WSOP 2007 - Update #1

The first half of the WSOP has been pretty quiet for me. I've played 4 events so far, and cashed in one of them. I started off with Event 26 - $5000 H.O.R.S.E. I made it pretty deep into Day 2, but I couldn't get anything going when it counted and I busted out before the money.

I missed the money in my next event, and then I played Event 31 - $5000 World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em. I beat a relatively unknown player in the first round, and then I faced Ted Forrest in the second round. I think he was getting really bad cards because he folded to almost all of my post-flop bets, and before I knew it, I had a $34k to $6k lead. I got the rest of his chips in with AK vs TT, and I flopped an Ace to end the match. In the third round, I faced 2006 WSOP bracelet winner Eric Kesselman. He was overly aggressive and he paid for it, eventually getting his money in on the flop with 3 outs, and he missed. I was now in the money, and I faced long time pro Ron Faltinsky. I did not catch any cards early on, and I eventually got all in with A3 vs KJ. He flopped a J, and rivered another J to seal the deal and knock me out in 33rd place out of 392 players for a payday of $9,212.

The next event I played was Event 36 - $5000 World Championship Omaha High-Low 8/OB. Again I went deep into Day 2, but a cold deck prevented me from getting any further. I'm fairly inexperienced at Omaha High-Low, which also probably led to my demise. Ever since that tournament, I have been fascinated by the game and have started to play it more often. I have been doing really well in the Pokerstars $75/$150 Limit games.

The next day, my fiancee and her friend arrived in Vegas, and my parents and sister arrive today. I haven't and won't be playing any poker while they are here, which amounts to a 10 day break, one that is well needed. I don't know how the pro's play every event, but I was started to feel the burn out after playing 4 in a row. I have to give them a lot of respect for being able to do that, I hope it's something that will develop over time.

My next event will be the Event 50 - $10,000 World Championship Pot-Limit Omaha on July 1st. Of course I will also be playing the $10,000 Main Event on July 6th. If I don't fare well in the PL Omaha event, I might also play Event 52 - $1000 No-Limit Hold'em + Rebuys on July 2nd. That should be a really fun tourney!

So far, the WSOP has not been as successful for me as I would have liked, but there is still much more poker to play. I'll try not to wait 2 weeks before posting the next update. :P

Air Canada Sucks

I swear, one day, I will have a normal flight. Everything is going to go smooth, my plane is going to board at the scheduled time, we're going to take off at the scheduled time, the connection will go smooth, and my suitcase will arrive in the same country that I'm in. I know this is probably just variance, but I have to run good in a flight eventually!

So yeah, I get to the airport, and I'm one hour ahead of the scheduled departure. My flight plan is Ottawa > Montreal > Las Vegas. Pretty simple, right? When I book my own flights, I ALWAYS pick Westjet. When I saw that my sponsor had booked my flight through Air Canada, I knew something was going to go wrong. So I check in, and when I get to my gate, they announce that our flight is going to be delayed by 20 minutes because our plane is late arriving. Okay, no big deal. 20 minutes pass, 30 minutes pass, then we get another announcement. Our plane needs servicing, so it will be approximately another 15 minutes. Okay, 20 minutes pass, 30 minutes pass, we finally board the airplane over one hour behind schedule.

By the time we get to Montreal, the other plane to Las Vegas already began boarding 15 minutes ago! Also, because I'm connecting to the USA, I have to pick up by bags from the carousel, go through US Customs with them, then check them again. There's no way I'll make it in time. I inquire about the next flight to Las Vegas, and it's not until 10:00AM the next morning! That would also mean I would miss the $5000 HORSE event. I'm steaming right now. I find out there's only 3 other people from my flight that are connecting to Las Vegas, so we SPRINT to US Customs, with my 40 pound laptop on my shoulder. To our amazement, there is nobody in line at US Customs, so we frantically explain our situation. They tell us that you're not allowed to go through Customs without your bags, but they make an exception for us and let us through. They tell us that there is no guarantee that the plane will wait for us, but if we run we might be able to make it. So we do another half-marathon to our gate, and barely make it onto the plane.

