mystpoker.com

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-20T13:39:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since my last update, no excuses really, just been lazy/nothing exciting to write about/no deep finishes. And it's not because I've been away from poker, it's quite the opposite actually. I've been putting in a lot of time online and live in the past 3 months and I feel like I'm back in full stride and my confidence is as high as ever. It feels really good to be excited about poker again. I haven't cashed in the last few tourneys I've played in, but I don't feel like I'm doing anything different, that's just the nature of tournament poker.

Actually, I did win a major tournament recently, WNP. For some reason it's not recognized by CardPlayer yet, but we are working on that. For those people who have never heard of it, it's kind of like PAD but without the TVs and the players are much better. ;)

In the past couple of months I played in the Caesars Palace Classic, the B.C. Poker Championships, a small tourney in Turning Stone, NY and the LAPT event in Mexico. I'm taking this month off from traveling but I'll be back on the road after Christmas.

Our local casino (Casino du Lac Leamy) recently added live poker tables to their poker room to replace the electronic ones. I must say, the action has been amazing! The rake is a little high, but it's so good to have a real poker room so close to home. If you live close to Ottawa be sure to check it out!

I'll be playing the PCA in the Bahamas from January 5th - 10th. It will be nice to get away from the cold and snow! After that, there is an EPT event in Deauville, France on January 20th. I'm not 100% sure I'm going to that one because I'm also thinking of spending about a month in L.A. to play in the LAPC, where they're holding around 35 events, starting on January 22nd.

My CardPlayer articles should be back for the new year, I haven't written any in the past few months but I have some good new material to work with now. Also, Season 3 of the Myst Poker Tour is scheduled to start around March. Once again, we will be sending someone to play in the World Series of Poker for free! Stay tuned for details...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

WPT North American Championship - 5th place - $196,851.00

2008-10-23T14:33:00.002-04:00

One day I am going to win a major tournament. I might be 75 years old, but I will do it. As I write this report, I'm sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight to Vegas. My flight leaves in one hour, so I'm going to recap the last few days of the tournament fairly quickly.

If you were following the tournament, you probably read about my call on Day 2 with Kigh high in a $100k+ pot. Instead of writing out my thought process, there's an interview I did with Amanda Leatherman about the hand on worldpokertour.com, I'll try to embed it into this post later.

On Day 3, it was a rollercoaster with me going up to $650k, made an ill-timed bluff, then down under $100k when my KK got cracked by AQ, then back up to $424k before the end of the day.

On Day 4, my stack quickly grew as I knocked out Vivek Rajkumar when I flopped a flush against his aces and he shoved for 2.5x the pot. The turn was an Ace but he didn't fill up on the river and I was up to $1.7 million. I proceeded to go on a tear, and won a race against Erik Seidel with AK against his QQ. I was at $3.2 million at dinner break with 9 people left and chipleader. After dinner, we played for another 2 hours before we got down to the final six, and I don't think I even picked up the blinds once. I would raise and get re-raised and have to fold, or I would raise, and my c-bet would get raised and I would have to fold. It was all small pots but I dropped down to $1.85 million by the time we went to the final table.

At the final table, I had so many opportunities to double up but nothing went my way. I had Gavin Smith on my right, and at $15k/$30k blinds he would make it $85k. I called on the button twice, with 88 and QhTh, and both times was re-raised by an amateur player in the BB to an even $200k. So both times it was $115k more to me into a $250k pot and it was almost 100% that the BB was shoving for over $1 million on the flop. With the 88, the flop came J97 and he shoved, I thought forever and folded, I can't wait to see it on TV. I think he had QQ or KK, but I could be wrong and he might have got a little happy with AK. With the QhTh, the door card was a Q, but the flop came out KQ7 and he pushed all in again. I put him on AK or AA and folded. I thought he was a pretty tight player, but he played his last hand against Gavin so badly, putting in $1.7 million with 77, that I'm starting to rethink my folds.

I was quickly down to 1 million at the first break and in rough shape with the blinds going up to $20k/$40k. I knew I had to pick up some chips, and I was just hoping my timing would be right. A few hands in, the online pro Ryan makes it $110k to go, and Gavin flat calls from the SB. I look down at 64 in the BB. There is now $280k in the pot, and I decide to move in. I know Gavin calls with any two cards preflop, so I'm really only worried about Ryan. He folds, and Gavin quickly folds. The very next hand, Kathy Liebert opens to $110k from the cutoff, and she hasn't played a hand in a long time and has been blinding out. I know she desperately needs to pick up some chips, Gavin flat calls again from the button. Now there's $300k in the pot and I look down at 9d5d. I quickly move in, before I can talk myself out of it. :) Another thing is, Gavin and Kathy probably thought I was full of it last hand, but they must be thinking "Ok, he may be crazy, but not crazy enough to do that twice in a row with air."

Now I'm up to $1.6 million and I have some momentum behind me. A few hands later, Gavin makes it $110k, and I look down at JJ. I bump it up to $400k and it folds back to Gavin and he quickly folds. I show my hand, knowing that when someone shows a good hand, it looks like they are setting up a bluff. I'm just praying for a big hand, and 3 hands later, I get it! QQ in the big blind, here we go! An older gentleman, who has been playing super tight, but usually opening for 3x the blinds, makes it $200k to go utg (5x the blinds). From playing with him the previous day, I knew he had the tendency to entice action with a monster, and overbet to protect vulnerable hands. So now his range in my head is pocket 55-JJ, AK, and AQ (mayyybe AJ at the very low end of his range). It folds to me and I instantly push all-in, knowing there's a very likely chance I'm getting called, especially with the image I've set up. He thinks for about 5-10 seconds, in my head I'm saying "call call call", and he calls! I confidently flip up my QQ and he shows AK! Nooooooo, the only hand he could have that I did not want to see! :( I turned around to my friends with a disgusted look on my face, and they all thought he had Aces because they couldn't see the hand. I yelled over to them that he had AK and they breathed a sigh of relief and started yelling for a Queen. Unfortunately, the door card was an Ace, and no matter how hard they yelled, the Queen wouldn't come. Just like that it was all over yet again. The first time in the whole tournament that I was all in and called for all of my chips, but it was not meant to be.

I want to thank everyone who made the trip to Niagara to cheer me on at the final table. We had around 20 people, family and friends from Ottawa, Toronto, and Cleveland. I was trying so hard for that elusive win, but I still had a great time none the less. Next time, next time...

A few fun facts from my five final table appearances:

- the player who knocked me out at the final table went on to win the tournament every time

- I've never won a single race or an all in when I was behind since the one time when I beat Marcel Luske's 88 with Jd7d at my first final table

- in the first four final tables, my placing was always an even number: 4th, 6th, 6th, 2nd. When we were down to 5 people in Niagara, I said to Gavin, "Well, I can't be the next one out because I always finish in the even numbers. He replied "Well, I guess that means you can't finish first then!" LOL! Well, at least I broke the even number curse. :)

I'm on my way to Vegas for the 2008 Caesars Palace Classic. This update is getting too long as it is... I'll try to do another update this weekend. Thanks for reading!

WPT North American Championship - Day 1

2008-10-12T11:19:00.001-04:00

I came to Niagara on Friday night for the second time in less than a week, after spending last weekend out here playing the cash games. It went pretty well. They were spreading $5/$10 PLO and apparently they just started playing it here. There were a couple of solid young players, but as for the rest, you know how that goes; calling pot bets with top pair on a draw heavy board, playing for their whole stack with dry Aces no matter what the board was, calling pot bets on the turn with a Q high flush draw on a paired board, etc etc. Good times.

Yesterday was the second of three starting days, and even though I was a bit tired from arriving here late the night before, I decided it would be better to play on the second day than the third. My reasoning for this is pretty simple; most of the big name pros play lots of events, so they don't have the time to travel to a tournament a few days in advance. They usually want to be in and out of there as soon as possible. Therefore most of them would want to play on the third starting day, that way they wouldn't have to waste any time with days off in between. Of course the first day would have been the best to play on.

I arrived at my table about five minutes late after some registration issues, and I was pleased to not recognize any of the faces at my table. A couple of guys seemed like online pros just from their demeanor, but nothing too crazy. The structure was great as always, the blinds started at $50/$100 with a $30,000 starting stack, and 90 minute levels.

I started off fast as usual, playing lots of small pots and establishing a loose table image. I was up to $40,000 after about half an hour after winning a few small pots. Then came my first big pot of the day, which probably ended up being one of the best calls I've made in a major tournament. Three people limped at $50/$100, and I bumped it up to $450 with KdQd on the button, two players called. Flop was Jc9c4d. First player checked, second led out for $600, which was weird because he normally check called with a piece of the board. I made it $1,900, first player folded, and the other called. Turn 7d, giving me a flush draw to go with my gutshot and two overs. He checks, I bet $3,500, and he calls. River is the 2h, and he instantly leads for $6,000. His line was odd, if he had a big hand it seemed like a check raise was in order with such a draw heavy board on the turn. It just smelled like a missed draw to me. I was almost sure of this, but then I thought, what if he missed with an Ace high flush draw? I can't beat that! I kept asking him if he had QT, and he didn't answer. Eventually I threw in the $6000, and he says "Good call." I'm still not that comfortable in case he has Ace high. After a few seconds he flips up QT! Phew! I say "King high baby!" in a miserably failed attempt to mimick Scotty Nguyen.

That put me at over $50,000 chips and in really good shape still in the first level. We had one really bad player at our table who was pretty much playing every pot. He would limp and then cold call a 3 bet regularly. Or 3 bet every time there was a raise in front of him. He was really unpredictable and his stack was fluctuating a lot. Of course I had to get in a big hand with him. Second level, blinds $100/$200, it folds to me in the cutoff and I look down at AcJc and bump it up to $550. Folds to previously mentioned player and he 3 bets to $1,500. I call. Flop comes JT3r. He bets $2,000, I call. Turn 8. He bets $4,000 with another $8,000 behind. I put him all in and he calls and shows AA. Ouch. Back down to ~$40,000 I go.

The next big pot I played was during the same level, against the toughest player at the table. He has read my blog before so I won't reveal my holecards in this hand until later on. I promised him I would tell him but only after one of us was eliminated from the tournament, and we're both still in so... He raised in MP to $600, I called on the button, and the BB called. Flop was KdQd3d. BB checked, he led out for $1,350, I made it $4,350, BB folds, he calls. Turn 4x, he checks, I bet $8,000, he calls. River 7x. He checks, I push all in. He tanks forever and after five minutes he folds. He goes, "I know you have the Ace of diamonds but what was your other card?" ;)

I stayed between $50,000 and $55,000 for the rest of the level and then I was dealt AsQd on the button with blinds $100/$200 with a $25 ante. Cutoff limps for $200, I make it $1,200, he is the only caller. Flop comes JT3. He checks, I bet $2,500, he calls. Turn K, bink! He leads out for $2,500, I make it $6,500, he tanks and then pushes for around $14,000 more. I insta call and he shows QJ. He gets up out of his seat, and the river is a 9, he sits back down and says, "Chop pot!" Umm, not quite, gg sir.

That put me at around $80,000 which would be my peak for the day. Then the worst thing happened, I got moved to a table full of solid young online players. There was one guy with over $140,000 when I sat down, and he was literally opening preflop every single hand. I was two to his right, so I was calling almost every single hand, and nobody was 3 betting very often, because big stack would never fold pre. At $100/$200/$25, he called a 3 bet to $5,400 preflop with Ah9h and won a $70,000 pot calling down every street on a T88AQ board.

The only time I got a hand against him was in the last level of the day with blinds at $300/$600/$75. I had AK on the button, and he opened to $1,600, I made it $7,000, he called. Flop was J64r. He checked, I bet $11,000 and he pushed all in. I just couldn't get him, but I have to admit, he played the big stack really well, pushing everyone around and being fearless. He finished with almost $200,000, insane! I grinded back up to ~$75,000, when I was dealt my least favourite hand in Niagara, JJ. I raised it up to $1,600 and a young French player pushed all in for ~$9,000. I called and he showed AK. Door card on the flop was a K, just like I went out last year. I should just fold it pre! I won the last two pots of the day to finish with $69,100 with the average around $45,000. Play resumes on Monday.

Thanks for reading!

Poker?

2008-09-25T18:07:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot what that word meant. As I have done for the past 3 years, I played very little poker this summer outside of the WSOP in Las Vegas. I have mostly been enjoying the summer; visiting my family down south, going to my first NFL game, renting a cottage for a few weekends with my buddies, basically getting out of the house as much as possible. I've also been working on a couple of little projects.

With the summer now over, it's back to business. I know, I know, I still haven't made that announcement that I've been talking about for the past couple of months, but there are still a couple of things that need to be sorted out. I promise, this is the last time I mention it before it's ready.

As for my next major tournament, I will be playing in the $10,000 WPT event in Niagara Falls for the 3rd year. As you may recall, in 2006 I made the final table and finished in 6th for ~$170,000, and in 2007 I almost repeated, but was eliminated in 25th place for ~$50,000. This is the only major tournament of the year where I'm playing at "home", so I hope I can make the most of it and do my country proud.

I might go a little early and play some of the side events, if there are any. My updates are few and far between at the moment, but after I start playing regularly again they should be back to normal. Either that, or I got lazy, I'm hoping it's the former. ;)

Long Time No Blog

2008-07-26T12:34:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since my last update, where do I begin? I guess I'll try to recap most of the WSOP. I know I said I planned on playing in at least 10 events this year, but that didn't happen. I ended up playing in 4 events, and cashing in a whopping zero of them. I played the $1500 H.O.R.S.E., $1500 PLO, $1500 Limit Shootout, and of course the $10,000 Main Event.

I also played a couple of tourneys at other casinos, and did well in one of them. I was chip leader in one of the $500 Venetian Deep Stack tourneys with 45 people left out of 500. Then I went on to lose two huge pots to 98 suited to blow out and cash for a measly $951.

In the Main Event, I played on Day 1b and I was actually chip leader a couple of times late in the day. I finished the day with $86,725. On Day 2 I got off to an amazing start and quickly found myself at $170,000 and top 5 in chips. At $300/$600 blinds, UTG made it $1600, one caller, and I called another $1000 in the BB with 87. The flop came Q54r. I checked, UTG bet $3000, other player folded. UTG had another $90,000 behind and he was the type of player to never fold a hand like AA or even AQ. I called for the gutter, and the turn was a 6, giving my the nut straight! I check, he bets $6000, I think and make it $25,000 and he insta-calls. I'm laughing in my head, his chips are already in my stack and he's drawing dead for sure. River pairs the 6, which I didn't mind because now it's even easier for him to call with an overpair. I bet $50,000 to make it look like a bluff, and he insta-pushes for $16,000 more. I almost puked on the table. I obv can never fold here, I called and he flipped over 44, for the rivered boat. Not that I want my opponents to play good, but he almost has to pray I have a straight on the turn, because otherwise he has 1 out!

After that I tilted off some of my stack, and then check-raised Tony Hachem all-in on a 643 flop with 85, and he called with QQ and I missed. I had raised in the cutoff and he 3-bet me from the button and I called. After the flop, I was hoping he had AK or AQ but even if he called I was drawing live.

I would have probably folded pre if I wasn't steaming, especially against a decent player like Tony. I used to always laugh at people like Hellmuth when they leave the table to walk off a bad beat or any big loss for that matter. In my head I used to say "why would you walk away, what if you get Aces?" Now I'm thinking a walk would have definitely helped me out, after the big hand I still had an average stack and lots of play. You live and you learn.

I played a bunch of cash games, mostly $25/$50 PLO with a $100 straddle on the button at the Rio. The game was always very soft. The very first hand I stacked an older guy on the flop for like 200 BBs when he was already drawing dead. I think the funniest part of my trip was the fact that I spent almost a month and a half in Vegas, and I never once played NL Hold'em until the Main Event!

For my whole trip I stayed at the Venetian. It's my favourite hotel in Vegas, but that's probably because of Tao. We'd go down to the pool or Tao Beach in the morning for some swimming and tanning in the average 112 degree heat. Then we'd go back to the hotel to have lunch and hang out. Then head to Tao to have the best sushi in the world for dinner. After that, we'd try to get into Tao's nightclub. We got in a few times, but most of the time we had trouble and didn't feel like waiting in line for 2 hours minimum. One time I was with my friend and my cousin and we wanted to skip the line so I talked to the doorman to see what it was going to take. He seemed pretty anal so I figured it was going to take a lot. We offered him $100 a head to go in. He didn't even look at me! I'm like "wow, this guy's serious". Then I told him we also wanted to buy a bottle ($450 for the cheapest bottle). He goes, "oh, you want a table?" In my head I'm like, "sweet, we're in". I tell him, "yeah we want a table." He goes "ok, it's minimum 2 bottles per table". I say, "come on man we're 3 guys and we already had a bunch of drinks in your restaurant". He replies, "ok if you only want 1 bottle, you have to buy a minimum $700 bottle." My casino host couldn't do anything either since the Tao isn't owned by the Venetian. Needless to say, we went elsewhere. I guess we should make reservations next time, considering it's the most profitable restaurant/nightclub in the whole world. :P Last year the Tao itself made more money than the whole Tropicana Casino and Hotel Resort! Crazy.

We saw a bunch of shows, Le Rêve at the Wynn beats all of the Cirque du Soleil shows, that was pretty amazing. Shopped a bunch, checked out the grand opening of Christian Audigier's Nightclub at Treasure Island, that was cool, lots of celebs. In other parts of Vegas I ran into Lil Jon, Randy Jackson, Armin van Buuren, Paris Hilton, Forrest Griffin, Chuck Liddell, Ray Romano.

I'm still looking for a condo on the strip. Right now Planet Hollywood, MGM, and CityCentre are my options. CityCentre is my favourite, but the prices are ridic. It's awesome because it's next door to the Bellagio. It will be nice to spend the 3 or 4 winter months in Vegas and the month for the WSOP every year. The other months I'd rent it out. It's nice because the top half of the building is condos, and the bottom half is hotel. So you have access to room service, housekeeping, concierge, valet, pool, fitness, spa etc even though you own your condo. When you're not there, the hotel will rent your room out for you, and they take a cut and give you the rest. The hotel changes the sheets and cleans up of course.

After rereading the last few paragraphs I sound like Phil Hellmuth lol. But whatever it was an awesome trip! A bunch of people have messaged me asking what the big news was that I mentioned previously. Sorry for the delay, but I had to talk to a few people about what I can and can't say at the moment, my next update will almost surely reveal it.

Thanks for reading!

MPT Season 2 Finale and Radio Interview

2008-06-07T14:23:00.000-04:00

This past Tuesday was the VIP Finale of the Myst Poker Tour's 2nd Season! We had 11 strong weeks, and we were pushing near 200 players for the last few weeks. A huge congratulations to bigchico10 for winning the championship in a very tough heads up match against DBernardo.

As a result, he will be joining Team Eurolinx in Vegas! We will keep you updated on how he makes out. Also, stay tuned for the announcement of Season 3, which will only be bigger and better! Thanks to Lone Star restaurant for hosting the events, and to Niko and the crew for once again doing an outstanding job running the tournaments.

Also, the interview I did with 103.7 BOB FM while I was in Monaco is now available for listening by clicking here.

Vegas in 2 days!!!

Stupid Laptop

2008-05-19T20:03:00.000-04:00

I had a long post written up recapping the Vancouver tournament, but my laptop overheated and shut off, causing me to lose everything I had written. I know, I should have been using Word or another program which would still have saved it, but that would be too convenient.

I really don't feel like writing everything over again, so I will just recap the last hand. I had built up my original $15,000 starting stack to $50,000 with the blinds at $200/$400/$50 and I was in great shape to go deep.

I was playing like a complete maniac and opening at least 4 or 5 pots an orbit, when I pick up AA in mid position. People were starting to play back a bit so I knew some sparks were about to fly. UTG limps, I raise to $1600, folds to the BB who calls, UTG folds. The BB is the only player at the table who has me covered. The flop comes K42. BB checks, I bet $3500, BB calls. Turn is an A, giving me top set and putting 2 diamonds on board. BB checks, I bet $7500, he pushes all in! I pretty much insta call and he flips over 53. I miss my 10 outs on the river and I just leave the table in shock.

The average stack around the time was $28,000 and the pot was over $100,000. Looking back at the hand, I guess you could give him 53 there, but there are too many sets, 2 pairs, combo draw hands to get away from that.

Vegas is getting closer! I'm thinking of pushing my departure date back a few days because I have a bunch of things I'm working on right now. I might leave around June 8th or 9th.

In Vancouver for WPT Canada

2008-05-09T13:43:00.001-04:00

My buddy and I decided to come out to Vancouver at the last minute for the new WPT Canada. We were just sitting around talking some poker, and then one of us mentioned the tournament. I checked online, found a flight which left in 5 hours, and we just packed up and left. The buy-in is $3000, and the structure is pretty sound, with a $15,000 starting stack and 60 minute blinds. They are expecting a prize pool of around $1.5 million which is pretty big for a lower buy-in event.

If things don't go well in the tournament, the cash games look very good. They are running up to $25/$50 NL and $10/$25 PL Omaha both with a max $10,000 buy-in. The only problem is they have this weird rule in B.C. where you can only bet a max of $2500 in a hand. So I don't really understand why there is a cap on the buy-in when you can only lose so much.

I'll keep this update short as the tournament starts in less than an hour. Wish me luck!

The New MystPoker.com, Malta/Monaco Trip Report

2008-05-01T20:56:00.002-04:00

After many months of hard work, the new and improved MystPoker.com is finally here! Thanks to my manager and good friend Bill Sparks, the site launched a couple of weeks ago and the feedback so far has been awesome! The site now features sections on News, Blog, Forum, Articles, Video, Pictures, and Hands.

There are so many things I want to blog about, but I don't want to cramp them all into one post, so I will probably throw in an update every few days or so.

My trip to Malta and Monaco ended up being very successful outside of the actual tournament itself. In Malta, I played some €5/€10 NL at the Dragonara Casino. The game was very lucrative, with me being the youngest player at the table by about 20 years, until my Norwegian buddy joined the game later in the night. I cashed out with a tidy profit and didn't play any more poker until Monte Carlo. I met with Jo, the owner of Eurolinx, and we talked mostly business. I will (hopefully) have some exciting announcements to make in the upcoming weeks.

I arrived in Nice, France the day before the EPT Championship started, and then took a short helicopter ride to Monaco, and the view from the air on the way in was ridiculous. It's probably my favourite place in the world after Vegas. In Monte Carlo, I also did pretty well in the side games. I played two $20,000 sit and go's with some Europeans and I ended up chopping the first one heads up and in the second one I lost QQ to T9 all-in after a 762 flop to bust out of the money. One of my reporter friends took some video of the game and said he was going to post it online, but I can't read Norwegian, so if I do end up finding it I will post it.

I was later invited to play in a high stakes cash game. The game was hosted in a nice suite just outside of Monte Carlo in Marseilles. There were two conditions which were required to be met before anyone could play in the game.

