Out of Main Event, New Cardplayer Article, EPT Prague?

I was eliminated on Day 1 on the Main Event in WSOP Lake Tahoe. I was able to make some very nice plays to get up to $30,000 from the original $10,000 starting stack. The most interesting hand early on went like this:

With the blinds at $100/$200, mid-position makes it $700, I call on the button with 44, both blinds call. 4 players see a T62 flop with 2 diamonds. It gets checked to me, and I check behind. Turn is another T. Both blinds check, and the original raiser bets $1500. I thought, "Hmm, 77-99? Wouldn't he still lead that flop?" I make it $4000 to go, leaving myself with around $8000 behind. Both blinds fold, and he thinks and calls. As usual, I have a very loose image at the table, and he is easily capable of calling me with A high here. River is another T, making the board TTT62. He checks, and I quickly shove all-in, trying to make it look like a bluff. He insta-calls me. Oops! I say, "You must have me." He says "Not necessarily." I flip over my 44, he mucks his cards. I mean, I thought I was good when I pushed on the river, but I wasn't expecting a snap call! That boosts me up to $25,000 and a few hands later I pick off a bluff, and I'm up to $30,000.

I stay quiet for a couple of orbits, then I pick up QsJs on the button. It's folded to the cut-off who makes it $800, I call, blinds fold. Flop is TT4 with 2 spades. He leads for $1500. Now is where it gets interesting. Normally I might raise here, but this was a very straightforward player, I'm almost certain he would have checked if he had AK or AQ and missed the flop. So I pretty much know he has a pocket pair. I also know I can't push him off the hand unless I get at least another scare card out there. I just flat call the $1500. Turn is an A, now giving me a gutshot to go with my flush draw. It's also a nice scare card as I'm sure he doesn't have an Ace, and I could very likely float that flop with Ace high. He leads out for $1500. I think, then make it $4000 to go. He has around $12,000 total. I wanted to leave him with enough to fold in case he called me. He tanks forever, then calls. River is a 7. He checks, I put him all-in. He thinks for what seems like an eternity, but unfortunately he calls and flips over pocket 9's. I say "Nice call" and muck my cards. Now I guess it was the guy's first tourney or something, because he got out of his chair, slammed his hand down on the table and started talking trash! I won't get into all of the details, but basically I told him to relax since he won the damn hand. I also told him he made a great call, and he agreed, but of course hindvision is always 20/20. If you look back at the hand, I had 15 outs on the flop, and 20 outs on the turn (any Ace, King, Queen, Jack, or spade).

I was now down to $16,000. Very next orbit, I get AA in the big blind, beautiful! Everyone thinks I'm steaming. Mid-position makes it $800, button calls, I make it $3500. Original raiser calls, button folds. Now there's over $8000 in the pot, and the flop comes K92 rainbow. I lead out for $5000, he puts me all-in for my last $7500, I call, and he shows me a set of 2's. ugh. gg.

No more POY (Player Of the Year) points for me in Lake Tahoe. :( The next tournament was in Vancouver for the B.C. Poker Championships. I was leaving Lake Tahoe on Saturday, and the Main Event in Vancouver started on Thursday. Unfortunately, CardPlayer was not awarding POY points for any of the side events. Also, the main event was only a $2500 buy-in. I just said forget it, as I didn't want to waste 5 days waiting for the tournament to start, and I also missed my wife. So I came back home. I did play in a tournament last Friday though, one which I'm proud to support. I was invited to play in the "Chips for Charity" tournament in support of Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Support Programs. My wife and I both played in the friendly tournament. It was her first tournament and she made it to the final 3 or 4 tables out of around 120 players! I went out soon after, making a flush only to be bested by my opponent's full house. We had a really good time, and the organizer later notified me that they had raised over $10,000 at the event! Their next event will be on February 22nd, 2008 and I urge everyone to support this good cause! www.candlelighters.net

I have a new article in CardPlayer magazine which is titled "Mirror Image". You can read it here: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17104

I would have liked to recap some hands from the H.O.R.S.E. tournament, but this post is getting way too long. Maybe in the next update. My next tournament will most likely be EPT Prague, in the Czech Republic. I've never been, but I've only heard great things about it, and I can't wait to see it. It will be held from December 10th to 14th, at the Hilton Prague. If I don't go to Prague, then I will instead attend the 2007 Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

