Queens. Now I have a decision to make. Calling or folding are not options here, so it's either a raise to $7000, or just push all-in. I decide since I just showed a big bluff, and the raiser has around $70,000, I can get a very thin call here with even 88 or 77 if I just shove. I do it, and it comes back around to him, and he thinks for around 10 seconds. Finally, he says, "Call". I triumphantly flip over my Queens, and he shows Aces! I say "Why did you take so long to call?". He stutters a bit and then says "Oh, I thought there was someone else left to act". Yeah, right. Anyways, I get up and put my jacket on, the board comes 456, 3, 8. Almost. I would have been back up to nearly $50,000 if I had won that hand.

Looking back, I would have played all 3 of those big hands the same way if I came across the same situations again. If I could have just won 1 of them, and they would have been $100,000, $85,000, and $50,000 pots, I would have been in good position to make my way into Day 2. I would have loved to go deep in this tournament, but sometimes the cards just don't go your way. All you can do is make the right decisions, and wait for the odds to even out. I don't think I'll be playing any more big tournaments until the WSOP starts in June. I'll be spending the next month and a half warming up for the World Series by playing a lot of online tournaments.

Also, I had my biggest ever win in a live cash game last night playing $50/$100 NL. I'll post the details in the next update.

Las Vegas - WPT Championship

I arrived in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, meaning I've decided to play in the WPT Championship. I haven't been to Vegas since last August, and I never realized how much I missed it until the plane actually landed. It feels like my second home. I checked into my hotel, had dinner, and made my way over to the THE place to play poker in Vegas, the Bellagio Poker Room.

I checked the waiting lists, and most of them were full, but there was an empty seat on a $50/$100 NL table, so I took it and bought in for $25,000. I didn't realize how tough the table was until about 5 minutes in. There was Kenny Tran 3 seats to my right, Erik Cajelais 2 seats to my right, Phil "The Unabomber" Laak 1 seat to my right, and Haralabos Voulgaris directly to my left. I ended up playing for a little over 2 hours. I won a big pot with 7c5c when I flopped an open-ended straight draw + flush draw against Kenny Tran and hit it. Then I won another huge pot with Aces against one of the other players at the table who tried to bluff me with Queen high. I ended up leaving the table with $52,600, for a profit of $27,600. I also played some $25/$50 NL last night and made around $12,000 so the trip has been very successful so far.

Today is the Main Event of the $25,000 WPT Championship! This is one of the biggest tournaments of the year, and rumour has it that first place will be paying over $4 million U.S.! The structure is awesome too, we start with $50,000 in chips, $50/$100 blinds, and 90 minute levels. It actually starts in 15 minutes so I have to get running! If you want to follow the live updates, please go to CardPlayer.com.

Also, I normally try to keep my blog strictly poker and I don't reveal many personal details, but this one is too exciting to hide. I recently got engaged to the most amazing girl in the world! I'm really excited about this and it feels much better than any poker tournament could make me feel.

My goal for Day 1 is to finish the day with $150,000 - $200,000 in chips. Wish me luck!

EPT Monte Carlo - 2nd Place - €1,061,820.00

First off, I'd like to apologize for the delay in posting an update. I was extremely busy in the week that I returned from Monte Carlo, and I was also still very upset over the final hand. I feel a little better now, but I don't know if I will ever forget about that last hand. As most of you have heard, I finished in 2nd place, for my biggest payday ever, a little over $1.6 million CAD.