1) No Americans, because they are too tight.
2) You must be drinking during the game.

As you can see, this was meant to be more of a fun game than a serious game. I can say with confidence that this was the craziest game I have ever played in. Not meaning the easiest, but the most aggressive and wild game. Bunch of drunk Scandidavians = action! The players were made up of a couple of rich guys, some high stakes online cash game players, and a couple of successful tourney players. The buy-in was 100,000 Norwegian Kroner, which equates to around $20,000. So you basically divide everything by 5 to get the number in U.S. dollars. The blinds were set at 100kr/200kr with a common straddle to 400kr.

The action was wild right from the get go. Almost every raise was met by a re-raise and every pot seemed to be huge. The first pot I played was the highlight of the night for me, and (being slightly results-oriented) one of the best hands I've ever played.

I was dealt KsJs on the button, and it folded to me. I make it 1400 to go, SB folds, aggressive high stakes online guy makes it 11,000 to go from the BB. I have around 140,000 total, and I flat call. Flop comes 853 with 2 hearts. He leads out for 16,000, I think for a while, decide to float, and call again. Turn is an offsuit 3, pairing the board. He checks, which I thought was really weak, because if he had an overpair and he put me on the 8 or a flush draw, he should be firing here most of the time, so I decide to bet 25,000 and hopefully take it down. He takes his time and makes it 75,000 to go, crap! Now I'm patiently trying to sort everything out in my head. My gut is saying he has nothing but my head is saying so what, you only have 38,000 more and you have King high! After a very long time, I go with my gut and push all-in for only 38,000 more into a 200,000 pot. As soon as he doesn't insta-call, I feel a big relief inside of me. He starts laughing and shows his cards to the guy next to him, before mucking!

In the next big pot, there's a straddle to 800 on my BB, 4 callers and I complete with QJ. So, 4000 in the pot right? I check, and it checks to the same guy that I made the move with KJ on, and he leads out for 20,600. Into the 4000 pot... He had another 80,000 behind. I just shoved since I was out of position and in case he had T9 or KT I didn't want him catching up. He folded.

Then I won a big coinflip. There's a straddle to 800, 3 callers to me on the button, and I make it 4000 to go with Kd7d. BB calls, and the 3 limpers call, 20,000 in the pot. Flop comes Ad 8d 2x. Checks to me, I make it 12,000 to go, BB goes "I'm just going to call with my flush draw" and he calls, it folds to the cutoff and he makes it 30,000 to go. Now I don't want to face a big bet on the turn so I try to represent a monster. I re-raise to 80,000. BB insta-pushes all-in, crap! Cutoff folds, and there's around 220,000 in the pot and its 175,000 more for me to call. So I'm getting a little over 2 to 1 on my call and I just hope he doesn't have a set. I eventually call, and he goes "Nice call". He wasn't lying about the flush draw, but he has Qd2d for a pair of 2's making him a slight 52/48 favourite. It was a 600,000 pot so almost $120,000. We decide to cut the variance down a bit and agree to each take 150,000 back from the pot and play for the other 300,000. We run it out, and the board comes 7 7. Ring a bell? lol, ship it!

Then I got stubborn on one hand. I raised with AJ on the button to 3000, SB calls, same BB as last hand makes it 11,000, I call, SB calls. Flop comes JT3r. SB checks, BB bets 36,000, I call, SB folds. Turn K. He bets 60,000, I call. River K, he bets 100,000, I call pretty quickly. He shows KQ. This hand kept bothering me for a few days afterwards, unsure of whether I should have just folded the turn. He knows I'm capable of calling down very thin, so I don't know if he would have tried to bluff me in that big of a pot.

After that things got really crazy, and I didn't play any more big pots. It was insane, a guy would raise to 4000, other guy would make it 28,000, call. Flop Q92. Check, check. Turn 5. Check, bet 50,000, push for 120,000, call. Pusher shows 96, guy who re-raised to 28,000 preflop shows 92off. River blank.

Then a guy raises to 4000, guy re-raises to 50,000. Other guy shoves for 220,000. Fold. lol.

The game broke around 9:00 AM, and we went for a nice breakfast at the Hotel Paris. I took a pretty cool pic right in front of the hotel, it will give you an idea of the type of cars that are driven in Monaco. Sorry for the picture quality, it was taken on my cell phone.

From left to right: Mercedes Benz CLS63 AMG, Bentley Continental GT, Rolls Royce Phantom, and in the front, the 1001 horsepower, $1,700,000 work of art they call the Bugatti Veyron 16.4. Not a bad lineup, eh?

The WSOP is starting in exactly one month, so I think I'm going to take it easy until then. I'm still trying to work out my schedule for the World Series, I'll be staying in Vegas for the whole month, and I want to space my tournaments out so that I won't always be playing on consecutive days. I'm planning on playing at least 10 events, but they have an insane 55 events this year, so I'll have to choose wisely.

EPT Monte Carlo 2008 - Day 1

2008-04-14T17:57:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, there will be no three-peat for me in Monte Carlo. I was eliminated about half way into Day 1. I'll recap some of the significant hands.

My table draw looked very good. There was one good German player across the table from me, and I didn't recognize anyone else, which is always a good thing. After I got a feel for the table, I started to employ my normal aggressive game. I think at one point I raised 7 or 8 straight hands. Nobody was playing back, and at the worst they were calling and then letting me control the size of the pot.

I slowly built up my original $15,000 stack to around $20,000 when the following hand came up during the second level. Keep in mind I was playing almost every hand before this. Blinds are $50/$100. Old tight Italian man limps UTG and it folds to me in MP. I make it $375 but this I actually have a real hand, KK. It folds to the good German player on the button. Now he knows I am playing a wide variety of hands, but he has been pretty much avoiding me and playing the pots I'm not in. He 3-bets it to $1475. Now I know a monster hand is going to happen, because I know he is fully expecting the possibility of a 4-bet from me. And I'm really comfortable because I don't think he would have made as big of a re-raise with AA. So now I'm licking my chops. It folds back to the Italian man and he quickly makes it $3100 to go. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! I honestly only thought for about 10 seconds, said "wow", flashed my Kings to the guy next to me, and threw them in the muck. The German guy tanked for around 3 minutes and decided to flat call. The flop was 442, and the Italian man led out for $4500. The German guy again tanked, and flashed QQ before folding. The Italian guy proudly shows AA. I tell them I folded KK, and the German guy goes "You were stacking me. I would have never folded these to you." Damn it! Oh well, at least it only cost me $375.

I was still at $20,000 and I was dealt AQ on the button. The blinds were now $75/$150. I made it $425, and both blinds called. Flop was A82 all hearts. SB checks, BB bets out $1000, I call, SB folds. Turn is an offsuit Q, giving me top 2. He leads out again for $3000, and I call. Possibility of a flush is in my mind, but I'll wait to see what he does on the river. The river is an offsuit 3. There's almost $10,000 in the pot and I have $11,500 behind. He bets... $1000, lol. Now I am 100% sure he doesn't have a flush because he would have value bet more on the river here. I tank it for a bit and decide to bump it up to $4000. It's a pretty thin raise, but I think I would raise here most of the time because my image is so loose that he would never fold any hands, and I beat more of his range than I lose to. He thought for a bit and called, I showed my hand but he showed 22 for a flopped set.

Now I was down to $7500, but still in okay shape since the blinds were still low. I found KK in mid position again, and raised it up to $550 at $100/$200. The German player calls on the button, and the rest fold. The Flop is T84 with 2 spades. I bet $1000, and he calls. Turn is the Qs, putting a flush on board. I check, and he checks behind. River is an offsuit 2. It looks like a pretty good bluff spot for me, and I decide to bet $2500. He tanks for a bit, and then calls. I show my Kings and he taps the table and mucks.

Now I'm back up to $12,000. A couple of players limp and I find 22 in the cutoff. I also limp, button limps. The flop is T62r, bingo! 6 players in the hand, it checks to me, I bet $800, button calls, the rest fold. Turn is an A. I look at his stack, and he's got around $7500 left. I check, he bets $1600, and I make it $4000. He pushes all in and I call. He shows AT and the river doesn't help him. Back up to $20,000 we go!

Now my image has gotten to be a bit more solid, time to loosen it up again. The French player to my immediate left has been 3-betting me quite a bit when I open and I have usually been folding to him. I find T6off in the cut-off and make it $550. He re-raises to $1500, with another $7000 behind. It folds back to me, and I shove. He thinks for a bit and eventually folds. I show my hand, table starts laughing.

I take down a couple more pots with preflop raises, and on the very next orbit I'm dealt 88 in the cutoff. It folds to me, and I make it $550. Folds to the German player in the BB, and he makes it $1700. I just call. Flop comes 542. He bets $3000 and he has another $5100 behind. I thought for a while, and pushed all-in, hoping he had AK or AQ. He called with KK and won. Now I was back down to $13,000.

Soon after, my table broke and I was moved to a new one. I recognized a couple of players, but again it seemed like a decent table. On the 4th hand, I pick up As9s in the hijack. I make it $550, button calls, BB calls. Flop is T82 with 2 spades giving me the nut flush draw. BB checks, I bet $1100, button calls, BB folds. Turn is a red Q. I bet $3000, and button insta-shoves. I have another $8000 behind at this point, and I mucked. My table broke once again right after this hand.

For the next half an hour or so my stack fluctuated between $5000 and $8000 winning and losing small pots. I was down to $6500 when I picked up Ac7c in the SB. It folded around to the cutoff who made it $700 to go. Button calls, and I figure this is a pretty good spot to squeeze. I push all in for $6500, BB folds, cutoff quickly calls, and button calls all-in for $6000. The cutoff flips over KQ, and button flips over AK. Wow... no comment. So I pretty much need a miracle to stay alive here. Flop brings an Ace but that was all she wrote.

I guess it will have to be 3 out of 4 for me here in Monte Carlo. In other news, the side games have been going great. I also did an interview with CardPlayer TV and 103.7 BOB FM in Ottawa. I will post links and a full trip report in the next update.

Thanks for reading!

Off to Malta and Monte Carlo

2008-04-08T10:32:00.001-04:00

I will start off this post with a video recap of last year's final hand from Gavin Griffin's perspective. I still puke a little bit every time I watch it, fast forward to around the 3 minute mark if you want to skip the boring part. ;)

The European Poker Tour Championship starts next week in Monte Carlo. Tomorrow I will be flying out to Malta, where Eurolinx is now based, to hang out with the crew and Team Eurolinx for a few days before heading to Monte Carlo on the 11th. I have just been informed that it will be 30°C all week (around 85°F for you Yanks), it will be nice to get out of this igloo we call home.

I have been anxiously awaiting this tournament all year long. Because of some obvious history, this is by far the most significant tournament of the year for me. To say I will not be satisfied with less than 1st place is an understatement. Do I expect to come in 1st? Of course not, I'm realisitic. I never go into a tournament with any expectations, because I quickly learned that you will come up with a lot more heartache than joy with that mindset.

Most of the people who are close to me know that the past couple of months have been pretty rough. I'm just thankful I have the friends and family that I have and their support has meant everything. I'm starting to go back to the gym and get active again. I had pretty much lost all motivation to do anything anymore and I'm trying to regain that. Being out of shape is definitely -EV.

I'm actually glad that I've taken some time off from poker. I haven't played much online and last night was my first time at the casino in over a month. There was no $5/$10 NL game so I didn't end up playing, I just hung out with a few of my buddies and talked some poker strategy. It's always good to take a small break before a big tournament.

In other news, the first two weeks of the Myst Poker Tour have been great! Both winners were actually good friends of mine. Week 1 was won by Mark a.k.a. "zachjackdad" and Week 2 was won by Shiba a.k.a. "The Savage". We had 125 people out to play last week and we expect it to be a complete sell out from around Week 4 and on. Unfortunately, I will be missing the next two weeks because of Monte Carlo. No need to worry though, since my man Niko is a one man show and will have no trouble running it solo. For those two weeks, the $50 bounty will be on his head. Let's see how he likes it when everybody is going at your throat and nobody folds a hand to you! :P

My latest article for CardPlayer magazine is out and is titled "Becoming the Chip Leader". You can read it here: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17405

Hooooooooooooooooooldplz1timekthx.

Myst Poker Tour - Season 2

2008-03-28T10:55:00.002-04:00

The time has come! Season 2 of the MPT has begun. In Season 1, over $25,000 in completely free prizes were given away including the Grand Prize of a trip to Vancouver to play in the B.C. Poker Championship. This year, we have stepped it up a notch, and the Grand Prize will be a trip to Vegas (the best place on earth obv) to play in the World Series Of Poker ($2500 event) and includes airfare and accomodations.

Again, this is completely 100% free. How can we do this? Well, all monies won are awarded on Eurolinx's online poker site. There is no cash involved. Eurolinx gives all of this away in hopes that some of you will become regular players on their site, and this is also their way of giving a little back to the poker playing community.

Here is the media release:

Starting Tuesday, March 25th Eurolinx Poker and the Lone Star Texas Grill will be hosting an eleven week Live Texas Hold'em Freeroll Series to promote local Eurolinx Pro Marc Karam aka "MYST". The 11 weeks will consist of 10 bounty hunter poker tournaments and one final V.I.P. tournament with a grand prize consisting of a complimentary buy-in to a W.S.O.P. NLHE event (based on scheduling) , airfare and hotel, worth approximately $4000.These tournaments will be absolutely free to enter, and guarantee to offer
local players a shot to experience poker at it's finest!

Date: Every Tuesday, starting March 25th, 2008

Time: Registration starts nightly at 5pm with a 7pm tournament start time

Maximum # players: 207 seated: with alternate players added for the first few levels

Prizing:
1st-$100 Eurolinx Poker credit and a $110 buy-in for the weekly 50k guarantee tournament
2nd-$75 Eurolinx Poker credit and a $110 buy-in for the weekly 50k guarantee tournament
3rd-$50 Eurolinx Poker credit and a $110 buy-in for the weekly 50k guarantee tournament

Each player will have a $10 Eurolinx credit as their bounty and once knocked out of the tournament will be forced to hand over their bounty chip to their assailant. No player other than MYST will surrender more than one bounty, although other players such as NIKO may have other prizes associated with their "heads". All players who finish in the top ten of each respective tournament will be invited back to compete in the VIP grand prize tournament. There will also be an added incentive to make more than one final table as in the finale we will be awarding extra starting chips to those players who have made more than one final table appearance.

Location: Lone Star Texas Grill-Ottawa East Location, 1211 Lemieux St. (Right across from the St. Laurent shopping center)

Eligibilty: To be eligible to participate in this promotion all players must be registered with Eurolinx poker www.eurolinx.com and are recommended to use bonus code: MPT to be further eligible for all of the rakebacks and MPT promotions.
Tournament registration will only be available on site and players must be a minimum of 18 years of age and older. However, neither Eurolinx or Lone Star can guarantee that this age will make players eligible for the grand prize promotion.
Finally all rules and game play policies will be directed by the acting tournament director as per MPT rules.

For more information feel free to contact me at 613.291.0430 or 613.742.9378.. or contact us via email at marc6044@ hotmail .com or at mintenks@ rogers .com

Hope to see y'all real soon!
Myst and Niko

www.eurolinx.com | www.mystpoker.com

Out of Main Event, Huge Online Score

2008-03-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

My Vegas curse seems to continue. I played in $500 and $1000 side events and went semi-deep but did not make it to the money. In the $2500 main event, things looked like they were going well early on, as I was able to increase my stack from $15,000 to around $22,000 in the first level. I was card dead for a couple of levels and I coasted through without getting too fancy until the weirdest hand of the trip.

I'm sitting with around $20,000. Blinds were $200/$400 with a $50 ante. I'm on the button with Jh9h. Folds to a player in MP who always 4x's with semi-strong hands and 3x's with monsters. He makes it $1600 to go, and the player in the cutoff calls him. There was $4300 in the pot now and I was pretty confident that I could take it down right here. I make it $5500 to go. SB folds, BB insta-pushes all in for $12,000 total. The other players quickly fold, and it's back to me. I have no choice but to call the extra $6500, even if I had 23 offsuit, since there is over $20,000 in the pot. I call, and he proudly flips over Ad8d. I wasn't sure whether to be happy or upset, I was expecting to see an overpair, but now I was in a 55/45 for a huge pot that would put me over $35,000 if I could win it. I pretty much gave up when I saw that my opponent flopped two pair, but when I looked closely, I had an open-ended straight flush draw on the AT8 board with 2 hearts. I couldn't hit and I was down to $8000. You have to love when people 4-bet Ace rag with zero fold equity.

At least that wasn't a bad beat! Check out my exit hand. I'm now down to $8000. Folds to me on the button and I make it $1600 with K9. SB folds, BB looks at his cards and then asks how much I have left. I tell him around another $6000 and he flat calls. Flop comes K44. He checks, I check. Turn 8. He checks, I bet $2500, he calls. River Q. He checks, I put my last $4000 in and he insta calls, I'm like wtf? I show my hand and he flips over QQ!

I'm not feeling too well after this, and I head up to my room. I open Pokerstars and see that the $200+rebuys is about to start in 5 minutes. I register for it and 5 hours later I find myself at the sickest online final table I've ever been at. lilloldem954, shaundeeb, ch0ppy, SNoOoWMAN, charder30 and a couple of other good players. There was only one weak spot at the table. I seemed to make the right decision every time at the final table, except for when I ran AQ into AK for half of my stack and lost that. I ended up HU with the weak spot, and even though he had a 3 to 1 chip lead, it only took me around 20 hands to seal the deal. Looking back, it was the only tournament I played that day, and I was never all in once for my tournament life in a coinflip or as an underdog.

PokerStars Tournament #77445254, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $200.00/$15.00
314 players
Total Prize Pool: $239,400.00
Tournament started - 2008/02/24 - 21:00:00 (ET)
Tournament finished - 2008/02/25 - 03:07:04 (ET)
1: mysterio6044 (Ottawa), $52,668.00 (22%)
2: madh_18 (sao paulo), $36,149.40 (15.10%)
3: charder30 (Annapolis), $24,658.20 (10.30%)
4: ch0ppy (Waterloo), $19,152.00 (8%)
5: SNo0oWMAN (fort myers), $14,364.00 (6%)
6: shaundeeb (troy), $11,251.80 (4.70%)
7: lilholdem954 (Coral Springs), $8618.40 (3.60%)
8: grindnitout (blacksburg), $6224.40 (2.60%)
9: eyekx (Oakland), $3830.40 (1.60%)

Thanks to this win, the trip ended up being a huge success! If I was back home I would probably never have played this tournament, considering I rarely play on weekends. I had a great time in Vegas, and I can't wait to go back this summer. I looked into real estate, and I couldn't believe some of the prices. We saw some previews for some auctions, and there were nice villas and huge condos all starting at $99,000! Of course they won't sell for that little, but we're probably looking at 20%-40% savings.

We ended up staying at the Venetian, and I was very impressed. Their rooms are all suites, with sunken living rooms and plasmas. The rooms are actually nicer than the Bellagio's. You have to spend over $800 a night at the Bellagio to get the same room that you get for $249 at the Venetian. The Venetian is the biggest 5 star resort in the world, and that was my only problem with it. It was around a 15 minute walk from the front lobby to our room, and 2 different sets of elevators. Next time I would make sure to ask for a room in the closest tower to the lobby. Also, I think I found my new favourite sushi restaurant in the world. For anybody who goes to Vegas, you must eat at Tao in the Venetian and order the Crispy Spicy Yellowtail Avocado Roll. Heaven, I tell you!

I'm not sure if I will be traveling to any tournaments in March, my next confirmed trip will be to Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final. It will be held from April 12th-17th and I'm really excited at taking my shot at making the final table for the 3rd year in a row!

My latest CardPlayer article is out and can be viewed at: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/17275

Vegas, Baby!

2008-02-22T00:18:00.002-05:00

So I had 3 options for tournaments to play this month. There was EPT Poland, the L.A. Poker Classic, and the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza in Las Vegas. I looked at the pros and cons of each. I’ve had by far the most success on the EPT, and I have never been to Poland and would love to go there. The L.A. Poker Classic has a great structure and lots of side events with a $10,000 main event. The Venetian DSE however is only a $2500 main event, and I have had the least success in Las Vegas in my career. So naturally, I chose Las Vegas.

I don’t know what it is, but you never realize how much you miss Vegas until you’re flying over the main strip and you get that tingling feeling inside of you. The hotels, the food, the shows, the poker. This time I’m going to seriously consider looking into buying a condo in one of the new buildings overlooking the main strip. Also, Vegas real estate has really taken a downturn over the last while so I can probably capitalize on some great prices. No, I’m not moving to Vegas, I’ll never move out of Ottawa. Actually, never say never, but let’s say 99%. I figure since I spend 2-3 months a year in Las Vegas and can also make a good investment at the same time, it might be worth it. Also, any time some family wants to come to Vegas they will have somewhere to stay for free.

I seem to have the worst luck with flying. Being the genius that I am, I decided to book the 6:10 AM flight through American Airlines so that I could get to Vegas in time for the $500 H.O.R.S.E. tournament which started at noon. Since I’m such an early bird , I arrived at the airport at 5:30 AM. Apparently American Airlines closes their check-in 45 minutes before the flight time. I was 40 minutes ahead. The lady was still at the counter, I asked her if she could make an exception since I didn’t have any bags to check and I could probably make it though U.S. Customs pretty quickly this early in the morning, and she declined and said it’s their policy. Okay, that was kind of my fault, so I headed over to the other airlines’ ticket counters to see if I could still make it to Vegas before noon. I found a WestJet flight that was connecting through Toronto for $500 or so. For some reason we sat on the runway for almost 45 minutes before taking off, and by the time we landed in Toronto, they let us know over the speaker that those of us who were travelling to Las Vegas had missed our connection. Sigh, bye bye H.O.R.S.E. tourney. The lady at the WestJet counter then said she would be giving us hotel and food vouchers and that there weren’t any more available flights to Vegas until the next day. Uh, yeah no. I’d rather watch ice melt in Nunavut than spend a day in Toronto. I told them that wouldn’t work, and after some debate I received a full refund for my airfare. Back to the ticket counters, and for $210 I found a flight on Delta that would get me to Vegas but I would have to connect through Cincinnati. As my only choice, I took it. Once again, a delay in taking off, bad weather caused a lineup of planes on the runway, and I missed my connection. Now I’m in Cincinnati, and Delta informs me that they have no other direct flights to Las Vegas today. I’m on some serious tilt at this point. I explain the situation, and they offer to give me a full refund,and give me a free first class flight to Las Vegas but I’d have to connect through Atlanta. Thankfully, the last 2 flights went smoothly and I’m in Vegas!