WSOP Circuit Lake Tahoe - Event #7 - 1st place - $11,916

I'm feeling on top of the world right now. My first major tournament victory! I arrived in Lake Tahoe, Nevada a couple of days ago for their annual WSOP Circuit. Last week, while checking the CardPlayer rankings, I saw that I was ranked #42 in the world and #3 in Canada. The 2 Canadians ahead of me are Cory Carrol and Tuan Lam, but I'm not behind by much! I would really like to be the Canadian player of the year, so I checked the tournament schedule. I saw that there was a WSOP Circuit in Lake Tahoe, and that it was awarding Player Of the Year points. So I decided to come down and take a shot.

The day I arrived, I played in Event #5 - $300 NL. I went pretty deep, then got it all in with KJ against AQ after a K65 flop and lost. Yesterday, I entered Event #7 - $500 H.O.R.S.E. We started with 91 players, and we were supposed to play down to 8 players, and then come back today for the final table. After 13 hours, there were still over 30 players and it was 3:00 AM, so they decided to just call it a night and come back and play it out the next day. We started with $5000 in chips, and I ended Day 1 with only $4300! Thanks to the great structure in this tournament, I was able to wait around for some cards on Day 2 and went on a nice run to build up a decent stack.

Usually I like to recap some of the big hands, but there aren't really any big hands in limit poker, and I'm too tired to remember the significant ones! Its just slow and boring, thank God for the iPod! I'll make another post with some hands in the next post. When we got to final table, the only player I recognized was Paul "Eskimo" Clark, who has 3 WSOP braclets. There were a few short stacks, and I picked up some key pots early on. When we were down to 4, I had a pretty big chip lead. We played until almost 2 AM, and in the end I took out Jeff Welch for the championship! Here is the official WSOP release:

2007-2008 World Series of Poker Circuit
Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Casino-Resort
Official Report

Event #7
H.O.R.S.E.
Buy-In: $500 (+50)
Number of Entries: 91
Total Prize Money: $44,135
November 14, 2007

Final Results:

1 – Marc “Myst” Karam Ottawa, ON (Canada) $11,916
2 -- Jeff Welch Greenfield, IN 6,804
3 -- Heath Powers Stockton, CA 4,413
4 -- Paul “Eskimo” Clark New Orleans, LA 3,641
5 -- David Bockhold Cameron Park, CA 2,979
6 -- David Hurley Sacramento, CA 2,427
7 -- Travis Atkins Apple Hill, CA 1,986
8 -- Mary Melton Elk Grove, CA 1,545
9 -- Doug Englekirk Zephyr Cove, NV 1,214
10 -- Michael Banducci NA 1,214
11 -- Paul Evans Mount Shasta, CA 1,104
12 -- Tom Christopher Las Vegas, NV 1,104
13 -- Joe Bellegarde Reno, NV 994
14 -- Cole Miller Auburn, CA 994
15 -- Dale Friend Zephyr Cove, NV 882
16 -- Johnny Knight Crystal Bay, NV 882


Canadian Marc “Myst” Karam Wins Harvey’s Lake Tahoe’s H.O.R.S.E. Championship

Strong turnout forces tournament to be extended to a second day


Stateline, NV – Ever since the World Series of Poker instituted a $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event two years ago, player interest in multi-game tournaments has increased dramatically. Many players recognize that the supreme test of all-around poker skill is perhaps best demonstrated in a mixture of games. Indeed, H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym for the five most popular casino poker games played in rotation – hold’em, Omaha, razz, seven-card stud, and eight-or-better.

For the first time, this year’s World Series of Poker Circuit at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe featured a H.O.R.S.E. competition. The turnout was even stronger than anticipated. Despite a mid-week start following Veterans Day, 91 players each paid a $500 entry fee to compete for the H.O.R.S.E. championship. In fact, an event that was expected to last a single day was played instead over two days, lasting a total of nearly 22 hours.

The winner of Lake Tahoe’s 2007 H.O.R.S.E. championship was Marc “Myst” Karam. He is 27-yeard-old and lives in Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, Ontario. Mr. Karam was a college student up until a few years ago, when he decided to play poker for a living. He also does freelance web design part-time.