In the end, I made it to Vegas, but for the 3rd time in a row, I'm without my suitcase after coming or going on an Air Canada flight. Whatever, they tell me my bags will be delivered to my hotel the next day. We'll see about that. I take a cab over to the Bellagio, I check into my room, take a quick shower (after sweating buckets during my sprint though the airport), and head over to the Rio to register for the $5000 HORSE tournament today. After I finish, I'm in the mood to play some cash games, so I check what games they have there. The biggest game they have going is $5/$10 NL and $175 satellites. I decide to leave the Rio and go back to my favourite poker room in the world at the Bellagio. I looked for a $50/$100 NL game, but the lady tells me the biggest game they have going is a $25/$50 NL. I tell her I want to play in it, and she promptly gives me a seat. To my delight, they had increased the stakes to $25/$50/$100 NL (3 blinds). I look at the stacks on the table, and the biggest one is around $18,000, so I buy in for $20,000.

I take it easy for the first orbit, the table is 6 handed, and it doesn't take me long to find out who the target is. The guy to my direct left seems to be wealthy, and has no concept of bet-sizing. He would raise $400 pre-flop, get one caller, and then fire $2000 on any flop. He also tips the dealer $100 every time he wins a pot! I just needed to sit and wait for a good hand to take this guy out. I play my normal aggressive game and I'm up around $6000 when the following hand comes up. We were playing 4 handed, so basically there was the button, and the other 3 players were always in the blinds. About 2 hours in, I pick up AA on the button. I make it $400 to go, rich guy calls, and so does the big blind. The flop comes K73 with 2 hearts. I also have the Ace of hearts. Rich guy checks, BB bets $800, I flat call, rich guy flat calls. There's $3600 in the pot. The turn pairs the 3. Now rich guy bets out $5000, BB folds, and I just call, hoping the guy has a King. Now there's $13,600 in the pot. River comes off-suit T, making the board K733T. He checks, and I ask him how much he has left. He has around $16,000. He says "Go ahead, bet, I'm gonna call." This guy really wants to see a showdown with his hand. I think about betting around half his stack, but I decide to go for the kill and push all-in, hoping he reads it as a missed flush draw. He thinks forever, in my head I'm thinking "Okay, this guy must have a strong King." After like 5 minutes, he says "I'm folding the best hand", and painfully folds 99 face up. lol? He quits after this hand, and I take my $13,000 profit and decide to call it a night.

Today is the $5000 HORSE event. I have improved my Stud games a lot over the last 2 weeks by playing online, and hopefully I can show something for it in this tournament. It starts at 8:00PM EST. You'll be able to check for updates on PokerNews and CardPlayer's websites.

Wish me luck!

The Craziest Opponent Ever

I've played a lot of aggressive players in my time, but the opponent I played against today was just in a league of his own. I'm sure this happens regularly at the lower levels, but when you're talking about $100,000, I've never seen anything like it.

I really can't believe that I won this session. The swings were crazy, I would go from $100k, down to $30k, back up to $100k, and back down. He would out-flop me every single time. I know I probably shouldn't be whining since I won anyways, but I don't think I've ever run so bad in a single session. I must have had at least 30 pocket pairs, not one set. The guy was literally re-raising me EVERY single time I raised on the button, lol, it was insane.

There is just too many big hands to post, I will try to get the biggest ones in.