In summary: Ottawa -> Toronto -> Cincinnati -> Atlanta -> Las Vegas

Brag: I got to see all of North America in a single day and it was free

Beat: It would have been a shorter flight to Australia

In poker news, I had a rough week at the casino. I ran super bad and ended up losing 3 out of the 4 days I played, after taking Valentine’s Day off. I ended the week -$5000 and my overall casino profit dropped to $18,000. However, on Monday I made back the whole $5000 before leaving to Vegas. So my total profit is back up to $23,000. By my calculations, I’ve played just under 100 hours so far, making my earnings at the game around $250/hour with very little risk. This is only playing 3-4 hour sessions and I only play on weekdays. The $5/$10 NL doesn’t usually start up before 1:30 PM and I leave around 5:00 PM.

I’ve also started to dabble in online cash games again. I played some $25/$50 NL and $50/$100 NL and did very well, making around $50,000 in a couple of short sessions. I then proceeded to jump into the bigger Omaha games on Eurolinx. A mixture of running bad and tilting caused me to drop around $30,000. I took a couple of days off and then recouped some of the Omaha losses in $20/$40 and $25/$50 NL games. That doesn’t mean I have given up on Omaha though, it is my favourite game and as soon as I get my house I am going to 8-12 table until I improve my game as much as I possibly can.

Overall, it was a very good week and I’m pumped to do well in this tournament. I’m also excited about my return to the $50/$100 NL game at the Bellagio. This game was my bread and butter at last year’s WSOP and I hope it’s still running. My good friend Danny a.k.a. Sun Tan Dan (for at one time owning half of the tanning salons in Ottawa) will be arriving from North Carolina tomorrow and hopefully we will both final table the main event.

Casino du Lac Leamy - Poker Room

2008-02-05T08:46:00.001-05:00

The day has finally come, Ottawa (okay Gatineau, close enough) has it's own poker room! Casino du Lac Leamy opened their new poker room on January 18th. I didn't get back from Australia until the 19th, so I missed the opening day, but I was there the following day.

There is a problem between the dealers' union and the casino agreeing on wages, so they are only able to use electronic tables until they reach a deal. I was so excited to get to the room that I got lost on my way in. I hadn't been to the casino in a few years and I was going on the directions that my friend had given me when I was talking to him on the phone earlier. If I had just looked at the ground when I walked in, there is a path of squares that say "Poker" leading all the way to the poker room. Duh!

I finally found the room, and I was amazed at what I saw. The poker room is one of the nicest that I've ever played in, and I'm not exaggerating. The room is separated from the rest of the casino by angled panes of glass, so it looks like it's open, but, without the noise of all the slot machines. They also have a really nice bar on one of the ends that is open to the other side of the casino. There are 13 tables in the room, but they are very spaced out, which means, there is room for a lot more tables. They have 2 VIP rooms that are behind red tinted glass, which host the higher-stakes games. The room is dimly lit, which gives it a lounge feel. I personally love it, and while it might not be as big as the room at the Bellagio or Caesar's Palace, it definitely looks as nice.

As for the electronic tables, they are much better than I expected. I played on them on my first trip to Australia back in early 2007, but only for a few minutes and I didn't really have the time to get used to them. It's almost like online poker except you can see who is sitting in front of you. There are pros and cons of course, the pros being that the game is much faster without having to shuffle a deck or count out chips. There also can't be any disagreements since it is all done on the computer. The only con for me is missing the feel of having the chips and cards in your hands. I love having a tower of chips in front of me. If they ever offer PL Omaha at the casino, I would 100% be in favour of the electronic tables over live tables, counting out those pot bets takes an eternity!

As for the service, it is top notch. The staff is extremely nice and they take care of the players very well (shoutout to Bob). If you have a suggestion or complaint, they are quick to address it as well as they are able to.

They even offered me the Presidential Suite at the Hilton for a night of my choosing and of course I accepted. I had the room the following Friday,and I invited around 10 of my closest friends to hang out for the night. Now I've stayed in some pretty expensive suites at the Bellagio and Caesar's, but this room topped them all. It was bigger than an average home that's for sure, sporting a full kitchen and bar, dining room with a 12 seat table, big living room with a Bang & Olufsen entertainment system. My favourite part was the gold-filled marble floors and the grand piano in the entrance.

We all had dinner at Le Baccara and it was amazing. We all chose the "surprise menu", which was a 6 course meal, where you didn’t know what you're getting. Each course was served with a different glass of wine. The presentation was exceptional, and the sommelier really knew his wines. Just to give you an idea of the level of service, my friend's digital camera died on him, and I asked the waiter if there was anywhere in the casino where we could still get batteries (it was 10:00 PM). He said he would go check. Five minutes later, he comes in with two double AA batteries served on a silver platter. All in all, it was a 5 star night!

Okay, back to poker. Now for the best part, the actual games! They spread $1/$2 NL to $5/10 NL and sometimes $10/$20 NL. There is also a couple of limit games, $2/$4 and $5/$10 I believe. I mostly go on weekday afternoons, and the $5/$10 NL game is usually going by the time I get there. The action is unbelievable. There are a few players with very deep pockets and not much card sense. Mostly older businessmen and the likes.

In future posts, I will recap hands from the casino. I would have liked to do it in this post, but it will make it much too long. I'm up around $20,000 in the first couple of weeks, which I'm very happy with, but I wish the $10/$20 NL game would run more often. There is so much money to be made here, I almost feel guilty leaving for Vegas in a couple of weeks!

Aussie Millions

2008-01-20T10:15:00.000-05:00

We arrived in Melbourne just after the start of Day 1a. The first thing I noticed was the +30 degree weather, which was a nice change from the record snowfall we received in Ottawa this winter. We checked into the hotel and then I headed down to the poker room to register for the main event. I saw a lot of familiar faces which was pretty cool, Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, John Juanda, and a whole slew of other great players. Even though there were so many pros, the great thing about a tournament in an isolated place like Australia is that at least half of the field is made up of local Australians, who don't really play any tournaments outside of their country. They're mostly wealthy people who play for leisure.

I was slated to play on Day 1b, and for once I was actually early for a tournament! I was glad to see that I didn't recognize any of the players at my table. We started with $20,000 in chips and $50/$100 blinds. I got into the action on the first hand which played out like this:

It folds around to me on the button, and I make it $175 with A8. The SB quickly calls and the BB folds. The flop is 872 all clubs, and I have the Ace of clubs in my hand along with top pair. He checks, I bet $250, he min-raises me, and I call. Turn is a red Queen. He checks to me, and I check behind. River is a red 5. He leads out for $1000, I quickly call and he shows red 52 offsuit.

I can't say I was completely surprised, as nothing really surprises me anymore in these big tournaments. I now had some good information about this opponent and I just needed a good hand so I could get paid off.

The very next orbit, I get into another big pot. MP raises to $300, I call on the button with JT, blinds fold. Flop is AQ5. He checks, I check. Turn is a perfect K. I felt like he was slowplaying the flop, and he confirms this by leading out for $500. I raise to $2000 and he quickly calls. River is a 7. He again leads out for $2000. Now I go into the tank, thinking about how much I can make from him. I don't really want to shove because its such a massive overbet. Finally I bump it up to $10,000 since I have him on at least AK and I don't think he can get away from it very easily. He makes a quick call and just like that I am up to $31,000.

I stay quiet for a couple of orbits, then I decide to raise it up to $400 with the blinds at $75/$150 from the hijack with A9hh. The 52 guy calls from the cutoff, as does the BB. The flop comes K57 with two hearts, giving me the nut flush draw. BB checks to me, I bet $900, Mr. 52 min raises again, BB folds, I call. Turn is an offsuit 8, giving me a gutshot too. I check, he bets $3000, I call. He's made it obvious that he has a King and I'm not going to bluff him on the river because I know he will call anything. If I hit, I'm probably going to fire out something like $10,000. The river bricks out, I check, he bets $8000, I fold. That left me with around $25,000.

For the rest of the level I called 2 raises with pairs and missed the flop, and raised twice with AK and AQ and also missed the flop. On the AK I made a c-bet but had to shut down after getting called while out of position. Now I was back down $21,000. The blinds were now $100/$200 and I would play my final hand of the tournament:

MP raises to $700, 3 people call, and I call another $500 with 76 from the BB. I flop the nuts, 345 rainbow. I lead out for $2000, hoping somebody has an overpair and puts in a big raise. The original raiser calls, and the button calls. Turn is a 2, and now I'm hoping one of the players has an Ace or a 6. I lead out for $4000, MP folds, button calls. River is a 6, putting a straight on board, but still giving me a higher straight. My stack is now less than the pot, and I figure there's no way he can put me on a 7 with me leading out on all streets. He pretty much has to call any of my bets thinking it will be a chop. I shove all in, and insta calls and flips over... 78 for the nuts. I stand there for what seemed like an eternity just staring at the cards, until another player chimed in, "He has the nuts, you lost." I just picked up my jacket and walked away without saying a word.

I think I handled it as well as could be expected under the circumstances. If it was early in my career some chips would have most likely been airborne. But it has happened so many times now that it doesn't affect me like it used to, I just take it as it is and look forward to the next tournament. Before it would bother me for weeks after taking a beat like that.

I played one other tournament while I was in Australia, the $5000 Heads Up. The format was ok since it was best of 3, but we only started with 60 big blinds and 20 minute levels which wouldn't allow for much play. Even online sites give you 75 BB to start and more hands per level in HU matches. I guess they had to speed it up somehow, but I think I would rather have a best of 3 than slightly deeper stacks, so I can't really complain.

My match was against a young Swedish player, who turned out to be a really nice guy and a good player. In our first match, after each starting with $3000, I had him down around $4000 to $2000 when I flopped a straight flush draw and got it all in against his top pair. I turned the straight and also rivered a useless flush to win the first match.

In the second match, the blinds were at $75/$150 when he raised to $400 on the button and I called with JT. Flop was Jack high and I check raised him all in and he called me with QJ and he held up. Turns out we both started the hand with exactly $3000 so he won the second match.

The third match was the longest. We grinded away at each other for quite a while and we were at $100/$200 blinds so basically 15 BB each. He had me down $3400 to $2600 and he made it $500 on the button. I shoved all in with K6dd and he made the call with 77. I had a gutshot to go with my overcard but I couldn't suck out and he took won the round.

Hopefully my next tournament will go a little better. I'm planning a trip to Vegas in February, but I'm not exactly sure which tournament I'm going to be playing. I'll probably throw in another update before the trip.

In other news, things are looking good for Season 2 of the Myst Poker Tour which is hosted at the Lone Star restaurant in the east end. Season 1 was a blast and the champion ended up being my cousin Steve, who won a trip to Vancouver to play in the BC Poker Championship, a trip worth $4000. We are hoping to do something similar for this season, stay tuned to mystpoker.com for details!

2007 Recap, 2008 Poker Goals, and the Aussie Millions

2008-01-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

First of all, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and I wish you all the best for the new year. 2007 has come to an end, which is kind of sad for me because it has been the best year of my life, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that it was the most profitable year of poker in my career. The funny thing is, in my 7 years of playing, I played the least amount of poker in 2007. I probably played less than 1/10th of the amount of hands I played in 2006. The biggest reason for that is I haven't played any online poker since around May, other than the random tournament here and there. Another reason is that our house hasn't finished being built yet, and I hate playing online poker from my laptop. I need a couple of high resolution monitors to really be comfortable if I'm multi-tabling. One of my New Year's resolutions is to play more online poker in 2008.

Considering how few tournaments I played compared to the big name pros, I'm very happy with my performance in 2007. I finished 3rd place in Canada and 47th in the world, ahead of the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Barry Greenstein, and Phil Ivey to name a few. While this means nothing unless I can do it in the long run, it's a pretty cool stat. =D Here are my results for 2007:

2007 EPT Prague Main Event - 20th place - $17,710.00
2007 WSOP Circuit - Harvey's Lake Tahoe H.O.R.S.E. Event 7 - 1st place - $11,916.00
2007 North American Poker Championship (WPT) Main Event - 25th place - $51,065.00
2007 WSOP Event 31 - World Championship Heads-Up NL - 33rd place - $9,212.00
2007 EPT Grand Final Championship Event - 2nd place - $1,413,291.00
2007 Aussie Millions Main Event Championship - 6th place $240,000.00

This translated into just under $2 million Canadian in live tournament proceeds. I still don't think it has sunk in yet. I always knew I would make a good living from playing poker, but not like this! I remember back in Monte Carlo in 2006 after my first ever final table when I was knocked out in 4th place. I was feeling so deflated after getting eliminated, and my cousin Steve, who was with me said, "Don't worry man, this is nothing, you can do this every time." I said, "No way man, this was my shot, what's the chance of me going through another large field and playing for 40-something hours and making a final table again?" Fast forward to a year and a half later, 3 more final tables, and a WSOP Circuit H.O.R.S.E. Championship. whowuddathunkit?

Here are my poker goals for 2008:

Play in at least 10 major tournaments
1 WPT/EPT final table
1 WSOP final table
Tournament proceeds of $400,000 or more for the 3rd year in a row
Net profit of $1,000,000 or more from poker for the 3rd year in a row
Increase the number of magazines/newspapers I publish articles to
Play on one of the high stakes TV shows

It's weird how all of the focus has turned to tournaments, when at heart I am really a cash game player. I miss the old days on the Tain network, when one of my friends would send me a text message when my big fish was online, and I would race home from whatever I was doing so I could play him. I also really miss playing the live games at the Bellagio in Vegas. I can't wait to go back.

Well, this has turned into one long brag post, but I earned it! As far as my next tournament goes, I was supposed to be in the Bahamas this week for the EPT event, but all of the hotels in the area were booked solid, so we skipped out on it. Instead I will be again heading to Australia for the Aussie Millions in Melbourne. I love Australia, but that 30 hour flight with 3 connections is torture.

EPT Prague - 20th place - €12,650

2007-12-18T13:34:00.000-05:00

Another deep, yet disappointing finish. I came into Day 2 with just over $36,000 in chips. I took down a few small and medium pots early on to boost me up to almost $70,000. Then came the first big pot of the day for me:

Blinds $600/$1200. Marcus Golser limps on the button, SB completes, I make it $4000 from the BB. Golser calls, SB folds. Flop K99. I bet $6000, Golser calls. Turn J. I check, Golser bets $8000, I call. River 7. I check, Golser bets $19,000. I tank forever, and call with AA. He shows QT for the turned gutterball.

That brings me back down to $35,000. Very next orbit, I get 44 in the BB. German player makes it $4000 to go, one caller in the cut-off, and I call. Flop comes KJ4 rainbow. I check, German bets $6000, cut-off folds, I call. Turn 5, putting 2 hearts on board. I lead out for $8000, German pushes all in, I insta-call. The player shows K9 offsuit, to leave him drawing dead, which was about the only way I could win an all-in for the rest of the tournament.

I proceeded to lose the next 6 races, AK vs 55, 8c7c vs KK on a T64 with 2 clubs, AQ vs TT, Ah5h vs 85 on a 985 with 2 hearts, and AQ vs QQ blind vs blind. Thankfully, each race was never for more than half of my stack and I always seemed to recover. Then I finally got AA, and I was so sure I was going to double up! I was playing super aggressive, when a player opened to $5500 from UTG. I push out a $20,000 stack from mid-position, and it folds back to him. I had around $120,000 at the time, and my opponent pushed all in. I snap called and flipped over my Aces. He smiles at me... wth, why are you smiling?

AA vs AA, the story of my day continues! I flop a runner-runner flush draw to make things a little interesting, but that's as far as I got. I played pretty well for the rest of the day, winning a few more pots and picking off a couple of bluffs. Then came what is probably the weirdest hand I have ever played in my life. I had only been at the table for a few orbits and hadn't shown down a hand yet.

Blinds are $2000/$4000, and I have around $230,000. UTG limps, I complete from the SB with 7c5c, and the BB checks. Flop comes 943 with two hearts. I flop a gutshot, and I decide I can push the BB off of any hand less than 2 pair. It's also very unlikely that UTG limped with one of those cards. I lead out for $6000, BB folds, UTG quickly calls. I feel like he would have raised with an overpair or a flush draw. Turn is a 2, which I liked, not only because it now gave me an open-ended straight draw, but also because it completes the 65 straight, in case he had me on that. Now I lead out for $18,000 and again he calls me! I say to myself, okay, he MUST have me on the flush draw then. The river is the 2 of hearts, completing the flush on a board of 94322. Now I think for a bit, and I bet $36,000. He insta-calls me. I say "Good call", and I muck my cards. He shows AQ spades. Ace high. I immediately looked over my shoulder to make sure nobody had seen my cards. It was the last hand of the day, and I just sat there for a few minutes wondering what just happened. I later read online that he had been playing like that all day, I wish I had known beforehand!

I went into Day 3 with just over $170,000 in chips and 32 players remaining. I won the first couple of pots with continuations bets on the flop, when the first interesting hand of the day came up.

Blinds $2500/$5000, it folds all the way around the me in the SB. I complete with 9s6s and the BB looks at his cards and raises another $10,000. He has around $200,000 in chips, and I make the call. The flop comes QQ6 with two clubs. I check, he bets $18,000. I really felt like I had the best hand at this point, but he knows I will bluff at this flop, so I don't want him coming back over top of me and forcing me to make a super tough decision. I decide to flat call. Turn is a red 8. I check again, and he checks behind. River is another 6, giving me the bottom boat. Now I try to figure out how much I can make from his Ace high. It also looks like I could have missed my flush. I fire out $50,000. He calls fairly quickly. I show my hand, and he flashes an Ace. This boosts me up to almost $300,000.

I went card-dead for a couple of hours, losing blinds and a few missed flops to drop down to $250,000. Then came the crucial hand. Blinds $3000/$6000, it folds to Marcus Golser in the cut-off, who has been opening a lot of pots. He makes it $18,000 and I look down at A3 in the BB. Normally this is an easy muck, but I decide to make a stand this time, and lead out on almost any flop for around $30,000. We see a flop of AT2 with two hearts, and I just happen to flop top pair. I lead out for $35,000 and Marcus thinks for around 10 seconds, and then moves all in! We count it out, and it's almost $160,000 more to call. With me flat calling his cut-off raise, Marcus knows that I don't have a big Ace, because I would have re-raised preflop (of course it's possible that I just decided to get tricky with a big Ace, but very unlikely). This means I can only have the following hands: a weak Ace, a Ten, a flush draw, or complete air. None of which can call another $160,000, as not even the flush draw has proper odds. Marcus is a hugely successful $200/$400 PL Omaha player, so this guy is definitely capable of thinking at this level on the fly. Also, I felt like Marcus would just flat call my bet if he did have a semi-strong hand like AJ or A9 and down. After a good 5 minutes of working this out in my head, with the cameras all around the table, I make the call. He flips up AK, and I'm in dire straits. I turn a 4 to give me a gut-shot, but I could not hit my 3 or 5 on the river, and that crippled me down to around $40,000.

I pick up QQ the very next hand and move all in, hoping that everyone thinks I'm tilting, but they all fold. Now I have $50,000. I fold a few more hands, when the following hand comes up. It didn't involve me, but it was a very interesting hand, and it's also directly related to the next hand I played. I won't say the player's name out of respect, but it was a pro.

It folds to Marcus Golser in the cut-off, and he raises to $18,000. Pro calls on the button. SB folds, and I fold my BB. Flop comes 654 with two spades. Marcus bets $30,000, Pro tanks for so long that Marcus calls the clock on him. Pro eventually calls. Turn is a red A. Marcus checks, Pro tanks forever again. He bets $50,000 and Golser quickly calls. River is the A of spades. Marcus leads out for $80,000 and Pro quickly moves all-in for over $400,000 having Marcus covered. Now its Marcus' turn to go into the think-tank and he ends up calling all in for around $350,000 with AQ. Pro says "Nice hand" and shows JJ!? In what was by far the biggest hand of the tournament to date, it was basically a gift to Golser.

The very next hand it folds to said player, and he moves all in for his last $50,000. I look down at AT in my SB, which is huge against his range right now. I call all-in for $45,000 and he shows TT. I lose my 8th all-in in a row, and it's good night for me. Eliminated in 20th place for around $18,000 CAD. I have mixed feelings about the tournament. I ran super bad the last 2 days, but that's no excuse because I still had a decent stack to play with. Fold A3 preflop you donkey!!! Looking back, it was actually a 2 outer for me to get stacked on that hand, because if the flop is air, I push him off his hand, and if he hits the King, I just fold to his push. Even so, I'd rather be defending my blinds with 43 than A3.

I think I'm going to make a couple of small adjustments to my game for the next tournament. I am still trying to decided whether to play EPT Bahamas or the Aussie Millions again in Melbourne, which I final tabled this past January. I'm leaning towards the EPT, the decision will have to be made by the end of this week.

I now leave you with my exit interview from EPT Prague that I did with the very chill guys from Siktilt.com for the EPT website: Karam v Golser

EPT Prague - Day 1

2007-12-11T20:33:00.000-05:00

After much thought, I decided to come to Prague instead of Vegas. Despite how much I love Vegas, the EPT is what made me. It's also nice to see other parts of the world, and dozens of people have told me that I shouldn't miss out on Prague. Anyways, I'm in Vegas for over 2 months total a year.

We arrived in Prague on Sunday morning, and the tournament was starting on Monday at noon. Soon after we arrived, I went downstairs to register for the tournament. I was told that they weren't accepting registration until 6:00 PM. Fine, so we went back up to our room. We headed back down the tournament area at 6:00, and I waited in a huge line for almost 45 minutes. By the time I got to the front of the line, they say registration is only for the super satellite, main event registration will start at 8:00 PM. Ugh. So we head over to the nearby restaurant and have some dinner while we wait. Finally, 8:00 rolls around and we head downstairs yet again. I can see there's only about 10 people in line, which is some good news. I get to the desk and tell them I want to register for the main event. Now they say they aren't taking any registrations today, because they aren't sure how many online qualifiers there were and they need to get that all sorted out, so I will have to come back tomorrow to register at 10:00 AM.

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My first bad beat of the tournament, and it hasn't even started yet! There was originally a 500 player limit, but because of the mix-up, they promised that nobody would be should out of the tournament. Despite all of that, the EPT is still my favourite circuit to play on. The atmosphere is unmatched, and I don't know what it is, but man these Europeans take their poker seriously. Poker is also 100x more mainstream in Europe than it is in Canada.

I got to my table on Day 1a, and I only recognized one player at my table, a very successful online player named Shaun Deeb. I don't mind having one or two strong players at the table, since we usually stay away from each other and just pick on the weaker players early on. The good thing was that he wasn't directly on my left, he was 4 seats over.

We started with $10,000 and $25/$50 blinds. I got involved in the first 2 hands at the table. The first hand, I was dealt KJs in the SB. It folds to the button, who makes it $150 to go. I call, and the BB folds. Flop comes Q99, giving me a gutshot. I check, he bets $200, I make it $600, he folds. Very next hand, I'm dealt JTs on the button. It folds to me, I make it $150, BB calls. I flop the nuts, KQ9. The BB leads out for $200, and I decide to play a big pot or nothing right away. I make it $800. She quickly calls. Turn is an off suit Ace. Once again she leads out, $500 this time. I quickly raise to $2500, and she calls just as fast. River is a Jack, making the board KQ9AJ. I was originally planning on pushing all in, but this was a very bad river for me. She checks, I look over at her stack, and she has around $6000 left. I decide to bet $4000, so that she could call without being knocked out of the tournament. She calls, I show my straight, and she mucks her hand. Just like that I am up to $18,000.