Winning on the WSOP Circuit marked Mr. Karam’s first major tournament victory. However, he was the runner up at the European Poker Tour’s championship event held in Monte Carlo in 2007. He also took fourth place in that same event a year earlier. First place in this event paid $11,916.

The runner up was Jeff Welch, from Greenfield, IN. Second place paid $6,804. Also of note, three-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Paul “Eskimo” Clark finished in fourth place.

Since this year’s tournament series began a week ago, the poker room and tournament area has been standing-room only. What tables were not used in tournament play have been filled to capacity with cash games. So, in response to player demand, an 11th event has been added to the WSOP Circuit schedule at Harvey’s. This Sunday, on November 18th, starting at 1 pm a $200 buy-in no-limit hold’em event will be offered.

The WSOP Circuit championship will also conclude on the same day. Seating is free and open to the public. Coverage of the championship final table provided by Bluff Media will carried over the Internet at the official WSOP website: www.worldseriesofpoker.com



For more information, please contact:
Nolan Dalla -- WSOP Media Director at (702) 358-4642
Or visit our official website: www.worldseriesofpoker.com

World Series of Poker Commissioner – Jeffrey Pollack
Tournament Director – Janis Sexton
Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Race and Sportsbook Manager – Steve Schorr
Harvey’s Lake Tahoe Poker Room Manager – Vince Contaxis

I think there is only 1 more event, which is the $5000 Main Event on Friday. I will be playing in it, and then I will most likely be heading to Vancouver for the B.C. Poker Championship. I hope my success continues in the Main Event!

WPT North American Championship - 25th place - $48,633

I was eliminated in 25th place out of 504 entrants in this year's WPT NAPC. I did a CardPlayer TV interview at the end of Day 2, you can watch it here: http://www.cardplayer.com/tv/29164

I was so close to the making the final table again, I could smell it! Day 2 was pretty uneventful and I ended the day with just over $180,000 in chips. On Day 3 I started around the middle of the pack. My table looked pretty good, I had a massive fish one spot to my left, and Jean-Robert Bellande, who you might remember from 'Survivor: China', one spot to his left. Joe Cassidy was on my right, along with a couple of online players.

In his first hand at the table, Cassidy lost a monster pot against the fish. They were the 2 chip leaders at the time, and Cassidy was knocked out of the tournament. It was an interesting hand and I'm sure Joe wishes he had played it differently. This gave the fish a ridiculous $900,000 stack with the blinds at $1500/$3000. A few hands later, he calls a $160,000 push pre-flop with AT off. His comment right before calling was classic, "Easy come, easy go". I looked over at Jean-Robert and one of the other strong players at the table and we basically said with our eyes, "omg, save some chips for us!".

Then an interesting hand came up against Jean-Robert. I had around $220,000 with the blinds at $1500/$3000. I raised it up to $10,000 in the hijack with T9hh. JR re-raises on the button to $25,000. It folds around to me, I call $15,000 more. The flop comes J94 with one heart. I check, and he checks behind. I'm now pretty sure he has AK or AQ, and I plan on firing on the turn as long as its not an A, K or Q. The turn is a 6, but it put two hearts on the board, giving me a flush draw to go with my pair. Now I'm a huge favourite to win the hand, and I don't really want to push him away anymore. Also, if he somehow slow played a big hand and I get raised big here, I would be in a sick spot, and I hate calling big bets on the turn with a draw. So I checked, and as I expected, he checked behind again. He thinks his AK is still good at this point. The river is another 9, giving me trips. Now I try to figure out how to get paid off here. There is around $60,000 in the pot, and I decided to bet $65,000. He knows I know he has AK, he even says it out loud. Then he says, "That's too big of a bet with a Jack, and why would you check a 9 twice, that doesn't make any sense." In my head, I replied, "Because I turned a flush draw to go with it". After 5 minutes of thought, he said "Ugh this makes no sense, maybe you have AA. Nice bluff.", and reluctantly folded his hand. He made a great fold, but I could tell it was really eating him up to know what I had.