For the first time out of 4 final tables, I actually went in as one of the chip leaders. I had $1.7m and I was in 2nd place only to Gavin Griffin, who went into the final table with $2.4m. I won't go through every hand, because it would be too much to write, and I want to leave some surprise since most of the hands will be shown on TV when they broadcast it. I will say that it was some of the best poker I have ever played in my life. Every time I made a big bet and my opponent folded, I was bluffing, and every time I made a big bet and my opponent called, I had the winning hand. I built my stack and took over the chip lead early on and kept it until Gavin and I were heads-up. That is when I made my only mistake at the final table.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a mistake, but it was a bad read. It was basically a 50/50 possibility that he had the hand, and he did. The blinds were 25k/50k, and I had a slight chip lead over Gavin, 5.5m to 5m. Gavin made it 125k to go from the button, and I called 75k more from the big blind with 55. the flop was JJ6 with 2 clubs. I checked, and Gavin bet 200k. He would be doing this with any 2 cards, so I called to see what he would do on the turn. The turn was an offsuit Ace. I checked, and Gavin bet 500k. This was the perfect bluff card for Gavin, and I have a really good feel for how he was playing, and he would have certainly checked an Ace behind here, in case I had a Jack. I called the 500k. The river was an offsuit 8. I checked, and Gavin bet 800k. This meant one thing, Gavin had to either have a Jack or better, or nothing. I also gave him the possibility of having a big drawing hand that missed, like KcQc, KcTc, or QcTc. After much deliberation, I called and unfortunately Gavin showed me J4 offsuit. One of my friends later asked me, "Marc, you must have had the Ace there, right?". I said, "It didn't matter if I had AK or 55 at that point. With the way he played the hand, he could only have a Jack, or nothing."

After that, it felt like Gavin was hitting every flop, and I was bleeding chips to him. There was one big hand where I almost called his big river bet down with King high on a 88554 board. I ended up folding and deciding I had made enough hero calls for one day. I'm interested to see what he had there. Even though I was losing a lot of small pots, I kept winning the big ones to get back to even. Every time I made a big river bet, I would stare Gavin down to make it look like I was trying to intimidate him and make him fold, like a lot of amateurs do. It worked like a charm all 3 times, and he paid me off. If he had picked up on that and started to fold, then I would have started to stare at him when I was bluffing. There's many little things like that you can do to throw off your opponents.

I was raising almost every hand, and controlling the action. I could see Gavin was getting frustrated, every time he limped his button, I would raise him from the small blind, and he would annoyingly throw in the extra 100k. I knew something big was going to happen soon. Then came the final hand. Gavin had 5.5m and I had 5m. Gavin raised to 125k on his button, and I re-raised it to 400k with 74, like I had been doing fairly often. Gavin called. The flop came 234, a pretty good flop for my hand. I decided to bet 500k, and Gavin thought for a little while, before announcing 2 million. As soon as he did that, I knew he did not want action. But now came the tough decision, what do I do here? I gave Gavin two possibilities, either a drawing hand with a 5, or a complete bluff. I said to myself, well I can flat call the 2 million, and then push a safe turn, but what is a safe turn? Almost every card in the deck other than a 4 or a 7 is a potential scare card. He could be bluffing with QJ, and if the turn is a Q, I'm done. Also, another thing came to my mind. Even though Gavin almost committed himself if he has a draw, maybe he will be too embarrassed to call his whole tournament with a hand like K5. I knew he would not be raising here with a made hand, because he would have trapped me in position, with how aggressive I was playing. This took about 5-10 seconds of thought, and then I announced, "All in". Gavin looked sick. We counted out the chips, and if Gavin called and lost, he would only have 500k left to my 10 million. He reluctantly said, "I call", and for a second I was shocked that he actually called, and I exclaimed, "Oh sh*t, you call?". He said, "yeah, but you have the best hand." I tabled the 74, and he showed K5. This was it. The dealer slowly dealt the turn card, and it was a 3. Beautiful! One card left, one card until the $2.8 million first prize and the EPT Championship was pretty much in my hands... the river card... the King of hearts.

Just like that, it was all over. I was crushed. 5 days of poker, over 60 hours of play, and it all ended so cruelly. I guess some good can come out of this. After that river card cost me $1.2 million, I guess no river will ever hurt as much again! Now that I look back at, I still came in 2nd place, and how can I complain? If somebody had told me I would finish in 2nd place on Day 1, I would have said, "Yeah, I wish!". I'm grateful for the success I've had, it's just that when you are standing there with the championship on the tip of your fingers, losing is the most painful thing in the world.

I want to thank everyone for all of the support I have received. It has really been overwhelming, and even though I couldn't respond to most of it, I really appreciate it. All of the comments here on my blog, on JackSeven, on Facebook, and to my e-mail. Last but not least, I'd like to thank my sponsor, Eurolinx Poker, for everything they have done. They might not be the biggest poker room on the internet, but their customer service and generosity are second to none.

As for my next tournament, I believe I will be playing in the $25,000 WPT Championship on April 21st at the Bellagio. The tournament starts in 5 days, so I'd better make my mind up quickly!