He starts off early on by cracking my Aces. He calls $8200 pre-flop OOP with T8s. Yes, that's 41 BB's, and we weren't even deep. Notice on the river, he doesn't go all-in, he leaves himself with a little under $3000.
Hand #1

I got lucky in this hand. Like I said, he was re-raising every single time, so I figured he had a random hand and would have to fold here. I wanted to show the 24 offsuit; a) to slow him down b) because I will have a real hand next time. He INSTA-calls me with AJ offsuit.
Hand #2

This one was a tough hand. I turn the nut straight with a J high flush draw on a 3 club board. I think I lost minimum.
Hand #3

I made a pretty big call here. If he bets the flop, I'm gone. On the turn, I'm pretty sure I'm good, and I just call. Notice, on the river he pushes all in, and doesn't leave himself with any chips. I go with my gut and make the call.
Hand #4

He regains the chip lead here. The river pretty much hooked me. I thought about folding, I don't know if I like my call here. Jack Seven is not supposed to lose!
Hand #5

This one is pretty simple. I turn the one card nut flush, and he somehow pays me off with the King high flush, even though the board pairs on the river.
Hand #6

Now he starts really going crazy. He calls $24k pre-flop with KQ against my AK and he wins.
Hand #7

This time he puts in $35k pre-flop with AJ. Again, he insta-called it. And of course he wins once again.
Hand #8

This was dirty.
Hand #9

Probably my sickest call ever. I almost timed out before I made the call. I just feel he would have raised 2 pair or better on the turn with 2 flush draws and 2 one card gutshots out there. At the same time, I was scared he might be bluffing with something like 66, that would have been sick. It's a "hate it or love it" hand.
Hand #10

This was your classic race. After seeing the turn, I thought "Finally, got him!". Uh, yeah, not quite.
Hand #11

This was the final hand. I flop 2 pair and it holds up. I was a little bit scared of AQ, but there's no way I can fold here. It was also the largest pot of the marathon session, at $128,360.
Hand #12

Sorry for posting so many hands, I tried to keep it short but I just couldn't leave most of these out. After the match, he said he wanted to play again on Sunday. I will do my best to play. Finished the day up ~$90k.

Bluff Magazine

The June issue of Bluff Magazine is a 2007 WSOP Preview Issue. On page 80 of the magazine, they have a section titled "Players 2 Watch". In it, they list 8 young players who they think will make a big bang this year at the WSOP. The first player on that list... me! :) They basically list my accomplishments for the year, and describe my "maniac-aggressive" style and how it has been working for me on the tournament circuit. You can pick it up at your local Chapters, drugstore, or any other place that has a decent variety of magazines on the shelf.

In other news, I've been doing extremely well in cash games to start off the month. In the past, I've used this blog primarily for my live events, and haven't posted much about my online games. Well, due to popular demand, I'm going to start blogging more about my online play. I'm going to try to post at least once, if not twice a week, complete with hand replays, and commentary.

Today, I had a nice +$72k session against flyingjet2 at $200/$400 NL on Eurolinx. I have played against him before, and I feel he bluffs way too often. I didn't really get dealt any big hands during the session, but I just picked him off time after time when he tried to make moves.

The first hand was pretty standard. I played it a little conservatively, checking behind on the turn, and then making a little value bet on the river. Nothing too fancy.
Hand #1

This one was a little tricky. As soon as he min-re-raised me pre-flop, I was 99% sure it was a misclick. His re-raises are always to $4400. I actually liked the river, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't have an Ace, and it gives him an opportunity to bluff off some more chips.
Hand #2

It didn't make sense for him to have a King in this hand, and I decide to look him up on the river.
Hand #3

He either has a 6 or air here, I call him down again. You'd think the guy would start to realize that I'm calling him down pretty thin?
Hand #4

At this point I can see he is starting to tilt pretty badly, and I just let him bluff the rest of his chips off.
Hand #5

Normally, I would also post my losing hands, but HighstakesDB only records hands that are $10k and over, and he didn't win any pots of that size during this session. Unfortunately, I had to leave shortly after this hand, because I had to get ready for the Sens game! We had great seats (thanks to RikyRicardo) and the atmosphere at ScotiaBank Place was unbelievable! It's too bad they lost, but I still believe they can win it. Go Sens Go!