I grinded my way up to around $22,000 when an interesting hand came up. Blinds $50/$100, cut-off raises to $350. I call on the button with KT, one other caller. Flop comes T93, with 2 clubs. I'm holding the Kc. The original raiser bets $800, I call, other player folds. Turn is the 5c, giving me the K high flush draw to go with my top pair. Now my opponent leads out for $1500. I now had him on QQ or JJ, probably with a club. That gives me 13 or 14 outs, I call. River is an offsuit Ace. I can tell he hates the card, and he leads out for $1500 again. I look at his stack, he has around $4500 more behind. I could easily have been calling with the Ac also, and I move in. He tanks forever, and ends up calling me. I say, "Nice call, Queens?". He replies, "Jacks", and flips them over. I say "It's good", and I toss my cards into the muck. Then the dealer takes my cards out of the muck, and says "You have to show your cards." I'm obviously not in the greatest mood having just lost the big pot, I say "Excuse me? I mucked my hand". He says, "No, when there's an all in, you have to show your cards." I say, "There's no action left, he showed the winning hand and I mucked my cards. No other players asked to see my hand, so muck my cards." He repeats the same thing again, and I ask him to call the floor over. The floor repeats the same thing, that if players are all in, the hands must be shown. I ask him to explain the reasoning behind it, and he says it's a universal rule around the world. LOL. Trust me, I've been all in before in tournaments and mucked my hands, many times. :P One of the players chimes in, "They have to do that to prevent collusion, you could be dumping chips." Common sense, people! I say, "Then why don't you have to show your cards after every bet and call on every river, since the caller could be dumping chips and mucking?" He scratches his head and murmurs something I couldn't make out. Maybe I should let things like that go, but I just don't think a dealer should be getting involved after the hand is clearly over.

Now I was down to around $14,000. I don't think I played that hand badly, but my opponent made a great call. I did play 2 hands badly though. Well, one was a bad play, and one was a live "misclick". With the blinds at $150/$300, it folds to me in late position and I make it $800 with T9s. Shaun Deeb is the only caller, from the BB. Flop is great, 987r. Shaun checks, and I bet $1000. Shaun calls. Turn is a T, giving me two pair, but putting a 4 card straight on the board. Shaun checks, and I check behind. River is a 3. Shaun checks again, and here is where I should have probably checked behind. Against any other player at the table, I would have checked. Then I got to thinking, if Shaun called me on the flop he might have a 9 or 10, and why would he check a straight twice in a row? Also, Shaun is smart enough to call me with one pair here, because if I bet I probably have a straight or nothing. I bet $1000, and after a pause, Shaun makes it $4000. ughhh. I start scolding myself aloud, I just can't see him checking the straight twice, and I call. He says "Nuts", and shows QJ for the turned gutshot straight. He played it really well, but I shouldn't have bet there.

I grind back up to around $13,000. With the blinds at $200/$400, Shaun opens for $1100 in mid position. It folds to me in the BB, and I look down at AK. I re-raise to $3800, and Shaun moves all in. He barely has me covered, maybe $2000 more than me. I call, and he shows 87 of clubs. I was happy to see that, but I would have rather seen AQ or AJ of course. Flop comes AK4, but with 2 clubs, giving him a flush draw. Turn is an offsuit 6, also giving him a gutshot straight draw. River is an offsuit 3, and I double up to around $26,000.

Very next hand, I'm dealt AJs in the SB. It folds to a fairly aggressive young guy on the button, and he makes it $1000. Now, I'm still stacking my chips up, and I make it $3000 to go. He calls after a short while. Flop comes K42. I look over at his stack, and it looks like he has around $7000 left. I figure he would have moved all in preflop with AK, and it looks like I might have AK. So I just say "I'm all in". He insta calls me with AA. And that's not the bad part. He pushes his chips in, and pulls forth a little stack of $1000 chips that were behind his stack of $100 chips. So now he has $15,000 instead of $7000. Damn! If I knew that, I could have bet out $4000-$5000, and then obviously folded to any action, and saved $10,000! Also, it looked clear how many chips he had, and I didn't want to ask for a count, because I feel it gives away some weakness.

And just like that, I'm back down to $10,000. That's the first time I ever misread somebody's chip count, but I'll always pay more attention to that from now on. I don't play any hands for a couple of orbits, giving myself some time to cool off. With the blinds still at $200/$400, I get A9 in my BB. It folds around to the cut-off, who makes it $1500 to go. I flat call. Flop is A93 with 2 hearts. I go for the check-raise, but he checks behind. Turn is the 6h, putting 3 hearts on board. I lead out for $2500, and he pushes all-in for $6000 total. I call, and he shows me AA, which leaves me drawing dead. That leaves me with $2500, on life support.

I fold a couple of hands, and then I find 66 in mid position. I push all in and I get one caller with AT. The board comes KK9K3 to double me up to almost $6000. I proceeded to go all-in for what seemed like 5 or 6 hands in a row (probably folded 1 or 2 hands in between), but nobody called me and I was up to $15,000. I then made a couple of well-timed re-raises in the next orbit, and also picked up the blinds a few more times, and just like I was up to $27,000 from $6000 without seeing a flop! A few hands later I pick up AKs in mid-position, and I just have a good feeling because I know nobody is going to believe me this time. Blinds are $300/$600 and I make it $2000 to go. The button moves all in for around $10,000 total, blinds fold, and I quickly call. He shows KQ. The board bricks out for both of us and I take down the pot to bring my stack up to around $38,000. We only play 5 more hands before the end of the night, and I lost some blinds and antes to end the day at $36,700 in chips, good enough for 21st place going into Day 2.

What a roller-coaster of a day! I should go get some sleep now. Ship the Guinness World Record for longest blog post ever.

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

2007-11-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-15T03:38:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

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?

WPT North American Championship - Day 1

2007-10-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

I couldn't have asked for a better start to the tournament! I finished Day 1b as the chipleader, and I believe I am 2nd in chips overall. More than half of the field was eliminated in this long and grueling, 13 hour day.

Near the end of the day, I did an interview with PokerListings.com. It's titled, "Marc Karam: Playing at Home", and you can read it by clicking here. We had been playing for around 11 hours when this interview took place, and you can tell by some of my responses that I was really tired and mixed up some of my words. Other than that, the interview was great!

The structure for this tournament is awesome, you could lose half of your starting stack into the 4th level, and you'd still have 50 big blinds to play with. We started with $20,000 in chips and $25/$50 blinds with 90 minute levels.

I arrived at my table a little late and I didn't notice any big name pro's. There was one fellow Canadian from Montreal who is a solid player, and one ex-journalist from Pokerwire.com, but other than that I didn't recognize anyone. I established my image early on, splashing around in a lot of pots and showing a few bluffs.

Still in the first level, I was dealt Ad8d on the button. Pokerwire makes it $150 to go, one caller in the cutoff, I call on the button, and one other caller from the blinds. The flop is perfect, KdQdTd! I flop the nut flush, and I decide I am going to play it strong the whole way, because the player in the blind is a calling station. The raiser bets $400, cutoff calls, I raise to $1400, blind calls, and both other players fold. Turn is a black 9. He leads out for $2500, and I am positive he has a Jack for the straight. I make it $7500, and he quickly calls. River is a black 7. He checks, I move all-in, and again he quickly calls. I show my nut flush and he mucks his straight. Just like that I was up to $40,000 in the first level.

I grinded up to around $45,000, and I then proceeded to miss 2 massive draws, one flush draw + gutshot with 6h5h on a Tx2h3h flop, and another with Ac9c on a 5c6c7x board. I then flopped a straight with 9h6h on a Th8x7x board. I led out for $1500 and calling station called. Turn was the 4h, also giving me a flush draw! I lead out for $3000 this time, and he calls. River is the Js. I lead out for $6000, and he calls with T9 to split the pot. So now, instead of having $60,000-$70,000 and being way out in the chip lead, I was back down to around $27,000.

I was then dealt QQ on the button, and the hijack raised to $800. I make it $2200 and he flat calls. Flop is a safe-looking 532 with 2 hearts. He checks, I bet $4000, he min-raises for $4000 more. I wasn't sure what to make of this, and I had around $21,000 left. After much thought, I decided to flat call. I thought that if he had any pair between JJ - 66 he would have to slow down on the turn. If he had AA or KK or a set, he would shove and I could get away still having $17,000 to play with. Turn is a 7. He checks, I check. River is another 5. He thinks for a short while, and then moves all in, having me covered. I tank it for approximately 3 minutes, and reluctantly fold. He says, "I'll show out of respect", and proceeds to flash his pocket deuces for a full house. What a nice guy, and he made me feel a lot better about my fold!

With my new-found confidence, I slowly built my stack up to $28,000 by taking small pots here and there when the following hand occurred. With the blinds at $200/$400, a loud and active player made it $1200 to go UTG. There are 2 callers in mid-position, and I call another $800 from the big blind with 66. Flop comes T64 with 2 hearts. I check to the raiser, and he makes it $3300, and both other players fold. I think about making a raise here, but I don't want to scare him off in case he has overcards like AK. I hope for no heart on the turn, because he might suspect that I'm on the flush draw. Unfortunately the turn is the 7h, a bad card for me. I really want to lead out now for around $8000, but if I do, if he has an overpair with a heart or bare Ah or Kh, he is going to call anyways, and if the river comes a heart, I'm in a really bad spot. So I check, hoping he bets, so that I can move all-in. But he checks. The river is a great card, a black King. I decide to lead out for $9000, hoping he hit the King and doesn't believe I have a big hand. He thinks for about a minute, and calls. This brings me back up to $40,000.

A few orbits later, on my button, I was dealt 6c4c. Mid-position makes it $1400 to go, I call, and the big blind almost min-raises to $3000 total. The original raiser calls and I call. The flop is great for my hand, Ac Tc 4x. The raiser bets $12,000 and I am 1000% sure he has AK. The other players fold, and I immediately push all-in. We count it out, and it's around $24,000 more to call. He goes into the tank. I'm really hoping he folds, of course. In his shoes, it's a very tough call, because he can NEVER have me dominated here with AK. At best he can be around 50/50. I can never have AQ or AJ here, obviously. I can only have 2 pair, a set, or a combo flush/straight/pair draw of some sort. After much deliberation, he ended up calling me with AK. The turn was a bittersweet Kc, giving me the flush, but also giving him 4 outs to make a full house. The river was the Qh, giving me the pot and causing my stack to soar to over $80,000 and into the chip lead!

I was actually a slight favourite in this hand, as the odds show:
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=3845651
pokenum -h ah kd - 6c 4c -- ac tc 4s
Holdem Hi: 990 enumerated boards containing 4s Ac Tc
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Kd Ah 494 49.90 496 50.10 0 0.00 0.499
6c 4c 496 50.10 494 49.90 0 0.00 0.501

So, I finally hit one of my draws and now its time to take over! I proceeded to just go nuts and raise 4 or 5 hands out of every orbit. I re-raised preflop on the last 3 hands of the day and took them all down right there, because who wants to go out just before the end of the day? I ended up adding over another $40,000 to my stack without risking many chips. I finished with $126,600 and in the chiplead, but not far ahead of a few of the other stacks. There's still a ton of work to do and I definitely can't get comfortable where I am. Hopefully, Day 2 will go as well as Day 1 did. Thankfully, we have a day off and a chance to get some much needed rest. We resume play on Monday at 12:00 Noon. There will probably be around 200 of the original 500 players remaining, and we will have another long day ahead of us.

Thanks for reading, and wish me luck!

EPT Monte Carlo 2007 Airing This Week On Rogers Sportsnet

2007-07-17T14:30:00.001-04:00

The final table from the 2007 EPT Championship in Monte Carlo is currently airing on Rogers Sportnet (Channel 27 in Ottawa). They have split the broadcast into 4 episodes, and they have been airing one episode per week, almost every day of the week. I must have had people call me on 4 different days last week to tell me I was on TV, lol.

This week, they are airing Episode 4, which is the final table! I'm really excited to see what my opponents' holecards were, and according to the TV schedule, it will be airing: (most of my readers are from Ontario, so I put those episodes in bold)

Tuesday, July 17th at 7:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet Ontario
Tuesday, July 17th at 7:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet HD
Wednesday, July 18th at 1:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet Ontario
Wednesday, July 18th at 1:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet HD
Wednesday, July 18th at 8:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet East
Thursday, July 19th at 3:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet West
Thursday, July 19th at 4:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet Pacific
Thursday, July 19th at 10:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet West
Friday, July 20th at 1:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet East
Saturday, July 21st at 12:30PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet East
Saturday, July 21st at 4:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet Ontario
Saturday, July 21st at 4:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet HD
Saturday, July 21st at 4:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet West
Saturday, July 21st at 5:00PM EST - Rogers Sportsnet Pacific
Saturday, July 21st at Midnight EST - Rogers Sportsnet Pacific

Also, early on during the WSOP, I did an in-studio interview on Pokerwire Radio with hosts Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, and Joe Stapleton. The interview was a lot of fun, I came in a little bit nervous but the hosts made me feel very comfortable. In case you missed it, here is the link:
Marc Karam - June 20, 2007

WSOP 2007 - Update #3

2007-07-14T15:21:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, this is the final update for WSOP 2007, after being eliminated on the first day of play. This year, they doubled the starting stacks to $20,000, but they also doubled the starting blinds and the antes started at $50 instead of $25. I'm still trying to understand what the point of that is. If they started us out at $25/$50, it would have been much better with 400 BB's instead of 200 BB's. Shout-out to Howard Lederer et al. for making a debacle of the WSOP structures this year. He's doing exactly what Harrah's wanted him to do, run more tournaments, end them as fast as possible, and juice every dollar that they can, including the rebuys and add-ons.

I'm not trying to use that as an excuse for my early exit in the Main Event, since 200 BB's with 2 hour levels is still enough for a lot of play. I started off very well, grinding my way up to ~$25,000 in the first 2 hours. Early in the second level, I found AcJc in the SB. It folded around to me, and I completed to $200, and the aggressive BB made it $800. I called. Flop came A33 with one spade. I checked, he bet $1200, I called. Turn Ks. I check, he bets $2800, I call. River 5s. I check, and he bets $6000 this time. I was sick about the last spade. I tanked it and after about 5 minutes Jeff Lissandro is about to call the clock, and I throw in the call. He flips over AsQs for the runner runner flush. It sucks because the Ks on the turn is probably the only card in the deck that can cost me a lot of money for the rest of that hand.

That brought me down to ~$15,000. A few hands later, I get QQ, and raise to $800. The same player I just lost the previous hand to makes it $2600 to go. I call. The flop is horrible for me, JT7. Now AA, KK, JJ, and TT have me crushed. I check, he fires $3200, I almost folded, but I called hoping he had AK and would slow down on the turn. Turn is a 6, I check, he bets $6000, I quickly fold face up. He knows I am probably steaming over the last hand and I might be willing to play the rest of my stack with a mediocre J or even a T. I didn't think there was any way he could be bluffing me here.

I bled down to ~$8000, and then in a 5-way limped pot with $1000 in the pot, I shoved with AK and took the blinds. The very next hand, I limp with 77 and take a flop 4 ways. Flop comes J74 rainbow, calling station in the BB checks, UTG bets $700, I call, 2 players fold, and the BB also calls. Turn is an offsuit 5. They both check, I fire 2000, BB calls, UTG folds. River 9. BB checks, I push all in for over $6000, he calls instantly and flips over KJ. I show my set of 7's and take down the pot. That brought me back up to ~$22,000. It's always nice to double up after your opponent is already drawing dead on the turn.

A few orbits later, the same player raises to $700, and I call on the button with KhTh. I know he's strong because he has been limping everything from mid pocket pairs to KQ and KJ suited and semi-strong aces. The flop is nice for my hand but not amazing, KQT, giving me 2 pair. He overbets the pot for $2000, and my gut is telling me he has AA or AK. I know he's not going anywhere, but he is getting his money in either way with those hands, and since I have position on him, I want to see a safe turn card before I get committed. If any A,Q,J,9 comes then I can still get away from the hand without losing too much. The turn is a nice offsuit 5. I'm ready to come over top but he does all of the work for me, pushing all-in for $8600. I beat him into the pot, but he flips over QQ! :( I miss my 2-outer and I am back down to $9000. It's another sick hand because he would have played AA and AK the same exact way, and it was a lot more likely that he had one of those hands than QQ.

I dropped to $7000 and was moved to another table. The blinds were now $200/$400, and a mid-position player makes it $1100 to go, and I call another $700 from the BB with 9c8c. The flop comes 982. I check, and he checks. Turn is the 5c, putting 2 clubs on the board and a flush draw to go with my 2 pair. I check again, and he fires $2000. I move all-in for my $5900, and he calls me with... AK off, drawing dead. Uh, thanks!

Then came an interesting hand. A player limped for $400 in mid-position, and I looked down at KQs on the button. I made it $1500 to go, the BB called, and the MP limper called. The flop comes AKK, giving me trip Kings. They both check to me, and I bet $3000. BB folds, and the MP min-raises to $6000. In my head, I'm thinking he has a weaker K and I have him crushed, he is making a bad play with an Ace and I have him crushed, or he's on a pure bluff, and as you guessed, I have him crushed. I elect to just call the $3000 raise, leaving me with just under $10,000 behind. The turn comes K, giving me quads! At first I was happy, but after a few seconds, I quickly realized that this was the worst card in the deck for me other than an Ace. He obviously can't have a worse King, and if he has an Ace, I'm still getting all of his money, but he'd have to be really bad to have an Ace here. So that leaves one option, a pure bluff. If he was trying to represent a King with the min-raise on the flop, now he has to be thinking "Damn, there's no way he's going to fold an Ace now, I give up." Sure enough, he checks, and I check behind. The river is a meaningless 5. He checks, I shove, praying he somehow has an Ace, but he folds instantly. The first time I ever make quads in a tournament, and it ends up COSTING me money, lol! I was up to ~$26,000 after this hand.

Barry Schulman is a true maniac. I was at his table for a short period of time, and his stack went from $50,000 to $6,000 to $40,000 to $5000 to $35,000 and back down to $10,000 when our table broke within 5 orbits, it was unreal! There was one pot where he limped $400 UTG, I limped in MP, and the very tight BB made it $2500 to go. He called and I folded. Flop comes 843 rainbow. The BB bets $5000, Barry raises it to $19,000, and after some thought, the BB moves all-in for $5000 more. There's almost $60,000 in the pot, and it's $5000 to call, and he folds! Anyways, the point is that he was involved in almost every single big pot at the table. I played one big pot against him, but I missed my flush draw and that brought me down to $17,000. I surely would have doubled up had I hit my flush.

The next hand I played was against Shirley Williams, David Williams' mother. I limped in MP with 6d5d for $400 and she raised on the button to $1200. I was the only caller. Flop came 542. I checked, Shirley bet $2000, and I called. The turn was a 9. I led out for $4000, hoping she had a hand like AK or AQ and would lay it down. She played with her chips for a while, and eventually put me all-in. I chose to save my last $9000 and I folded.

I bled off chips for a few orbits and before I knew it I was down to $5500 and needing to make something happen with the blinds at $200/$400 with a $50 ante. I limped UTG with Jc8c and we took a flop 5 ways. The flop came 653 with 2 clubs, and I immediately knew I was putting all of my money in. The blinds checked to me, and with almost $3000 in the pot already, I chose to just push in my last $5100. I was hoping to take down the pot as it was, but I also didn't mind getting called by a hand like A6 or 77, where I was drawing to 15 outs and was a slight favourite. The lady on the button called by bet, and she turned over a hand I did not want to see, 42 for the flopped straight, yuck! I was now down to 9 outs. The 8 on the turn was no help, and the off-suit Q on the river closed the lid on my 2007 World Series of Poker.

What a ride it's been! Even though I only cashed in one event, I had a great time at the WSOP and I feel like I played very well. I also did very well in the cash games. I absolutely love the non-Hold'em games, and I have been playing a lot of cash games and tournaments in different formats ever since. I'm already looking forward to the 2008 WSOP, the 2009 WSOP, and so forth. The amount of equity a good player has in these tournaments is mind-blowing!

This is the end of the 2006-2007 Poker "season". The EPT ended in April, the WPT ended in May, and the WSOP ends this week. Now comes the planning for the 2007-2008 season. I think I want to put most of my focus into the European Poker Tour this year. I am 2nd all-time in career earnings, tied for 2nd all-time for career final tables, and 5th on the all-time TLB, and I've only played in 2 events. The EPT is growing like crazy in Europe, and with the online poker ban in the USA, I think it would be in mine and my sponsor's best interest to focus on European and international tournaments. I don't think I'll ever miss the WSOP though, and Las Vegas is like my 2nd home, so we'll have to work something around that. ;)

For the time being, I will be going back to cash games. It feels so good to be able to play on Eurolinx again, for some reason I could not log in from Vegas, so I was stuck playing on Pokerstars.

I'll leave you with a few pictures from my 2007 WSOP.

Chatting with Joe Hachem

Am I next?

Shannon Elizabeth from 'American Pie' fame. It's funny because I guess I was playing a little too aggressively for her liking, and we got into a little bit of a verbal spat which she apologized for later on in the day.

WSOP 2007 - Update #2

2007-07-06T20:31:00.000-04:00

Good news, bad news.

The bad news is that I have yet to make a big score in this year's WSOP. I have only cashed in 1 out of my 7 events for just over $9000. There is only 1 event left to play, but it is the biggest event in poker history! On top of that, it will also be the easiest tournament in history, skill-wise. If I can dodge the suckouts for the first few levels and build up a decent stack, it should be a smooth path to the money. I'm going to be playing in the $10,000 Main Event on Day 1b, which is today.

You can follow my progress along with the rest of Team Eurolinx at http://blog.eurolinx.com.

As for the good news, I have just entered into a deal with CardPlayer Magazine whereby a monthly column written by me will be featured in the "Strategies & Analysis" section of every even numbered issue of the Magazine beginning with a piece entitled "What's At Stake?" in Issue No. 16 which hits news stands on August 21st, 2007 and casinos on August 16th. This is very exciting for me, as this is the biggest poker magazine in the world and is considered the authority on poker. You can pick it up at any store which sells a decent variety of magazines, or your local casino. I also still have a monthly column which appears in Canadian Poker Player Magazine.

WSOP 2007 - Update #1

2007-06-28T18:53:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-15T18:16:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-09T01:29:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-04T17:43:00.000-04:00

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!