Next orbit, I raise to $10,000 and he re-raised me again, to $30,000 this time. I had 85 offsuit, so I folded, and he tried to needle me by giving me the thumbs up and saying I made a great fold. A few hands later, I raise again, but this time I have AA. I make it $10,000 and JR re-raises it to $30,000. If there is any feeling in poker that is better than raising with AA and getting re-raised, I'm not aware of it. It comes back to me, and I mull it over for about 15 seconds. I then ask, "How much do you have behind?" He counts it out and it's another $120,000 after his raise. I think for around a minute, and I announce, "I'm all in". He gets out of his chair and starts to ask what I have. "Do you have Ace King?" I sit emotionless, and just pray he calls me. I'm careful not to give off any tells, even fake tells, because he seems to be very good at picking up on them. I acted a bit nervous on the previous hand after my bet on the river, and I think he picked up on it a bit and factored it into his decision. So this time I was still as a statue. He finally says, "I folded the best hand once, I'm not going to fold the best hand again". He says "Ok, I call." He turns up pocket Queens and I show my Aces. He doesn't hit a Queen and my hand holds up to eliminate him from the tournament.

I then pull another big semi-bluff against the fish to boost me up to $660,000. Then came an interesting hand against this young player named Scott "SCTrojans" Freeman. Apparently he's played in 3 million online tournaments this year or something like that. Anyways, he plays like the typical online player, aggressive. We are 7 handed, and he opens UTG for $16,000 at $3000/$6000 blinds. It folds to me in the BB and I look down at Ad8d. I look over at his stack and I can see he has under $100,000. Also, the most important factor is that we are ONE player away from moving up another $15,000 in prize money. There are 37 players left, and 37th place pays $19,453. 36th place pays $34,043. So, in theory, this guy needs a monster hand to call me. I re-raise him to $55,000 and he moves all in. I ask how much he has and it's like $85,000 total or something like that, so around $30,000 more into a $150,000 pot. I call, and he shows KK, so I have 3 outs. I flop a flush draw which now gives me 12 outs to win, and I hit my flush on the turn to knock him out of the tournament.

After dinner break, I had $760,000 which put me in 2nd or 3rd place at the time. I was feeling really good about my chances to make the final table again. We had new tables after dinner, and my new table had Barry Greenstein on it. I was hoping to get another signed copy of his book, but it was not to be. I played in a couple of pots and missed the board every time, and I was down to around $600,000 when our table broke. The new table was suicide, it had Bill Gazes, Scott Clements, Jonathon Little, and a couple of other players I don't remember. The point is, we had like 50% of the chips in play at our table. The blinds were $4000/$8000. I raised twice to $25,000, once with AK, and once with AQ, and I missed both times. I lost some blinds and antes, and all of a sudden I was down to $500,000.

Then came another big hand, which essentially crippled me. It folds to Scott Clements, who has been opening a lot of pots, and he raises to $25,000 in the cut-off. Little folds, and I look down at AhQh in the small blind. I'm like 95% sure my hand is better than Clements', and I bump it up to $100,000. To my dismay, the supertight big blind immediately moves all in for ~$500,000. Clements insta folds, and I quickly throw my cards face up into the muck. He flashes two red Kings to the table, no surprise. Now I'm down to around $400,000 but I'm still alive.

The very next orbit, I'm dealt JJ in the big blind. It folds around to the cut-off, who opens for $24,000. Scott Clements flat calls on the button. Jonathon Little peeks at his hole cards and instantly raises to $130,000. From his quick raise and big overbet, without even glancing at the other players' stacks, it led me to believe he had 2 possible holdings. AK or complete air. Both of which you would hate to take a flop out of position with. AA, KK, and QQ, you would look at the other players' stacks to try and get maximum extraction out of the hand, not just try and take down a pretty decent pot pre-flop. Also, it would be a good time to pull a squeeze play here, with the cut-off raising with a wide range of hands, and Clements calling on the button with an even wider range. As soon as I saw how big Little's re-raise was, I instantly moved all-in for $410,000. The only player I was slightly afraid of having a better hand with the cut-off. I already knew what Little was holding, and if the cut-off or Clements have QQ, they pretty much have to fold here. The cut-off folded quickly, as did Freeman. Little thinks for a few seconds, and asks for a count. He sees that its around $400,000, and he says "I have to call". He shows AK. The door card is the King of hearts, and just like that it was all over. The same King of hearts that crushed my hopes for a championship on the river in Monte Carlo a few months ago.

Right now I want to buy 1000 decks of cards, take out the King of hearts from each deck, crumple them up and rip them into hundreds of little pieces. Then take those little pieces and burn them.

What anger problem?