Quick Update

2007-05-30T03:18:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been extremely busy for the past few weeks, and haven't had a chance to play too much poker. I've been playing mostly cash games on Eurolinx ($50/$100 NL) and Pokerstars ($25/$50 NL). There have been some pretty big swings, the 1st week of the month I was +$100k, 2nd week I was -$150k, I ended the 3rd week +$350k, and to finish off the month I had a bad last week for -$200k (played some $200/$400 NL, oops :P). I am +$100k total for the month of May.

I have tried to play some online tournaments, but I just can't get myself to play seriously in them. The only tournaments I really get to play are late at night. I can't play the big tournaments, because I am never at the computer for more than 3 or 4 hours straight. Maybe that will change once I move into my new house.

The WSOP starts in 2 days! I won't be going down to Vegas until June 15th, and I will race to the Rio to try and sign up for the $5000 H.O.R.S.E. event in time. I will be staying in Vegas for around a month, so if anyone I know is going down around that time, give me a shout! Other events I will most likely be playing include: $5000 NL Heads-Up Championship, $5000 Omaha Hi-Lo, $5000 6-Handed NL, $10,000 PL Omaha, and the $10,000 Main Event. If I do well in one of the first 3 events, I will seriously consider playing in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event. I'm still not that great at the Stud games, and the field in that event is going to be littered with sharks.

I don't think I'm going to be playing much online poker before I head down to the WSOP. The last thing I want to do is get to Vegas feeling sick of poker. I want to go down hungry for that bracelet.

North American Poker Championship Airs Tomorrow Night 9PM

2007-05-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

The 2006 WPT North American Championship will be televised tomorrow night on the Travel Channel. As you all know, I finished in 6th place, meaning I only lasted about half an hour on the final table. On the very first hand of the final table, Jim Worth raised on the button, and I re-raised with 66 in the small blind. When it came back to Jim, he instantly pushed all-in. I think he had AK or QQ. I'm 99% sure he had a monster but I am dying to see what it actually was! Other than that, I made one nice bluff, and then I had the dreaded Jacks.

Don't forget to tune in! Here is the e-mail I received from the WPT.

North American Poker Championship Airs Tomorrow Night 9PM
From: Chris Lockey (clockey@worldpokertour.com)
Sent: May 8, 2007 8:58:50 PM

Hello from your friends at World Poker Tour.

We would like to remind you that your episode, the North American Poker Championship, airs tomorrow night – Wednesday May 9th at 9PM on Travel Channel.

Enjoy!

________________________________
Chris Lockey
Coordinator - Casino & Player Relations

WPT Enterprises, Inc.
5700 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 350
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 330-9871 (direct)
(323) 330-9901 (fax)

$50/$100 NL at the Bellagio

2007-05-02T04:52:00.001-04:00

I didn't feel like hanging around the poker room the day that I busted out from the WPT Championship. I ended up going back to my room and ordering room service. I logged onto my laptop and saw that there was a HORSE tournament starting in 5 minutes. I wasn't really in the mood to play poker but I needed to pass some time so I decided to play it. HORSE is probably my 2nd favourite tournament game (tied with PL Omaha) after NL. I ended up finishing the tournament in 2nd place and it really helped me regain my confidence.

I woke up the next day with a clear mind, and headed down to the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace to do some shopping with my friend Aboudy, who also came down from Ottawa. We bought some clothes and some souvenirs and then headed back to the Bellagio to play some poker. All of the tables were full, so I put my name on the list for $25/$50 NL and $50/$100 NL. I walked around the room for a bit and then watched the Big Game, where the likes of Phil Ivey, John D'Agostino, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Gus Hansen, and a few others were playing a $3000/$6000 mixed game. After 15 minutes or so, my name was called for $50/$100 NL and I took my seat. I looked around the table for any familiar faces. Haralabos Voulgaris, Phil Laak, Kenny Tran, John Duthie, and Viffer from Pokerstars were the ones I recognized.

I bought in for $25,000 and I looked to set up my image very quickly. I was playing very aggressive and showing a few bluffs here and there. Then the first big hand came up. I had built my stack up to $30,000 and Haralabos limped for $100 in the cut-off. Viffer also limped on the button, and I looked down at KQ of spades in the small blind. I made it $500 to go, the big blind folded, and Haralabos re-raised to $2500. The button folded, and I thought for a while and called the $2000 raise. The flop came TT9 with two spades, giving me a flush draw, a gut-shot straight draw, and two over-cards. I checked, and Haralabos bet $5000. He had around $18,000 total, and I put him all-in. He quickly called with AA, and I missed my 12 outs.

Even though I lost the hand, my image was now set. I was down to $10,000, so I called the chip runner over and asked him to bring me another $25,000 in chips. I proceeded to win a bunch of small pots, and then I got paid off with AA on a KJ532 board, which brought me up to $50,000 and I was back to even. Then came the next big hand.

Mid-position raises to $400, I call on the button with 33, and John Duthie calls from the small blind, big blind folds. Flop comes JT3 with 2 clubs. They both check, and I bet $1000 into the $1300 pot. John raises it to $2500, the initial raiser folds, and I go into the tank. John also has over $50,000 in chips. I have position on John, and if he has a hand like KQ of clubs, he is going to play it very hard and I don't really want to get into a coin flip here, I would rather wait until the turn and see what he does. If a club comes and he keeps firing hard on the turn and river, then I can get away from the hand with minimal losses. I flat call the $1500 raise. The turn was an off-suit 4. To my surprise, John checked. I quickly took a $5000 chip and threw it into the middle. After some thinking, he calls the $5000, which led me to believe he had a lone Jack in his hand, and is probably thinking that I am on a draw. The river is an off-suit 5. John checks again, and there is $16,300 in the pot. I am now pretty certain he has a Jack, and I try to decide how much to bet to make it look like a bluff. I bet $15,500 and after about 2 minutes of thought, John makes the call. I show my set of 3's and he mucks his hand as I take in the $47,000 pot.

I continued to slowly build up my stack when another interesting hand occurred. Button raises to $400, small blind calls, and I call from the big blind with 45 suited. The flop comes T43 with two hearts, and the small blinds bets out $700, I call, and the button calls. The turn is an off-suit 5, giving me two pair. The small blind checks, and I bet $2000, the button calls, and the small blind folds. The river is another Ten, counterfeiting my two pair. I check, and the button bets $2500 into the $7200 pot. This was a really odd bet, and my thinking is that if he made trip Tens then he would have bet at least $5000. I eventually call, and he shows A6 of hearts and I win the pot. It was a really bad bet by my opponent, if he had bet more I almost definitely would have folded.

My stack was now over $100,000 and my momentum was really giving me a big advantage. I look down at AK of spades in the cut-off, and I raise it up to $500. John Duthie re-raises to $2200 on the button, with around $30,000 behind. I don't want to play a huge pot with AK pre-flop even though I feel I have the best hand, so I just flat call. The flop comes J74, all spades, giving me the nuts! I check, and John checks behind. Then turn is an off-suit 8. I wonder if I should bet, but I realize that the only way I can get all of John's money is if I put in a nice check-raise. I check, and John bets $2500. I raise to $7000, and John quickly calls. The river is an off-suit 3, and I immediately bet $90,000 in a stack of white $5000 chips. John thinks for about a minute, and he forms his hands into a triangle and starts to push his huge stack of chips into the middle of the pot. I am celebrating and doing back-flips in my mind but I try my hardest to hold it in until the chips actually cross the line! Once they do, I quickly show him my nut flush and he tosses his cards into the muck and gets up and leaves. John is a really nice guy and a good player, and I almost felt bad but then I remembered that John owns the European Poker Tour, so I'm sure that was only pocket change to him. ;)

The game broke soon after that and I ended up cashing out around $130,000. I was a little sad that I was leaving Vegas the next day, but I will be back for a month in June and July during the WSOP. I am trying to decide what my best strategy will be, I was initially planning to play 10-15 of the smaller events and the main event, but now I am thinking it might be better focus my energy on only 4 or 5 of the biggest events, instead of getting burnt out by playing as many as I can.

WPT Championship - Day 1

2007-04-23T17:37:00.001-04:00

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

2007-04-21T14:48:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-16T14:19:00.000-04:00

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!

EPT Monte Carlo - Day 2

2007-03-31T07:31:00.001-04:00

Before the start of the day, I had told Skippy that my goal for the end of Day 2 was to finish with between $180,000 and $200,000 in chips. I was starting the day with $52,100 which was about twice the average stack. If I could steadily pick up blinds, and then hit one or two big hands, I knew this would be a realistic goal. Skippy was starting the day with just over $42,000 and both other Team Eurolinx members had also made it to Day 2, but with relatively short stacks.

I looked at the names on my table when we got to the tournament area, and there were no names that I recognized. I asked my Eurolinx teammates if they recognized any of the names, and Bernt told me that he knew the Norwegian player Age Spets (pronounced Oggy Spetz). He said he remembered a hand that Age had played against someone on Day 1. It went as follows: Late position player raises to $1000, Age calls in the big blind. Flop comes 762. Age checks, the player bets $1700, Age calls. Turn is an 8. Age bets $3000, the player calls. River is a 5, making the board 87652. Age bets $5000, and the player folds. Age shows AT off suit. So right then and there, I knew what Age was capable of, and I would aware of it, since he was 2 spots to my left, and he would be in the big blind when I was on the button.

Day 2 had begun. The blinds started off at $150/$300 with a $25 ante. In the second orbit, I was dealt 66 in the cutoff -1, and I raised it to $1800. Age was on the button, and he re-raised it to $5800. I called. The flop was perfect for my hand, 632. I had flopped top set, but now I was hoping Age really had a big pair, otherwise I could not make much money on this hand. I checked, and unfortunately, he checked behind. I was now pretty sure he only had 2 high cards, like AK or AQ, and I was hoping he would catch up and hit one of them. The turn was a 9. I thought about leading out here, but he was still drawing dead and he might not call a bet on the turn with Ace high, but it was a possibility on the river. I checked, and again he checked behind. The river was a 4, which I really did not like. The board was now 96432. I decided to fire out $8000, and he called me with AK. I think I made about the maximum I could on that hand. This brought my chip stack up to just under $70,000.

You can watch the hand in a virtual replay here: Age Spets vs Marc Karam Part 1

The next 3 hours were probably the most boring 3 hours of my life. I literally did not see one flop. It was now Level 3 with the blinds at $600/$1200, and I had picked up some blinds and made a couple of squeeze plays to maintain a stack size of around $76,000. Earlier in the day, at the end of Level 1, a famous Danish player named Theo Jorgenson had been moved to our table. At one point, it folded to me on the button, and I raised it to $3600, and Age exclaimed, "You're raising??", and insta-mucked his cards in the big blind. Probably because I hadn't played a hand in 3 orbits. This struck me, I now had a super tight image (which is extremely rare for me, trust me on this one), and I decided to cash it in, by making a move and hopefully picking up a big pot while I'm at it. Theo Jorgenson made it $3200 to go from mid position, and it folded around to me in the big blind. I called the extra $2000 with Jd8d. The flop came down 579 rainbow. I flopped a double gutshot and I knew right then I was going to play it hard. I checked and Theo bet $5000. I raised it to $12,000. Theo called. The turn was a 2. Now I was wondering what he called me with. I knew I had to make my decision very quickly, because if I took too long he might smell something suspicious. I didn't want to bet out and get called and then have to make a tough river decision, so I decided to try to go for the check-raise. I checked, and he quickly bet out $18,000. While his chips were still in motion, I immediately said "I'm all in", trying to look very excited. He said "Must be a set", and folded quickly. He flashed a Queen, someone said they saw pocket Queens but I'm pretty sure I only saw one. I showed the J8 and the table was very surprised. I wanted them to see what I was capable of, because I was definitely not going to do this again any time soon, and I was trying to set them up in case I did pick up a big hand.

You can watch the hand in a virtual replay here: Theo Jorgenson vs Marc Karam

Unfortunately for me, my table broke soon after that, and I was moved to a new table with Devilfish who was 4 spots to my right. I was now up to $110,000 when the following hand came up. With the blinds $800/$1600 with a $200 ante, it folds around to the button who raises it to $5000. I look down at AsKs in the big blind. I look at my opponent's stack, and he has around $37,000 total. I re-raise it to $15,000, and he quickly declares himself all in. I call, and he shows pocket Jacks, and it's off to the races! I miss the flop, turn a flush draw, but miss the river, and just like that I'm back down to $70,000. I then went card dead for an entire level and was blinded down to around $55,000. I needed to pick up some pots, I moved all in from the big blind twice over-top of a raise from Devilfish, stole some blinds, and slowly grinded my way back up over the $100,000 mark. Then the next big hand occurred:

With the blinds at $1200/$2400, I raise it up to $7000 with Td8d. The button calls, as does the big blind. The flop is beautiful, 679 rainbow. The big blind checks, I bet $14,000, the button calls, and the big blind folds. The turn is an Ace. I bet $25,000 and he calls. The river is an 8, which I really disliked. He had around $60,000 left, but I couldn't bet that much because there was now a 4 card straight on the board. I decided to bet $25,000 again, and he showed A7 for 2 pair and he folded. I was now up to $165,000. Soon after this hand, I was moved to another table. I was again seated at the same table as Age Spets, but this time he was directly to my right, giving me better position on him. I was moved into the big blind, and there was a dead small blind. I folded to Age Spets on the button, and he just limped for $2400. I looked down at A8, and decided I had the best hand, and I raised it $7000 more, hoping he wouldn't call. He called. The flop was no help to my hand, KQ7. I bet $11,000 hoping to take it down, but he called quickly. Interesting. The turn was a Ten. I checked, hoping he would check behind and I would hit an Ace or a Jack. He also checked. The river was an 8. I now had a pair of 8's, but the board was KQT87. I checked, and he asked me how much I would call. I said, "Come on, just check behind like a nice guy". He said, "Would you call $30,000?". I said,"No, but I would call $2400." He said, "No, thats too cheap, I'll bet $18,000." Now, all the possible hands were racing through my head. AK, KQ, KJ, KT, AQ, QJ, QT, and so on, were all raising hands on the button, especially with the $200 antes. A pair of Queens or Tens, he would check behind with on the river. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn't give him a hand with a K or Q in it. This was not the type of player to limp KJ on the button. As I counted out $18,000 from my chipstack, he said, "Do you have the Queen?". Boom, thanks for giving it away. As soon as I heard him say that, I pushed my chips into the middle. He said "Oh noooo." I showed the A8, and he mucked 75.

You can watch the hand in a virtual replay here: Age Spets vs Marc Karam Part 2

I was now up to $203,000 in chips and we were approaching the end of the day. I lost a few blinds and decided to just take it easy and come back fresh tomorrow, and I finished the day with $196,700. It was a very satisfying day of poker. I wasn't dealt many premium starting hands, but that might have saved me. I was never called in an all in situation today, so my tournament life was never actually on the line with me needing to dodge the board to stay alive. I guess I was kind of lucky that I was never all in, hopefully I can do the same thing today. No races, picking up blinds and small pots slowly, and then hit a big hand once or twice.

Unfortunately, Skippy and both other Team Eurolinx members were casualties of Day 2, but they played extremely well and they should be proud of having made it this far in the biggest poker tournament in European history.

Malta and Monte Carlo Day 1

2007-03-29T11:00:00.001-04:00

Last Friday, I visited Malta for the first time. I was greeted at the airport by the owner of Eurolinx himself and as it turns out, a big scam artist, Jo Remme. Our driver then took us for a small tour of the island before dropping me off at the Westin hotel, the nicest hotel in Malta along with the Hilton. The people were so warm and friendly, and I was treated like a king while I was there. I really forward to making another trip to Malta, hopefully for at least a week next time. I stayed for 3 nights, and spent most of the time with the Eurolinx crew, we went to dinner every night, played some poker at the local casino, and talked a lot of strategy.

On Tuesday, I left Malta along with the two other Team Eurolinx members, Bernt a.k.a elaineb, and Indie a.k.a. ElSueno. They are both Norwegian, very nice guys, and extremely talented poker players. Being around people like this has really improved all of our games, sharing opinions on a bunch of hypothetical situations that we come up with. We made the short flight to Monte Carlo for the European Poker Tour Grand Final. The closest airport to Monte Carlo is in Nice, France. We then took a 6 minute helicopter ride over the Mediterranean Sea and arrived at our destination.

Also, I had just found out that my good friend "Skippy" was coming to Monte Carlo! He had qualified for the tournament in a last minute satellite on Pokerstars. He would be meeting us at our hotel later that evening.

Yesterday was Day 1a of the EPT Grand Final. This year, there are more than 700 participants, so they had to split the field in half, with the first half of the players playing on Day 1a, and the second half of the players playing on Day 1b. Then they combine the surviving players on Day 2. I was originally registered to play on Day 1b. As I was standing in line to complete my registration, a young Norwegian player was asking if anyone who was playing on Day 1b wouldn't mind switching with him, because he was feeling really sick and didn't want to play on Day 1a. I thought about it for a little while, and then I decided I would rather play on Day 1a, get through the day, and then be able to take a day off while the Day 1b field plays. So I took his offer and played.

As soon as we entered the tournament area, the tournament director announced that there was some goods news, and some bad news. The good news was that we would be starting with $15,000 in chips instead of the original $10,000 in chips. I was extremely happy to hear this. The bad news was that since we had more players than they had expected, we would be playing 7 levels instead of 6, which would extend our day to a grueling 14 hours.

I received my seating assignment, and made my way over to my table which was located in the back corner of the room. I only recognized one player at the table, and that was the famous French player, Fabrice Soulier. The blinds were starting at $25/$50 and we would be playing 90 minute levels. I started off the first level pretty quietly, picking up small pots here and there. Then I played an interesting hand against Fabrice Soulier. It folded to me on the button, and I raised to $200 with 8c4c. Then Fabrice made it $600 to go out of the small blind. The big blind folded and I pondered my decision. I had around $17,000 at the time, and Fabrice had around $15,000. I called the $400, knowing that even if Fabrice had Aces, I would win a huge pot if I flopped a big hand. I put him on a hand like AK or AQ. The flop came down 943 with 2 hearts. Fabrice fired out $800, and I called. The turn card was an Ace, which I hated. But to my surprise, he checked. I thought he was trying to trap me here, so I checked behind. The river was another 4. He checked again, and I was pretty sure he had an Ace. There was $2800 in the pot, and I was trying to decide how much I could get him to call here with my trip 4's. I decided to over-bet the pot and make it $3000, making it look like I had a busted flush draw or straight draw. He thought for a short time, and he called. I showed my hand and he said "Eight-four for $600, I love it!", and he said well played. We had a good laugh about it.

By the end of Level 1, I had $23,000 and I was moved to a new table. The new table looked pretty weak, except for Victor Ramdin. I chopped away at a bunch of small pots, and I made a couple of nice calls on the river and before I knew it I was up to $31,000, before the next big hand came up. I was dealt pocket Kings under the gun, with the blinds at $150/$300. I made it $900 to go, and it folded to Victor Ramdin, who was playing very aggressive and involved in a large number of pots. He re-raised it to $2900, leaving himself with $11,000 behind. It folded around to me, and I considered my options. I decided to flat call his raise, and then check-raise him all in on any non-ace flop. I called, and the flop came down J72 rainbow. I checked, he bet $3000, and I moved all in. He instantly called with pocket Aces, what a cooler! I didn't catch a King on the turn or the river, and all of a sudden I was down to $17,000 again approaching the end of Level 3.

I decided I was going to try and take some risks to build my stack back up. I had missed a couple of draws and I was down to around $13,000 when the next big hand came up. I was dealt JsTs under the gun, and I limped for $300. It folded around to Ramdin, who made it $2300 to go. This was a huge raise, and I immediately decided he did not have a big pair. It folded around to me, and I counted the size of the pot in my head. There was $3050 in the pot. Knowing he did not have a big pair, I realized if I pushed all in, I could increase the size of my stack by almost 25% without even seeing a flop. Also, since I limped under the gun, by re-raising I was representing a huge hand. I decided to go for it and I moved all in. He thought for at least 5 minutes, and he finally said "I don't know how I can fold this." This meant one thing, he had the ONLY hand he could call with, Ace King. Even if he called, I was only a 60/40 underdog. He eventually called me, and it was show time! I whiffed on the flop and the turn, but the river was a wonderful Jack! I was back up to $27,000. The very next hand, I raised with Ace Jack, and I was called down on a Jack high board all the way to the river, and I was up to $33,000.

Level 4 was pretty uneventful, and I lost a few chips in blinds. I was hanging around $29,000, when I was moved to a new table. This time I had Humberto Brenes to my right. I decided I was going to play very aggressive at this table, show a few bluffs, and hopefully get paid off big time when I hit a good hand. My second hand on the table, I was dealt Q2 off suit on the button. The blinds were $200/$400, and Humberto made it $1200 to go from mid-position. I re-raised to $3200. It folded back around to Humberto, and he immediately moved all-in for only $5500 more, oops! I hadn't seen how short-stacked he was, I would not have made the re-raise if I had known that. I thought for a while, trying to make it look like I had a legitimate hand. Then Humberto brought out his famous little shark toy, and started making it swim around on the table and saying "The shark is coming, you know you want to call", blah blah blah. He was trying to goad me into calling, and it was kind of annoying. I knew he was trying to get under my skin, but I just smiled and didn't let it bother me, and I decided I would get him back later for some sweet revenge. I folded my hand and told him I laid down Ace Jack. Two hands later, I was in the big blind with 82 offsuit. It folded to the button, 'Zpaceman', who made it $1500 to go. The small blind folded, and I made it $4500 to go. The button thought for a long time before folding. A player from our table later told me that he folded pocket Queens, but Zpaceman said he had A5o in a thread on PocketFives and I believe that. I showed my 82 off suit and he was visibly upset about his fold. The very next hand, I was in the small blind with A4 off suit. It folded to Humberto, who made it $1400 to go. I knew Humberto would be raising with a wide range here, figuring I had just played two big pots in a row and probably didn't have the nerve to do it a third time without a big hand. It folded to me, and I looked at Humberto's stack, he had around $11,000. I looked at the big blind's stack, and he had around $10,000. I took three $5000 chips and threw them into the middle of the pot which covered both players, essentially putting them both all in. The big blind immediately folded, and Humberto thought for a while. I said out loud, "Where's the shark now, Humberto?" He says "You have a big hand this time", and he folds, and I show the 4 of diamonds. He busted out 4 hands later, with J6 in a limped pot on a T62 flop. He shook my hand on the way out like a gentleman, and told me he had pocket Jacks in the hand when I folded the Q2 off suit.

Unfortunately, I never picked up a big hand to get paid off with, but I was stealing the blinds like crazy! I was literally raising 4 or 5 out of every 9 hands and winning the blinds. I went from $30,000 to $52,100 without getting past the flop. That is where I finished the day, in around 20th place of the remaining 160 or so players. Skippy also had a good day, finishing with $42,450 after surviving a table featuring Barry Greenstein. Bernt a.k.a.elaineb also made it through Day 1, still in decent shape with $18,875.

Today we have the day off, while we wait for Day 1b to play out. I'll be doing some shopping and touring of Monte Carlo, and later I will head back to the tournament to give some support to the other Team Eurolinx member who is playing today, Indie a.k.a. ElSueno.

For those of you who would like to follow the action live, you can do so at the following website:
PokerListings.com

I play again on Day 2 which will start on Friday at 2:00pm Monte Carlo time, 8:00am EST.

Back in Action

2007-03-23T03:47:00.001-04:00

I arrived back in Ottawa a few days ago, after visiting some family in Cleveland. I took a 2 week break from playing any poker, after being very active for the past couple of months. I started playing again 2 nights ago over at the Eurolinx $50/$100 NL tables and I’ve been doing really well. I've made around $75,000 in the last 48 hours and feel really good about my play. What I'm even more proud of is that I have kept myself away from playing the $100/$200 NL and $200/$400 NL tables since I said I would.

As I mentioned in a recent interview, I would like to have at least $2 million online before I can comfortably play $200/$400 NL. Right now, if I lose $40,000 in a single hand, it still affects me, and would have a negative impact on my ability to play my "A" game for the rest of the session. On the other hand, at $50/$100 NL, if I lose $10,000 in a hand, I don't even flinch and just reload. That's how I know I am at a comfortable level.

Tomorrow, I carry my momentum with me to Malta, and then to Monte Carlo a few days later for the European Poker Tour €10,000 Grand Championship! There are already over 500 players registered for the event, so it looks like 1st place will be paying over $2 million! Monaco is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to, and I have heard many great things about Malta, I’m very anxious to see it.

In other news, I have been recently featured in a couple of interviews and articles. I was interviewed by HighStakesDB and they have posted it online. Also, I was mentioned in an article in this month’s issue of Canadian Poker Player Magazine. Here are the links:

HighStakes Interview
Canadian Poker Player Article

Also, I will now be writing a monthly article for Canadian Poker Player Magazine! This is very exciting for me, hopefully my articles will eventually be syndicated to other poker magazines and websites. My first article is titled “Staying A Step Ahead” and will be printed in the April Issue. You can pick it up at your local Chapters if you don’t have a subscription.

Well, it’s getting late and I guess I should start packing my bags since my flight leaves in just over 12 hours. I’ll try to post an update from Malta if I have a good Internet connection down there. Wish me luck!

Update

2007-03-01T12:04:00.000-05:00

I decided not to attend the L.A. Poker Classic this year, instead I will be flying out to Cleveland, Ohio next week to visit some family for a week or so. On March 23rd, I will be flying out to Malta, to visit the new Eurolinx head office. For those of you who have never heard of Malta, it is a small chain of seven islands in the Mediterranean Sea, just south of Italy. It looks beautiful, I can't wait to see it. I will be spending 3 days there, and meeting with the rest of Team Eurolinx for some strategy workshops a couple of days before the EPT Championship.

From Malta, we will be flying out to Monte Carlo for the European Poker Tour Grand Championship. With an entry fee of €10,000 it is one of the biggest buy-in tournaments in the world outside of the $25,000 WPT Championship. The field will be very tough once again, with all of Europe's finest players sure to be there. I will be returning to Ottawa on April 2nd, which means I will spend most of March outside of the country.

Poker has been going very well recently. Since my last post, I had been killing the $50/$100 NL game on Eurolinx, but then I had 2 bad sessions which erased most of my profit. I dropped down a level to $25/$50 NL, and I have been making a very steady profit there while being a little more comfortable. I also final tabled a pretty big tournament last night, it started with around 600 players, but unfortunately I was eliminated in 8th place after my 99 got all-in against an opponent's AQ, and he flopped the nut straight.

Wikipedia

2007-02-20T13:23:00.001-05:00

I have officially made it onto Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Karam

It's basically a mini-biography with a list of accomplishments and links to some articles and videos. Once again a big thanks to Bill Sparks.

Crazy Swings!

2007-02-14T00:12:00.000-05:00

Well, ever since coming back from Australia, I have been taking it easy and playing online. For those of you that have been using Eurolinx for a while, you'll notice that we are on a new, better network now called Prima. There is much more action and the games are much juicier!

I've been playing mostly $50/$100 NL, $100/$200 NL, and $200/$400 NL. This is the highest I've ever played, and I must say, the swings are insane! I started off pretty smoothly, with a very steady daily profit of around $20k or more. The past few days have not been so consistent though. On Saturday, I lost $90k. On Sunday, I was up $260k but ended up losing most of it back and finished the day +$60k. Today was my worst day, losing $150k to Tunaeatr.

At one point, I was up almost $450k! After today, I am down to +$170k for the year in cash games. Most people would look at that and say "That's amazing!", but I'm really disappointed with my play the last couple of days. I should have won more but I made a few bad moves and paid for it.

Some people have said "Tunaeatr" is the famous Johnny Lodden, but I don't think so. I was totally controlling the action on the table, and Tunaeatr was playing very passive/calling station. Never raised me, never bluffed me. The perfect opponent to play heads-up against. And I guess I was steaming, because I still called his river bets even though I knew he had it.

Playing for this kind of money is so hard on the nerves. Even though I have beat the game, I feel like my edge is too small, and I just don't need the stress of these swings in my life. It was very fun playing these high stakes games and I have learned a lot and improved my heads-up game. I think I'm going to reduce my high stakes play to taking "shots" at the game once in a while when I feel it is very weak or if I am running extremely well that day. I'll probably be sticking to $10/$20 NL, $25/$50 NL, and maybe $50/$100 NL.

In other news, I think I might go down to Los Angeles at the end of this month for the L.A. Poker Classic. I'm still undecided about L.A., but I am definitely going to play the EPT Championship in Monte Carlo at the end of March and I will be attempting to make the final table in back-to-back years! That would be something...

Cover of Canadian Poker Player Magazine

2007-01-31T16:02:00.000-05:00

I did an interview with my good friend Bill Sparks back in December for Canadian Poker Player magazine. It was supposed to be a 2 page spread, but Bill managed to convince the editor to make it into a 4 page player profile because there was so much good content. A couple of days before we left for Australia, Bill told me that he would be taking some pictures of me, because the editor had liked the interview so much that they wanted to put me on the front cover! I didn't really want to mention it to anyone or get too excited about it, because these things are never certain until you actually see it in print.

Well, it's in print now! I have to say, this is pretty overwhelming. I secretly always knew I would make it this far, but for it to actually happen is just surreal. Everything is falling into place for me right now and I don't think I've ever been happier. Not only with poker, but with life in general.

Not to sound pessimistic, but I know my recent success can't continue as well as it has been. To make 3 main event final tables out of 4 tournaments is almost a fairy tale, and not even players like Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu can keep that steady pace.

For anyone who lives in the Windsor area, I will be doing a radio interview today at 5:48PM EST on AM 800 CKLW.

Once again, I'd like to thank my sponsor Eurolinx Poker for sending to me these tournaments at their expense, and a huge thank you to Bill Sparks who made all of this happen.

Aussie Millions - 6th place - $275,000

2007-01-26T01:33:00.000-05:00

What a ride!

I have so much to write about, I should probably make daily posts in future tournaments to avoid having to make one huge post. Here goes nothing...

Day 1 started off pretty slowly, with me picking up small pots here and there and basically getting a feel for all of my opponents. I got rivered a few times in the first 3 levels and instead of being at $40k in chips I was still sitting with around $20k. In the 4th level, I finally hit a flop with TT when it came T66 with 2 diamonds, and I check-called my 2 opponents. The turn was the J of diamonds, and I check-raised the girl at my table which put her all-in. She called with a flush, drawing dead. That brought me up to just under $50k in chips, and it was dinner time. After dinner break, I picked off a couple of bluffs, and then I won a race with QQ against AK for about a $25k pot, which brought me up to $75k going into the last level of the day. I pretty much ran over my table after that picking up many unchallenged pots and I ended the day with just over $95k in chips.

Day 2 was a different story. There was no such thing as picking up a small pot anymore. Why? No reason, other than the fact that I had the defending champion Lee Nelson at my table and the crazy Finnish player Patrik Antonius two seats to my left. This table was pretty much suicide, either you let them run you over and bleed all of your chips while you wait for the pocket aces that never come, or you make a stand and get all-in against them with mediocre hands hoping you are ahead. I had two words in my head going into this table: 'no fear'. It didn't take long. A few hands in, I was on the button with 99. With the blinds $500/$1k, I made it $4k to go, and Antonius made it $25k to go in the BB. Against any other opponent, I would most likely make an easy fold here, but against Antonius I didn't even flinch before I moved my whole stack in. He folded. I took 2 more big pots off Antonius before he finally got me in a hand. He rivered an ace in a hand where I was trapping him and he took a chunk out of my stack. But now it was my turn to river him. Antonius raises to $4k and I make it $12k from the BB with AJs. Antonius calls. I miss the T97 flop and he calls my bet. The turn is another T, and I check-raised him all-in, thinking he would have raised me on the flop with a T. Well I was right about him not having the T, he only flopped the nut straight! He called of course, but the river was an 8 to chop the pot! You'd think one river would be enough justice but one more doesn't hurt, right? Well this one was nowhere near as bad, on the very next hand I got my money in as a 45/55 with my ace high flush draw against his QQ. I hit my flush and that brought me up to $190k, right back into it! I lost a couple of big pots against Lee Nelson, as I literally could not hit a flop the whole day! Once I re-raised him pre-flop with QQ and he check-raised me on a K high flop I laid it down. Just like that I was back down to $85k. After coming back fresh from the dinner break, it was double-up time for me. I was just waiting for Antonius to make a move on me when I had any sort of a hand. I finally picked up AT suited, my best hand in what seemed like ages, and I made it $8k to go in the CO-1 . Antonius has me covered on the button and pushes all-in. I know Anotnius well enough to know that he could be doing this with any 2 cards. My AT was well ahead of his range here, so after long thought, I decided to call. My read was dead-on, he had Q9off. He missed the board and I doubled up off of him once again. After making a couple of great bluffs to bring me up to around $240k, I took another $80k off of Lee Nelson on the very last hand of the day when I slow-played my top pair + flush draw against him. I ended the day with a cool $322k.

On Day 3, I had a much easier table, with only Ross Boatman to worry about, who I played against on the final table at the EPT Championship in Monte Carlo. He actually remembered me from there and we had quite a long conversation about that tournament. I started the day very quickly, 3-betting Boatman all-in on a J97 flop with QT and he laid his hand down. That brought me up to $500k. Then I raised with 78 on the button and hit a T87 flop. I bet it hard, and the BB came over top all-in and I quickly called. He showed KT and my 2 pair held up. This is when I really started to get aggressive and run the table over. I was chipleader with almost $1 million by the end of the first level. There was not a lot of action until a couple of levels later when I 3-bet the BB all-in with KJ and he called with QQ. I flopped a king and turned a king, and just like that I was up to $1.2 million. A few hands later, I raise UTG with AK, the the button moves all-in. He was short-stacked so I made the easy call, and he flipped up AQ. Flop was AQ2 and I lost that pot. I got moved to a new table and I made a huge bluff against 'Shaniac', it was the biggest pot of the tourney and the TV cameras were all over the place for that one. That would have been pretty embarrassing if I got caught bluffing on TV... lol ;) I then lost a huge pot against Jimmy Fricke with AK against his 99. He made a very bad play with the 99 and he was very fortunate that I only had AK. He made it $40k UTG, and I had been respecting his raises all day. I look down at AK in the BB and it gets folded around to me. I make it $160k to go, and he has around $500k total. He doesn't even think, and announces all-in. I was like wow... he must have a huge hand but I have to call now. I call and I am shocked to see 99. What a horrible push! The worst hand I could have here is AK, and I definitely am not re-raising an UTG raiser with 88. So it was either AK, or TT-AA. That's a great range to push 99 against, lol. Then he pulled a sick runner runner straight to knock out Shaniac. I think he's actually a decent player, but he was just playing bad on this particular day. I lost a big hand against him at the end of the day when I folded to his all-in on the turn with a pair + flush draw. I ended the day with $1.25 million.

Day 4 was quick and painful. I was seated with Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius once again to start the day. Gus knocked Antonious out early on, and I made a couple of good moves against Gus to bring myself up to $1.5 million at one point. I lost a big chunk in a battle of the blinds with Gus. I called his raise knowing he was raising with rags, but he ended up flopping top pair with Q2off and I couldn't bluff him off the hand. I ended the day with $535k after I lost another hand against Andy Black, as I just could not hit a flop. This was not a temporary thing, I could not hit a flop for the entire tournament. It was unreal. I had aces once and kings once, and got no action with them. If you read the Eurolinx blog, not one time did you see me all-in with AA or KK. I got all-in with AK 3 times and lost 2 of them. I was card-dead the whole entire tournament. I have no idea how I made it this far. I was happy to make the final table once again, but I really wanted to win for once, and I hate going in as a short-stack.

Day 5, the TV Final Table, was quick for me. We were 7 players, with 1st place taking home $1.5 million! I really had my eye on it but I knew I would need a couple of double-ups early on. I was patient for the first level, and Kristy Gazes was the first player to get knocked out. We were down to 6 now and I looked down at KJ. It was the 2nd best hand I'd seen all day and I decided to go with it and pick up the much-needed blinds and antes. Gus Hansen ended up calling me from the BB after much thought with A9. I missed the board and I was out. No bracelet for me... yet ;)

I took home $300,000 AUD for my efforts.

Australia

2007-01-14T03:30:00.000-05:00

I arrived in Melbourne yesterday for the Aussie Millions! I brought along my cousin, and my friend Bill, who will be blogging for the Eurolinx Blog.

It was a brutal trip, 28 hours and 4 airplanes. To top it off, they lost my suitcase. I finally got it back this afternoon, and I can safely say I am not looking forward to the trip back.

I'm feeling really good about my game right now, I haven't played any poker in over 3 weeks and I am well rested and looking forward to playing in this tournament. The buy-in is $10,000 + $500. As usual, the wonderful people at Eurolinx are paying my way in.

The tournament started today, with half of the field playing on Day 1a. I start tomorrow on Day 1b. I like the format, we start with $20,000 in chips, $50/$100 blinds, and 90 minute levels. Niagara Falls had a better structure, with the same amount of starting chips, but the blinds started at $25/$25, giving us an extra 2 levels of play.

If you want to stay up to date on my progress, stay tuned to the Eurolinx Blog, as Bill will be posting updates frequently.

"Luck"

2006-12-14T16:34:00.000-05:00

It seems every person I talk to who is a losing player has the same complaint: "I have no luck", or "I have the worst luck man".

I was reading a thread on PocketFives and I came across this post.

Do you guys all really think "luck" exists?

Seriously?

All "luck" means is how variance has hit you in a particular hand. If you are a 95% favourite going to the river and your opponent hits his two-outer... does that mean you have bad luck? Of course not. If you play that same hand thousands of times, you'll win 95% of them. You got hit with one of the 5% this time. There is no such thing as luck. Everybody over the long haul will win and lose while ahead equal amounts, and win and lose while behind equal amounts. AA vs. KK preflop seems like such a big favorite... but it loses once in FIVE times! That is not a small amount if you are a regular online player seeing hundreds if not thousands of hands a day. People are not lucky or unlucky.

Luck = no.

Skill and probability = absolutely.

Luck, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, doesn't exist.

Here is a definition of "Luck" from Wikipedia.

Luck as a fallacy

A rationalist approach to luck includes the application of the rules of probability, and an avoidance of unscientific beliefs. The rationalist feels the belief in luck is a result of poor reasoning or wishful thinking. To a rationalist, a believer in luck commits the post hoc logical fallacy, which argues that because something is sequentially connected, it is connected otherwise, as well:

A happens (luck-attracting event or action) and then B happens;
Therefore, A caused B.

In this particular perspective, probability is only affected by confirmed causal connections. A brick falling on a person walking below, therefore, is not a function of that person's luck, but is instead the result of a collection of understood, (or explainable) occurrences. Statistically, every person walking under the building was just as likely to have the brick fall on them.

The gambler's fallacy and inverse gambler's fallacy both explain some reasoning problems in common beliefs in luck. They involve denying the unpredictability of random events: "I haven't rolled a six all week, so I'll definitely roll one tonight".

Luck is merely an expression noting an extended period of noted outcomes, completely consistent with random walk probability theory. Wishing one "good luck" will not cause such an extended period, but it expresses positive feelings toward the one - not necessarily wholly undesirable.

Monster

2006-12-10T13:24:00.000-05:00

Well, I just had the best 4 days of my poker career. I won't divulge any numbers, but let's just say I can comfortably retire tomorrow. ;)

I have pretty much crushed every opponent I've played at $50/$100 NL and $100/$200 NL on the Tain network. There's only one or two players who will still play against me, I'm going to have to change my screen name soon.

Here is the biggest pot:

#Game No : 195629147
***** Hand History for Game 195629147 *****
<< [table size: 6]
$100.00/$200.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Mon, Dec 04, 08:57:16 2006
Table Tiger Shark (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 3: suteja ($48976.00)
Seat 4: _myst_ ($88938.76)
_myst_ posts small blind [$100.00]
suteja posts big blind [$200.00]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to _myst_ [ Ac Qc ]
_myst_ raises [$500.00]
suteja raises [$2200.00]
_myst_ calls [$1800.00]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Jc Qd 4c ]
suteja bets [$4300.00]
_myst_ raises [$12200.00]
suteja is all-In [$42276.00]
_myst_ calls [$34376.00]
suteja shows [ Qs Js ] Two Pair, Queens and Jacks
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]
** Dealing River ** [ Th ]
suteja shows [ Qs Js ] Two Pair, Queens and Jacks
_myst_ shows [ Ac Qc ] a Flush
_myst_ wins $97951.00 from main pot

My Biggest Pot Ever

2006-11-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

This is my biggest ever pot in a cash game. The final pot size was just over $75,000. The hand was played against a rich maniac on Eurolinx who goes by the name of "suteja".

#Game No : 185711845
***** Hand History for Game 185711845 *****
$100.00/$200.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Thu, Nov 16, 22:04:50 2006
Table Hammerhead (Real Money)
Seat 5 is the button
Total number of players : 2
Seat 2: _myst_ ($37800.00)
Seat 5: suteja ($43496.00)
suteja posts small blind [$100.00]
_myst_ posts big blind [$200.00]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to _myst_ [ Jh Kh ]
suteja raises [$500.00]
_myst_ raises [$1800.00]
suteja calls [$1400.00]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3h Jc 5h ]
_myst_ bets [$3000.00]
suteja calls [$3000.00]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ]
_myst_ bets [$6000.00]
suteja raises [$15300.00]
_myst_ calls [$9300.00]
** Dealing River ** [ Td ]
_myst_ checks
suteja is all-In [$23196.00]
_myst_ is all-In [$17500.00]
suteja is refunded uncalled bet $5696.00
suteja shows [ 4h 4d ] a Pair, Fours
_myst_ shows [ Jh Kh ] a Pair, Jacks
_myst_ wins $75599.00 from main pot

WPT North American Championship - 6th place - $169,027.00

2006-11-07T14:08:00.000-05:00

I spent the last 2 weeks of October in Niagara Falls for the WPT North American Championship and the WPT Canadian Open.

The smaller Canadian Open, which was a $2700 event with 300 players, was the first tournament we played in. We started with $10,000 in chips, and I made it through Day 1 with $18,200 in chips. Day 2 started with the blinds at $400/$800 with a $100 ante. On the very first hand, I am dealt AK suited in the big blind. The cut-off raises to $2600, the small blinds calls the $2600, and I push all-in for $18,200. The cut-off quickly folds, and the small blind, who only has $25,000 in chips, calls instantly! I am thinking uh-oh, he has a pair and it's a race. I flip over my AK, and he shows K3 suited!

The flop is safe, J76. The turn is another 7. Here comes the river... 3! And just like that, I was out. After I calmed down, I said to myself, if my hands are going to hold up, it might as well be in the big tournament.

The WPT North American Championship was a $10,000 + $300 event. Around 500 people signed up to play in this tournament, and we started with $20,000 in chips and the blinds at $25/$25 with 90 minute levels, lots of time to play real poker!

On Day 1, I spent most of the day playing with David Williams and Allen Cunningham. I crippled David Williams when my trip Jacks on the flop held up against his flush draw, and Allen Cunningham finished him off a few hands later. Allen and I never really got involved in any big pots against each other, it was mostly just preflop raises and re-raises, and I had position on him, so that was a big advantage. I finished Day 1 third place in chips, with John Juanda slightly ahead of me in the chip lead.

Day 2 was long, with me being at the same table as John D'Agostino for the whole day. My most exciting hand of the day was against Freddy Deeb. I raised in late position with 55 to $5000, and he called in the big blind. The flop was K98 and he bets out $7000, I say to myself if he has a 9 or an 8 here, he has to fold to a raise. If he has the K, he probably calls and I give up on the turn. We both had over $300,000 at the time and we were the chip leaders. I raised it to $20,000 and Freddy quickly called. But the turn was a beautiful 5! Change of plans! He checks, I fire out $40,000. He calls quickly again. The river is a harmless 3. He checks to me, I push in $100,000 this time. He thinks for a while. He goes "That's a pretty strong bet." I tell him "It's $100,000 to find out Freddy". He calls with K8, and is furious when he sees my hand. I almost burst out laughing. I took another $70,000 off him a few hands later which left him with almost nothing, and he busted out soon after. I ended Day 2 as the chip leader.

We were down to 45 players on Day 3, and again I played the whole day with John D'Agostino at my table. It was pretty amazing, we played on the same table with each other for over 20 hours total, and we only got involved in one pot together. I think that just went to show how much respect we had for each other's playing ability. This was the hand we played against each other. I had around $1.8 million in chips, and I looked down at AQ offsuit in the big blind. John raised it to $70,000 in the cut-off, and I asked him how much he had left, which was around $400,000. I pushed all-in, and John thought for a while, and called with... AQ offsuit also! We all started laughing, but I stopped laughing after the flop brought 3 spades and John was holding the Ace of spades! Thankfully, the turn and river did not bring another spade, and we split the pot. In another pot, John Juanda raised to $70,000 in early position, and I looked down at KK in small blind. I made it $270,000 to go, but John immediately pushed all-in for less than $100,000 more. I knew he had Aces, but I had to call. I even said it out loud. Sure enough, he had them. That brought me down to around $1.3 million, and that's where I finished Day 3, in 5th place out of only 6 left, and on my way to the WPT TV Table!

The set for WPT TV Table was amazing! A lot nicer than the EPT's final table. While we were backstage getting our make-up done, Mixe Sexton and Vince Van Patten were also getting theirs done and they were rehearsing their lines. It was really cool.

I had one goal, and one goal only, and that was to win this thing. First place was over $1.3 million and the WPT title! I didn't care about moving up to 5th or 4th place. I was down to around $1.1 million in chips, and I raised to $90,000 with JJ in the cut-off. The small blind immediately raises to $400,000. Now, I had been playing with this guy for the past 2 days. He was a very tight player, he hated to play flops. This was huge money to him, he was an auto-plant worker, making $12/hour. Right now we were all guaranteed $170,000, but the next spot up paid $230,000, and I know that he would do anything to move up a spot or two. I observed him for a minute or two, and he looked very nervous. I eventually decided to move all-in, but to my dismay, he called instantly with AA. The board did not bring me any help, and I was out in 6th place. I was very disappointed, I really felt I could have won this tournament. I took home $169,027.00 for my 6th place finish. I was supposed to be in Amsterdam this week for the Master Classics of Poker tournament, but I have decided to take a couple of weeks off and just relax. I will be playing the B.C. Poker Championship in Vancouver in 2 weeks, so I should be well rested and prepared for that one.

In my short career, I have played in a total of 4 major international tournaments:
WPT Bahamas - 37th out of 725 - $15,000
EPT Championship Monte Carlo - Final Table - 4th out of 300 - $270,000
WSOP Main Event - Did Not Place
WPT North American Championship - Final Table - 6th out of 500 - $170,000

My next major tournament is the Aussie Millions in Sydney, Australia, which starts in mid-January. So, 2006 is pretty much over for me. Hopefully 2007 will be even better!

Interview with European Poker Magazine

2006-10-06T17:48:00.000-04:00

My interview with European Poker Magazine in Barcelona is now up on their website at http://www.europeanpm.com. On the left menu, click TV, and then scroll down the interviews until you see mine. I was wearing a hat, so you can't see my face very well, but I don't mind. Even in an interview, nobody can get a read on me. ;)

Why I Love Eurolinx

2006-09-25T12:59:00.000-04:00

If you talk to anybody who's played for more than 5 minutes on Eurolinx, they will tell you that these are the softest games you will find on the internet. Sure, you will take more bad beats than usual, but you will also get paid off a lot more often. Also, game selection is a very important factor. Find the bad players, take notes on them, add them to your Buddy List, and sit on their left whenever you are able to.

After several months of playing on Eurolinx, I know almost every player on the site that plays $2/$4 NL and higher. Ever since I came back from Vegas on August 15th, I've just been crushing the $2/$4 NL and $3/$6 NL tables. I play 6 to 9 tables almost every day, and I've only had 2 or 3 losing days since I came back.

Also, maybe the most important thing of all, is the rakeback! If you sign up with the 'myst' bonus code, you get 30% rakeback if you generate more than $600 in rake a month, which is not hard at all. (I've done over $1000 in rake in a single day). Also, if you are a serious player who multi-tables, you will get more than just 30% rakeback, they will also give you another percentage into your own 'tournament fund', which they use to send you to play in tournaments around the world.

Why does Eurolinx do this? It's simple, they can't compete with sites like Pokerstars and Party Poker in terms of the number of users. So how do they attract players to play on their site? They have to offer something extra. This is it. You would be a fool to play cash games without rakeback, you're basically throwing money away. Here is my rakeback report for this week:

Eurolinx Support (support@eurolinx.com)
To: marc6044@hotmail.com

Subject: rake week 38

Dear Marc,

Your rake on Eurolinx in week 38 was as follows:

Monday: $ 170,39

Tuesday: $ 308,2

Wednesday: $ 193,45

Thursday: $ 776,01

Friday: $ 426,9

Saturday: $ 990,08

Sunday: $ 278,33

Total Rake: $ 3143,36

Please do not hesitate to contact our support team if there is anything we can help you with!

Sincerely,

Daniel

If you do the math, that's $943 in one week that they are putting in your pocket even if you are breaking even! They are paying you to play, that's better than the average salary! If you are interested in getting started on Eurolinx, please send me an email at marc6044@hotmail.com or add me to MSN.

I'll also give you the names of the big fish. Here are the names of just a few to look for: gubbe04 - carselection - Dr107suited - and here is my all-time favorite - Ricofix

This guy has probably paid for my car all by himself! I have a couple of friends who I have asked to call me whenever they see him online. I will literally leave whatever I'm doing and rush home to play against him, like a doctor on call! Here's a sample from this morning:

#Game No : 156420323
***** Hand History for Game 156420323 *****
$10.00/$20.00 NL Texas Hold'em - Mon, Sep 25, 16:18:29 2006
Table Guava (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Total number of players : 4
Seat 1: _myst_ ($2089.00)
Seat 2: Pyr ($2000.00)
Seat 3: FatHead ($3589.00)
Seat 6: Ricofix ($2260.00)
FatHead posts small blind [$10.00]
Ricofix posts big blind [$20.00]
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to _myst_ [ Th 9h ]
_myst_ raises [$80.00]
FatHead calls [$70.00]
Ricofix calls [$60.00]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5h 3s Jh ]
FatHead checks
Ricofix checks
_myst_ bets [$180.00]
FatHead folds
Ricofix raises [$400.00]
_myst_ is all-In [$1829.00]
Ricofix calls [$1609.00]
Ricofix shows [ 6h 7h ] High Card, Jack
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3d ]
** Dealing River ** [ 8s ]
Ricofix shows [ 6h 7h ] a Pair, Threes
_myst_ shows [ Th 9h ] a Pair, Threes
_myst_ wins $4257.00 from main pot

Yes, I won a $4257 pot with high card Ten. Good luck :)

Barcelona

2006-09-14T12:45:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Barcelona on Monday, ready for the first event of Season 3 of the European Poker Tour. I met up with the team, took a tour of the casino, and we played a little side event which nobody cashed in.

I received a call to my hotel room on Tuesday morning and was asked to meet with the Eurolinx manager and the owner in the bar downstairs. I went down, and it turns out that the owner had flown to Barcelona to give us some bad news. There had been some miscommunication with our whole team's registration, and by the time they realized it, all of the seats had already been sold! So, nobody from Team Eurolinx was going to be able to play in this event. A couple of team members were able to buy a seat from other players on their own, but they were forced to pay € 8000 and € 8500 for the € 5000 seat.

On Tuesday, we went to Nou Camp Stadium to watch the first round of the UEFA Champions League. FC Barcelona dismantled PFC Levski Sofia 5-0. Ronaldinho is just amazing to watch.

Anyways, I'll try not to stray from poker too much. I did an interview this afternoon with European Poker Magazine. It will be broadcast on their website in the near future, I'll post the link when it's up.

I'll be returning to Ottawa on Saturday, and hopefully I will see some of you at Lone Star on Monday night. The first Monday I played, 120 people showed and I finished in 5th place. By the time I was knocked out, I had a total of 10 bounty chips, and the player who eliminated me received $100! This Monday we are expecting around 170 players, so please be there early for registration to make sure you get a seat.

Live EuroLinx Texas Hold'em Freeroll Series

2006-09-04T14:56:00.000-04:00

Starting Monday, September 4th Eurolinx Poker and the Lone Star Texas Grill will be hosting an eleven week Live Texas Hold'em Freeroll Series to promote local Eurolinx Pro Marc Karam aka "MYST". The 11 weeks will consist of 10 150 player max. bounty hunter tournaments, and one final V.I.P. tournament with a grand prize consisting of a complimentary buy-in to the CPT $2500 Vancouver event, airfare and hotel. These tournaments will be absolutely free to enter, and guarantee to offer local players a shot to experience poker at its finest!
Date: Every Monday starting September 4th, 2006

Time: Registration starts nightly at 6pm with a 7pm start time

Maximum # players: 150/tournament

Prizing:
1st-$100 Eurolinx credit and a seat in the weekly 25k guarantee
2nd-$75 Eurolinx credit and a seat in the weekly 25k guarantee
3rd-$50 Eurolinx credit and a seat in the weekly 25k guarantee
Each player will have a $10 Eurolinx credit as their bounty, and once knocked out of the tournament will be forced to hand over their bounty chip to their assailant. No player other than MYST will surrender more than one bounty. All players who make the final table of each respective tournament, will be invited back to compete in the 11th week grand prize tournament. There will also be an added incentive to make more than one final table, as we will be awarding extra starting chips to those players who have made more than one final table appearance in the finale.

Location: Lone Star Texas Grill-Ottawa East Location, 1211 Lemieux St. (Right across from the St. Laurent shopping center)

Eligibilty: To be eligible to participate in this promotion all players must be registered with Eurolinx poker www.eurolinx.com and are recommended to use bonus code: MYST to be further eligible for all of the rakebacks and MYST promos. Registration will be available on site, and players must be a minimum of 18 years of age and older. However, neither Eurolinx or Lone Star can guarantee that this age will make players eligible for the grand prize promotion.

For more information feel free to contact me at 613.291.0430 or 613.742.9378.. or contact us via email at marc6044@hotmail.com or at mintenks@rogers.com!

Hope to see y'all real soon!

Niko

Eurolinx Freeroll II

2006-08-20T16:23:00.000-04:00

I'm back in Ottawa, and as promised, we will be holding another big freeroll at Eurolinx!

The tournament will be held next Sunday, August 27th, at 8:00p.m EST. The password is 'mystpoker'.

To find the tournament, open and log in to the Eurolinx software, click on the 'Real Money' and 'Tournaments' tab, and scroll down the list until you see 'Myst Poker Freeroll'. Notice that the start time says August 28th at 2:00, but don't pay any attention to that because it is in a European time zone. The actual start time is Sunday, August 27th, at 8:00p.m EST.

There were some software issues during the last freeroll, but those bugs have been fixed for a couple of months now. The prizepool has doubled this time, up to a whopping $1000! On top of that, there will be a $100 bounty on my head.

It costs nothing to enter, all you need is an account at Eurolinx. If you have not yet registered, please download the software from www.eurolinx.com and use the bonus code 'myst' when you register.

Also, the 100% deposit bonus up to $500 is still in effect, along with the 30% rakeback. If you play cash games without rakeback, you are basically throwing money away.

Here's what my own rakeback looks like this week:

Eurolinx Support (support@eurolinx.com)
To: marc6044@hotmail.com

Subject: Rake report LTK6308123106X

Dear Marc,

Rake report (Monday at top, total at bottom):

Week 33
$19,04
$0
$17,66
$47,33
$559,95
$382,08
$399,16
----------
$1425,22

Sincerely,

Frank

Notice I really only played 3 days this week, because I just got back from Vegas. If you were on the 30% rakeback deal, that's $427.57 you would be getting back.

If you have any questions, you can email me at marc6044@hotmail.com or just reply to this post.

Early Exit

2006-08-01T22:11:00.000-04:00

Well, as you probably read in the Eurolinx blog, I was eliminated on Day 1 by just what I was worried about, set over set. An early position player raised, and I called the raise with pocket tens in the big blind. The flop came JT5 rainbow. What better flop could I have asked for? I checked, he bet, I called, planning to check raise all-in on the turn. The turn was an Ace. I checked, he pushed all-in, and I thought to myself, "Great, he has AK!". I call, and he flips over pocket jacks. The river pairs the 5, and gives us both a full house, but him a higher one. It felt like a truck had just hit me. I was so comfortable at my table, and had a great image.

In the first level, I made what was probably the best call of my life. I was down to around $7000 in chips. I'm in the small blind with pocket 3s and the blinds were $25/$50. It folds around to the very aggressive button, who yet again raises to $175. I call, as does the big blind. The flop comes A52 rainbow. I check, the big blind checks, and the button bets $250. I think to myself, "Okay, he might have an Ace, but even if he does, I still have 6 outs for my set and gutshot straight draw." I call, and the big blind folds. The turn is another 5, and I check. He reaches for chips, and bets $800. This really did not make sense. The 5 has to scare him, so it does not make sense to bet $800 with an Ace here. You would be pushing out the weaker hands, and getting called by the stronger hands. Also, if he has trip 5's, why not try to suck me in with a smaller bet? No logic in this bet whatsoever. I decided right here that he didn't have an Ace. The river was a 9. I figure if he touched that 9, he will check behind and pray that his 9 is good. I check, and now he fires out $2500! I didn't even have to think about it. I say out loud, "Either you have an extremely well played boat, or absolutely nothing, I call." I flip over my pocket 3's, and his jaw just drops. He could not believe I called him with that, and he just mucked his cards.

After that, nobody on the table dared to make a move on me, it was awesome! They were scared that I would call them down with absolutely anything, so anytime I called a raise from them and they missed the flop, they would give up and just check to me, and my bet would take down the pot. There was nothing better I could ask for.

And just like that, my Main Event was over. I'm not going to let this bother me though, there's always next year. I really loved the World Series, and next year I am planning on coming even earlier and playing every event that I can. At least 10 to 15 of them.

I haven't played any live games since the tournament, but I have been playing online a lot at Eurolinx and doing really well. We'll be holding another big freeroll on Eurolinx as soon as I get back to Ottawa, stay tuned for more information.

The Big Day

2006-07-28T04:59:00.000-04:00

Well, this is it. Tomorrow is the big day, Day 1 of the World Series of Poker. I have been preparing for this day for the past few months. We start with $10,000 in chips, $25/$50 blinds, and 2 hour levels. That gives us alot of time to play real poker. I feel like I'm playing the best poker of my life right now, and I don't see myself being eliminated on Day 1 barring some bad set-up hand, like set over set, or getting all in with the nut flush or straight and having it cracked by a boat on the river.

The average chip stack after Day 1 should be around $25,000. My goal is to have between $30,000 and $40,000. If you would like to stay up to date on my progress, you can do so on the Eurolinx Blog.

Thats about it for now. I haven't played any more live games, except for a $220 tournament at Ceasar's Palace which I did not place in. I'll make another update tomorrow after Day 1 is complete, hopefully I can bring good news.

I Love Tourists

2006-07-25T20:56:00.000-04:00

I played some $10/$20 NL at the Bellagio last night and the day before. The first night, I bought in for $2000, and I busted out pretty quickly after I got stubborn with KK on a T8322 board after I had raised to $140 preflop. The mid-position caller was holding 88 and that was it for that session.

The second night was alot better, however. This time I bought in for $5000, and I had a couple of familiar faces at the table, Isabelle Mercier and Ming La. T.J. Cloutier was also standing at the table but he wasn't playing, he was watching his friend play. I'll post the significant hands:

Hand #1:

Isabelle Mercier raises to $80 in mid-position, it folds to me in the BB, and I call another $60 with KsQs. Flop is 966 with 2 spades, giving me the flush draw. I check, she bets $180, I call. Turn brings an offuit J, also giving me a gutshot straight draw. I lead out for $360, and Isabelle mucks her hand.

Hand #2:

I raise it to $80 on the button with A9, 2 callers. Flop is 987 with 2 diamonds, and I have the A of diamonds. 1st player checks, 2nd player bets $80 into the $270 pot, I call $80, 1st player folds. Turn is the Q of diamonds. He again bets $80 into the $430 pot. I call. River is the 7 of diamonds, pairing the board and also giving me the nut flush. Now the player bets $200, I try to decide whether I should flat call or raise, and I decide to make a small raise that I can easily get away from in case he has a full house. I raise $300 more, and he instantly makes it $1500 to go. I muck, he tells me he had the boat. I could have flat called there, but I was hoping he had Kd or Jd and would probably be forced to call another $300 into the $1300 pot.

Hand #3:

I get moved to the main table, 2 spots to the right of Mr. Rich Tourist, who I'll refer to as "donk" (this is a poker term for, umm, a donkey). This is my very first hand at the table. I get 7d4d in the cutoff -1 and I limp. Donk makes it $80 on the button. The BB calls, and I call $60 more. Flop comes 345 with 2 diamonds, giving me mid-pair with a gutshot straight draw and a flush draw. BB checks, I check, Donk bets $120, BB calls $120. I want the donk all to myself, so I raise to $420. Donk calls, BB folds. Turn is an offsuit 6 giving me my straight. I bet $500, and he says "Well, I got the low straight, I call." He then flips over his cards and shows K2 for the low straight. Thats not that bad of a play on his part, except for the fact that the river card hasn't been dealt yet! LOL! So now his cards are exposed, and the river card is dealt, producing an offsuit 2, putting a straight on the board, 23456. I still have the higher straight though with my 7. I look at him, and I push in another $2200. He calls! Ship it.

Hand #4:

I'm dealt KhTh on the button. 3 limpers to me, I make it $120. 2 callers. Flop is AT6 with 2 hearts. They both check, and I bet $260, and I get one caller. Turn is an offsuit 6. He checks to me, and I decide to bet $480, to hopefully push him off his weak ace. He limped in late position, so I'm not giving him credit for AK or AQ here, the only hand I am scared of is AT. He calls. River is a T, giving me a full house, Tens full of Sixes. He leads out for $900. I say "I can't believe I'm just calling you with this", and I flat call. He shows AJ, lol. I still don't think I should have raised though, theres no hand I can see that will call my raise there that isn't better than mine or a split pot, unless someone called $260 on the flop with a bare 6, which I highly doubt, since Donk was not in the hand. We both had around $10,000 behind, so I would have been in huge trouble if he had AT.

Hand #5:

Mid-position raises to $80, I make it $280 on the button with 98s. Mid-position is the only caller. Flop is JT2. He checks, I bet $400, he calls. Turn is another 2. He leads out for $700, I make it $1900. He thinks for a while before mucking AJ face up. I comfort him by telling him I had KK and that he made a good fold. ;)

Hand #6:

Donk raises to $60 UTG. 4 callers, and I call from the SB with KJ. Flop is AQT with 2 clubs, giving me the nut straight. I check, Donk bets $80, 2 callers, I decide not to slow play so I make it $380 to go, praying Donk has an Ace. Donk calls, the others fold. Turn is an offsuit 5. I bet $500, he calls. River is an offsuit 2. He has around $1200 left, so I put him all in. He says to me "You can't push me off this hand" and he calls and shows KhQh! He leaves after that hand, after dropping $18,000 to our table in less than 3 hours.

Hand #7:

Solid cut-off player raises to $120, I flat call on the button with KK. Flop is KT6 with 2 diamonds. He bets $200, I call. Turn is the 8 of diamonds. He bets $400, I call. River is another 8, giving me Kings full. He counts out $1500 in $100 bills and throws them in the middle of the pot. I count out $4000 in $100 bills and throw it in the same way. He mucks pretty quickly, and I take down the pot.

After that 7 hour session, I cashed out $13,730, giving me a profit of $8730. I'll probably play more cash games tonight, if anything interesting happens I'll be sure to post about it.

Out in 45th Place

2006-07-25T20:44:00.000-04:00

I was eliminated in 45th place. I had around $60,000 in chips, and a player raised to $15,000 from the cut-off with the blinds at $2000/$4000 with a $500 ante. I didn't think he was strong and I moved all-in from the SB with Q5 of spades for another $45,000, which was pretty close to what he had left. He contemplated for a few minutes, and it really looked like he was going to fold. Fianlly, he ended up calling, and I thought to myself, wow, I must be in big trouble! He flips over 44?!?! I really couldn't ask for a better hand to be up against, I was shocked and happy at the same time.

The JT6 flop brought me no help, but the 8 of spades on the turn gave me a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. Sadly, I could not hit one of my 18 outs on the river, and that was it for me. I recieved $9,328 for my efforts and I will now focus the rest of my energy on the Main Event.

Back in Vegas with Team Eurolinx

2006-07-22T05:48:00.000-04:00

I arrived in Vegas a couple of nights ago, and I met up with Team Eurolinx in person for the first time. We had dinner in the Paris Hotel and basically talked poker for the most part.

I played my first WSOP event today, the $2000 NL freezeout. We started with 2050 players and $2000 in chips, and played 13 grueling hours of poker. At the end of the day I finished with $24,800 in chips which is about average, and 144 players remaining. We're into the second level of money now, guaranteed at least $3731. 1st place pays $842,262.

I'm too tired to recount all of the interesting hands I played, but you can read about most of them at http://blog.eurolinx.com/ and http://www.cardplayer.com/tournaments/live_updates/3220

We start Day 2 tomorrow at 5:00pm EST, and our reporter will be updating the blog all day long.

Eurolinx Freeroll

2006-06-09T15:28:00.000-04:00

We're holding a private freeroll on Eurolinx on Tuesday, June 13th at 8:00p.m. EST.

The prizepool will be $500, with an additional $100 bounty on my head!

The only requirement needed to enter this freeroll is an account on Eurolinx under the 'myst' bonus code, and the password which is 'mystpoker'.

If you want to sign up, click here and to recieve the bonus and be eligible for the freeroll, you must enter the bonus code 'myst'.

Once again, the tournament is scheduled for Tuesday, June 13th at 8:00p.m. EST.

The Eurolinx software displays the start time as June 14th at 2:00a.m. but that is because of their different time zone. You can find the tournament at the bottom of the 'Tournaments' tab under the name 'Myst Poker Freeroll'.

Quiet Finish

2006-05-14T13:22:00.000-04:00

I wish I had more hands to write about but the last session was pretty boring. It lasted 4 hours and I ended it with a profit of $2120. The only big pot I played was the following:

$10/$20 NL, UTG raises to $80, 2 callers, I call on the button with 22, BB re-raises to $240, all 3 players call, I also make the call. Flop comes 662. Its checked around to me and there is around $1250 in the pot. I bet $600, and unfortunately everybody folds. I was sure at least one of them had a big PP and would raise me but I guess they were all on high cards or small PP's.

Good thing I checked our flight time on Wednesday night, because I had thought our flight left on Thursday night and we would have all day Thursday to play. Turns out our flight was at 6:45 a.m. on Thursday morning and we only had 3 hours before we had to be at the airport.

Viva Las Vegas.

Now its back to Eurolinx for me. You can find me playing there almost every day under the username "_myst_". If you have any trouble setting up your account or making sure you are properly set up with the bonus code "myst", feel free to email me at marc6044@hotmail.com. I also use MSN messenger on the same email account.

Nice Recovery

2006-05-10T04:01:00.000-04:00

As far as suck-outs go, today was a much better day than yesterday. I only took one bad beat, and even though it was a 1-outer, it was a split pot, so it wasn't that bad.

I sat at $10/$20 NL today with $15,000. The biggest stack at the table was around $12,000 so I wanted to make sure I had everyone covered so I could get paid off maximum if I hit a big hand. There is no max buy-in at the Bellagio's $10/$20 NL and higher tables, which is awesome because I love to play deep-stack poker.

About 15 minutes into the session I was able to pick out a couple of maniacs at my table. One of them was making huge bets, most of them raises on the river, and then showing complete garbage. I like playing against these types of players but it can also be very dangerous because you will be compelled to call their huge bets with mediocre hands and of course sometimes they will have the goods.

The first significant hand came up about half an hour into the session.

Hand #1:

UTG raises to $100, maniac calls, I call with AJs on the button. Flop comes A88 with 2 clubs. UTG bets $100, maniac calls, I call. Turn is an offsuit 5. UTG checks, maniac checks, I think of putting a bet in here, but I really don't want the maniac to raise me, so I check behind. River is the 2c putting 3 clubs on board. UTG checks, maniac bets $460, I call, UTG folds. Maniac shows Qc9c. I thought about whether I should have bet the turn, but there was no way I was pushing him out of that pot unless I bet over $600, and I still had the tight UTG to worry about as he could have been slowplaying AA or AK.

Hand #2:

2 hands later, I am in the BB with J7 of hearts. Maniac limps in mid-position, and it folds around to me. I check. Flop is KJ4 with one heart. I check, maniac checks. Turn is the T of hearts. I check, maniac checks. River is the Q of hearts, putting KQJT4 on the board giving me the Jack high flush. There is $50 in the pot, and I bet $500. He insta-calls. I show the flush and he mucks.

Hand #3:

Maniac limps in mid-position, and I make it $100 to go with KQ of hearts on the button, he calls. Flop is T93 rainbow. Maniac checks, I check. Turn is a beautiful J. Maniac checks, I bet $200, maniac calls. River is a 5. Maniac checks, I bet $600, maniac raises to $1800. I make it $5000 flat, maniac quickly folds.

Hand #4:

All fold to me on the button, and I raise to $80 with ATs. SB re-raises to $160, he has around $1500 behind. I call $80 more. Flop comes QT5. SB bets $160 into a $340 pot. I call. Turn is another T, giving me trip 10's. SB bets $400, I raise to $5400, he calls his last $800 or so and shows KK. River is a 7 and I take down the pot.

Hand #5:

Our table is a must-move table, and to my dismay the maniac gets moved to the main table, and a new player takes his seat. I get a run of bad cards and haven't played a hand in about 45 minutes, so I decide to raise to $100 on the button with T4 of hearts after a couple of players limped in. I get one caller. Flop is 932. The player bets $120, and I flat call, hoping to steal it from him on the turn. Turn is a T, change of plans. He bets $200, I flat call. River is another 2. Player bets $500, and this really confuses me. I couldn't picture him as a tricky enough player to lead into me with a set on the flop. It also didn't make sense to keep betting hard with a 9 after I was flat calling him on the flop and turn. I decide to call, and he doesn't even show his cards, he just mucks them. I don't show my hand either and I take the pot down.

Hand #6:

Same player as the previous hand raises to $80 in early position, everyone folds and I call in the BB with T9s. Flop is QT4 with 2 hearts. I check, he checks. Turn is an offsuit 5. I bet $80, he calls. River is an offsuit 6. I bet $80 again, and he makes it $580. Once again this doesn't make sense. I say "either you have QQ or nothing", and I call. He just mucks his cards again. This time I show my hand.

Hand #7:

I get moved to the main table to the right of the maniac. He raises to $80 UTG, 1 caller, and I call with A9 of hearts on the button. Flop is 742 with one heart. Maniac checks, other player checks, I check. Turn is the J of hearts. Maniac bets $140, player folds, I call. River is a 9. Maniac bets $480. I decide to call figuring he either has a monster or nothing. He shows JJ. Well played.

Hand #8:

Mid-position raises to $60, one caller, I make it $260 in the cut-off with JJ. Both players call. Flop is 555. Both players check, I bet $500, original raiser calls, second player folds. Turn is the other 5! Great, now I have Jack high. He checks, I check. River is a 7. He checks, I check. He goes to throw his hand away, and I show mine. His eyes light up, and he flips over JT, split pot! He had ONE out after the flop, and of course it hits on the turn. Oh well, at least he didn't have QJ.

Hand #9:

Same guy with the JT from the previous hand limps in mid position, and 3 other people limp. I check in the BB with KQ of clubs. Flop is K34 with 2 clubs. I bet $80, Mr. JT raises to $400. I make it $1200, and he pushes the rest of his money which is $800 more than my raise. I call the $800. Turn is an offsuit 9 and the river is an offsuit 8. He says "I didn't get there", I show my hand and he mucks his cards. He later said that he had 65 of clubs.

The session lasted around 5 hours and I finished the day with a profit of $8260. I am here for 2 more days and I plan to play as much poker as possible until we leave as my comfort level is unreal right now. I'm planning to spend up to 2 months in Vegas this summer during the WSOP, I've heard the action is incredible during the Series and I hope to get a piece of it.

Wow

2006-05-08T22:41:00.000-04:00

The fight was unbelievable.

Before the fight at the weigh-in, De La Hoya went to shake Mayorga's hand, and Mayorga stepped back, grabbed his nuts, and shook them in front of De La Hoya in disrespect. Then right before the fight, Mayorga was staring at De La Hoya trying to act tough and intimidate him. De La Hoya knocked him down in the first round and at the end of the round he just stood there and stared at Mayorga the same way, it was priceless.

De La Hoya dominated the fight until the 6th round, but Mayorga was still being very cocky. Early in the 6th, De La Hoya knocked him down again and the whole crowd stood up and starting going nuts. Right after Mayorga got back up, De La Hoya must have hit him with 50 straight punches until he went down again, it was incredible.

I can't describe the atmosphere in the arena, it was by far the best sports event I have ever attended in my life.

Back to poker, I played for a few hours yesterday and it didn't go too well. I took some horrible flukes and I recovered some of it but still ended the day in the minus.

Hand #1:

$10/$20 NL. I am dealt AA on the button. 3 limpers to me, and I make it $120 to go. 2 callers. Flop 743r. First player to act bets out $400, second player folds, I make it $1200. He calls. Turn 6. There's around $2800 in the pot and he pushes all-in for his last $1000, I call. He flips over 85 offsuit and I am drawing dead.

Hand #2:

$10/$20 NL. I am dealt JJ in the cut-off. Same player from the previous hand in mid-position raises to $60, one caller, I make it $260 to go. Both players call. Flop is 963r. Same player once again bets out $400, player 2 folds, and I once again make it $1200. He calls. He now has around $2500 left and I have him covered. Turn J, I turn my set. He checks and I go into the tank trying to figure out how I am going to get the rest of his money. There are no visible draws with the way the hand played out and if he has a set then I am in great shape. There is a little over $3000 in the pot and I decided to once again bet $1200, figuring if he calls this bet there is no way he can fold on the river for his last $1300. He calls me instantly. Perfect. River is a harmless 5. He pushes in his last $1300 and I get my money into the pot faster than Takeru Kobayashi at a hot dog eating contest. He flips over 87. I wait for the dealer to push the chips toward me, uh wait a sec buddy, you're pushing the chips the wrong way. I look at the cards again, WTF? He has the nut straight. Are you kidding me? I ask him how much he likes me. He looks at me confused. I tell him I am asking because he keeps trying to give me all of his money.

Anyways, I flopped a set once and got paid off, and won a few other pots and managed to recover enough to only be down $1900 for the session. I'm still up around $1000 for the trip and hopefully tomorrow will bring me less suckouts.

In Vegas Once More

2006-05-06T15:15:00.000-04:00

Just touched down last night around midnight, and made our way over to the Bellagio in style in a stretch Escalade limo.

We got settled in our room and then made our way down to the Poker room. I met up with my good friend Costa who is also from Ottawa. Costa and my cousin Steve ended up playing $2/$5 NL with a $200 max buy-in, and they both killed the game. Steve made over $700 and Costa had a massive stack of over $1700 by the time we ended up leaving.

I bought in for $8000 at the $10/$20 NL table. First hand I sit down, I post the BB in the cut-off, its folded around to me, and I look down to see J9 suited. I make it $60 to go, button calls, BB calls.

Flop comes T99, no flush draw. BB checks, I bet $140, button makes it $600. BB folds, and I notice that the button only has around $500 left, so I announce 'raise' and throw in my $5000 stack of $100 bills. He folds instantly. I figured he would have called having already comitted more than half of his stack, but I was content with winning over $700 on the very first hand.

There was one crazy player at our table right across from me. He must have been all in 7 or 8 times out of the 50 hands I sat through. He would always check-min-raise on the turn, and then push the river, and nobody ever called him. He had around $2000 in front of him, and he made it $80 to go in early position. Its folded around to me and I call with T9 suited on the button.

Flop comes J93 rainbow. He checks, I feel a check-raise coming, so I check behind. Turn is another 9. He checks, I bet $140, he min-raises to $280. I flat call. River is a T. He pushes for around $1600. I call. He must have had absolutely nothing because he just threw his cards into the muck. I would have definately called him even without the T on the river.

I finished the session up $2860. End of Day 1.

Tomorrow is the fight between De La Hoya-Mayorga at the MGM. I'm not sure if we'll have any time to play any poker but if we do I'll be sure to post some updates.

myst joins Team Eurolinx

2006-04-24T16:59:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to announce that I have been sponsored by Eurolinx Poker. I have been in touch with their management for the past few days, and have found them to be very well organized and highly motivated to expand into the Canadian market. They are located in Norway, and are part of the Tain network, the largest poker network in Europe with over 6,000 simultaneous real-money players at peak times.

If you think the players at Pokerstars are weak, you are in for a big surprise. I'm not just saying this because of my affiliation with Eurolinx, but the players on this network make low-limit Pokerstars players look like pros, lol. I will probably still play on Pokerstars for their Sunday tournament, but for my day to day cash game, sit and go, and tourney play I will be spending most of my time at Eurolinx. There is always full tables from $0.05/$0.10 NL up to $20/$40 NL and a full range of tournaments and sit and go's. They also have WSOP qualifiers and Pyramid tournaments similar to Party Poker's step tournaments.

Now for the perks of signing up at Eurolinx through me. Normally, they give a 100% matching bonus up to $200 in which they release $100 for every 2000 FPP earned. Through me, they give a 100% matching bonus up to $500 and they release the bonus twice as fast, $100 for every 1000 FPP earned. I played for a few hours at $0.50/$1.00 NL and I earned about 300 FPP so it doesn't take very long to clear your bonus. Also, if you generate over $600/month in rake (about 1800 FPP), you get 30% rakeback which is deposited into your account on the 1st of every month.

As part of Team Eurolinx, I will be travelling with them to the WSOP in Las Vegas and all of the EPT events around Europe. I am very excited about this opportunity and I hope we can work together to give Eurolinx a strong presence in Canada.

If you want to try them out, click here and to recieve the bonus and rakeback deal, you must enter the bonus code 'myst'.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave a comment or email me at marc6044@hotmail.com

Back Home... For 3 Weeks Anyways

2006-04-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

Vegas was unbelievable. I was unable to post daily updates because the Bellagio had no wireless internet access, and our room was quite a distance from the poker room.

I had planned to play quite a few tournaments, but I only ended up playing in 2 of them. The cash games were extremely soft, and I just couldn't stay away from them. The second day of my trip, I played in the $1500+$70 event, and I busted out early when my pocket kings were cracked by pocket tens. On day 3, I played in the $2000+$80 event which had 285 entrants. I ended up busting out in 26th for a payout of $3165. That was the last tournament I played, I spent the rest of the trip playing $10/$20 NL.

Out of the 6 days I played poker, I didn't have one losing day. My worst day was the first one, where I only made $300. The best day by far was day 5, where me and Galen destroyed the $10/$20 NL game. We each bought in for $5000, and by the end of the night Galen had $9000 and I had $21,400.

This is a $10,000 pot I won from a rich whale named John. He has been raising every pot that comes to him, and has been making huge bluffs and showing them every time. I didn't want to get involved in too many hands with him, so I just decided to wait in the weeds for that one hand where I could take him for everything he had. (Well, except for his $90,000 Rolex).

I have $15,000 and John has around $5000 left. I'm dealt KK in the BB. There are 2 limpers when it comes around to John on the button, and he makes it $120 to go, like he has been doing all night with any 2 cards. I make it $360. Limpers fold, John calls.

Flop comes J54 rainbow. I bet $500, he calls.
Turn 4. I bet $1000, he thinks for a few seconds, then he says "all-in". I say "call" about one nano-second after him.
River 6. He shows J8 off, and he leaves the table.

My final stats were:

Day 1: $5/$10 NL, +$300
Day 2: $5/$10 NL, +$1700 - played in the $1570 tournament and busted out
Day 3: $5/$10 NL, +$1500 - played in the $2080 tournament and finished 26th for $3165
Day 4: $10/$20 NL, +$2100
Day 5: $10/$20 NL, +$17,900
Day 6: $10/$20 NL, +$1600
-----------------------------------
Total: +$24,615

I loved Vegas so much that I am going again with my cousin in 3 weeks, from May 5th to 11th. We got ringside seats for the De La Hoya-Mayorga fight on May 6th at the MGM Grand. That same week, there is a bunch of WPT events at the Mirage. They should have the weakest cash games so I will probably spend most of my time playing over there.

I haven't been playing any online poker recently, with all of my travelling. I'm also enjoying the nice weather outside in my new Infiniti G35 that I bought two days ago.

Packing My Bags

2006-04-02T19:57:00.000-04:00

Well, less than 48 hours to go before I leave for Las Vegas. I'm still trying to decide what games I will be playing during my trip, but there are a bunch of smaller WPT events that I'm interested in.

Wed, Apr 5th to Thu, Apr 6th No-Limit Hold'em
No Rebuy $1,500+$70

Thu, Apr 6th to Fri, Apr 7th No-Limit Hold'em
No Rebuy $2,000+$80

Fri, Apr 7th to Sat, Apr 8th No-Limit Hold'em
No Rebuy $2,500+$100

Sat, Apr 8th to Sun, Apr 9th No-Limit Hold'em
No Rebuy $3,000+$100

Sun, Apr 9th to Mon, Apr 10th No-Limit Hold'em
No Rebuy $5,000+$150

I haven't played much poker this whole week. First of all, the weather has been awesome and I've been spending most of my time outside. Second, I don't want to be sick of poker when I get to Vegas. I want to get there fresh and motivated.

The one tournament I did play today was a special tournament set up by pokerpoker.ca on Pokerstars. It was a $22 NL private tournament and only members of pokerpoker.ca could register for it.

64 people ended up playing, and I made it to the final table with a pretty big chip lead. From there the action was quick, with someone getting knocked out every other hand. I got fluked a couple of times, but I made up for it by handing out a few flukes of my own.

When we got down to 2 players, it was me and 'ulty_dude'. Coincidentally, he is my financial advisor at Royal Bank. I had the chip lead, but then he doubled upon a coinflip, I got caught bluffing in one hand, and the final nail in my coffin was when my AQ lost to his KJ when the flop came Jack high. He took home $384 and I made $256. It was a fun little tournament, I hope they run a similar one in the near future.

Now I can get back to packing my suitcase.

No Luck

2006-03-28T17:51:00.000-05:00

Well, Sunday turned out to be a pretty bad day. I played in a couple of low buy-in tourneys and the $1050 Sunday $1 million guaranteed. I couldn't keep track of how many times I got rivered by 3-outers, and it totally threw me off my game. I couldn't recover and ending up busting out in the early stages. On top of that, I forgot to register for the $650 WSOP Main Event Qualifier. That was pretty smart. Ended the day in the minus for $1360.

Monday was a better day. I decided to switch gears and play some $2000+$50 Heads-Up Sit & Go's. I ended up playing most of them against a player named 'stevesbets'. I used to think I was a pretty loose/aggressive heads-up player. I no longer think that. This guy is an absolute maniac. I ended up 5-4 for the day for a profit of $1550 and won the single $1000+$30 Heads Up Sit & Go I played. Total profit for the day was $2520.

Much Needed Break

2006-03-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

I played in 4 more tourneys on Thursday, and made it deep in 2 of them. The first one was the $109+Rebuys, I finished in 16th place for a payout of $540.

The other was a $22 128 person heads up NL tournament. I won all 7 of my matches and ended up winning the tournament. It paid $768.

I played a couple of small satellites on Friday but I really wasn't into it after all the poker I had played in the 3 previous days. I really needed a break and decided to leave town for the weekend.

Well now I'm back and today is a big day for online tournaments. At 4:30p.m. there is a $1000+$50 NL tourney on Pokerstars with a $1 million guaranteed prizepool. Then at 6:00p.m. there is a $615+$35 WSOP Main Event Qualifier.

I hope my rush keeps going today, we'll see.

On Fire

2006-03-23T11:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, I thought Tuesday was a good day. I played in a few tournaments yesterday and made the money twice. It seems lately whenever I make it deep into a tournament, I am able to close the deal. I'm not sure what I'm doing differently, but for one I am extremely confident right now. As long as I have been playing, I still feel my game is improving every day.

Pokerstars recently added a new type of tournament, a $50+$5 NL 90 person sit & go. They start as soon as it fills up, and I thought I would try them out. On my second try, I found myself at the final table. Not long after, I found myself heads up with the chip lead against my opponent. My AK held up against his AQ, and I won the tournament.

PokerStars Tournament #21757240, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
90 players
Total Prize Pool: $4500.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/22 - 13:26:21 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $1,350.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

The other tournament I made it deep into was the $55+Rebuys. I started with 200 players and by the end of the rebuy period I was in for $250 and sitting with an average stack. Then came the turning point:

*********** # 120 **************
PokerStars Game #4377440679: Tournament #21579120, Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII
(200/400) - 2006/03/22 - 17:09:48 (ET)
Table '21579120 9' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: tigerlady9 (6678 in chips)
Seat 2: micon (18857 in chips)
Seat 3: mysterio6044 (12972 in chips)
Seat 4: gr33dy (2955 in chips)
Seat 5: AaronC (29028 in chips)
Seat 6: killerkp (6475 in chips)
Seat 8: Ubsolute (12600 in chips)
Seat 9: stbrandal (36177 in chips)
tigerlady9: posts the ante 25
micon: posts the ante 25
mysterio6044: posts the ante 25
gr33dy: posts the ante 25
AaronC: posts the ante 25
killerkp: posts the ante 25
Ubsolute: posts the ante 25
stbrandal: posts the ante 25
AaronC: posts small blind 200
killerkp: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mysterio6044 [Ad Qs]
Ubsolute: folds
stbrandal: calls 400
tigerlady9: folds
micon: folds
mysterio6044: raises 1200 to 1600
gr33dy: folds
AaronC: folds
killerkp: folds
stbrandal: calls 1200
*** FLOP *** [9s Td 3h]
stbrandal: checks
mysterio6044: bets 3200
stbrandal: calls 3200
*** TURN *** [9s Td 3h] [5c]
stbrandal: checks
mysterio6044: checks
*** RIVER *** [9s Td 3h 5c] [9d]
stbrandal: bets 8800
mysterio6044: calls 8147 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
stbrandal: shows [7s 8s] (a pair of Nines)
mysterio6044: shows [Ad Qs] (a pair of Nines - Ace kicker)
mysterio6044 collected 26694 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 26694 | Rake 0
Board [9s Td 3h 5c 9d]
Seat 1: tigerlady9 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: micon folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: mysterio6044 showed [Ad Qs] and won (26694) with a pair of Nines
Seat 4: gr33dy (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: AaronC (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: killerkp (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: Ubsolute folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: stbrandal showed [7s 8s] and lost with a pair of Nines

With the board reading 9T359, he put me allin on the river, and all I had was AQ (Ace high). The way the hand played out, I just knew he was on the straight draw. I honestly put him on QJ and not 87, but I was sure he had nothing. I've probably made some better calls in my time, but I've never been so certain.

I cruised to the final 2 tables, where it was me who finally got lucky. My 33 beat KK when I hit a 3 on the flop. I went to the final table with the chip lead, with $400k to the next guy's $150k. I took 4 or 5 really ugly river beats, but thanks to my big stack I was able to rebuild each time. When we were down 2 players, my opponent had $680k in chips to my $530k. 1st place paid $11,500 and 2nd paid $7500. I felt I had a significant advantage over my opponent, but he had the chip lead and the blinds were very high. Why risk $4000 to only make an extra $1300? So what we did is agree to each take $9000, and leave $1200 on the table to play for. It only took me a few hands to beat him, and I ended up taking home $10,200 for this win.

PokerStars Tournament #21579120, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
200 players
Total Prize Pool: $38400.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/22 - 15:15:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $11,520.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 382.00 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Notice it says I won $11,520, but I really only won $10,200 because of the deal we made. It also gave me 382 tournament leader points. Right now I am in 6th place for this week. The winner at the end of the week gets to play heads up for $1000 against a Pokerstars pro such as Tom McEvoy or Joe Hachem for free, and also gets his picture posted in the Pokerstars main lobby for a week. I am still 1200 points behind 1st place, but with a few more good finishes I should have a good shot at it.

Big Win

2006-03-22T12:19:00.000-05:00

Wow, what a day! I started the day by looking through all the upcoming tournaments on Pokerstars and decided to play in 4 of them. The first one was a $11+Rebuys Omaha tournament. It started with 200 players and I was doing great until we got down to around 25 players. I ended up busting out in 19th place, and only the top 18 paid out.

The second tournament was a $33+Rebuys WSOP qualifier. It started with 266 players, and only 1st place would win the WSOP package to Las Vegas. 2nd to 15th place paid the same exact amount, $650. I played very solid until we got down to 10 people. By then there were some monster stacks and I was in the middle of the pack. I decided to take a few gambles and I ended up getting knocked out in 10th place.

PokerStars Tournament #21471402, No Limit Hold'em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $30.00/$3.00
266 players
Total Prize Pool: $20580.00
Target Tournament #21016818 Buy-In: $10000.00
1 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started - 2006/03/21 - 15:00:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 10th place.
A $650.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

The third tournament was a $55 freezeout. There were 354 players. Once again I played very solid poker and I just couldn't make a mistake. After a few hours, we were down to the final table and I was the chip leader. I made a few well-timed bluffs and got paid off a few times when I did have a hand. Then we were down to 3 players, and I was 2nd in chips, when this disaster happenned:

PokerStars Game #4367774168: Tournament #21579045, Hold'em No Limit - Level XVI (3000/6000) - 2006/03/21 - 19:08:07 (ET)
Table '21579045 29' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 4: mysterio6044 (164332 in chips)
Seat 5: wendy_md (259018 in chips)
Seat 7: BreakRibs (107650 in chips)
mysterio6044: posts the ante 300
wendy_md: posts the ante 300
BreakRibs: posts the ante 300
wendy_md: posts small blind 3000
BreakRibs: posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mysterio6044 [Ac 9c]
mysterio6044: raises 12000 to 18000
wendy_md: folds
BreakRibs: raises 89350 to 107350 and is all-in
mysterio6044: calls 89350
*** FLOP *** [Kh 6h 5c]
mysterio6044 said, "thought so"
mysterio6044 said, "omg"
*** TURN *** [Kh 6h 5c] [7s]
mysterio6044 said, "8?"
*** RIVER *** [Kh 6h 5c 7s] [3c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BreakRibs: shows [As 5h] (a pair of Fives)
mysterio6044: shows [Ac 9c] (high card Ace)
BreakRibs collected 218600 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 218600 | Rake 0
Board [Kh 6h 5c 7s 3c]
Seat 4: mysterio6044 (button) showed [Ac 9c] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 5: wendy_md (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: BreakRibs (big blind) showed [As 5h] and won (218600) with a pair of Fives

Just sick, A9 vs A5. That crippled me and I was knocked out soon after.
I would have been chip leader against one other player. That hand cost me around $5000. Instead I finished in 3rd and won around $2000.

PokerStars Tournament #21579045, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $50.00/$5.00
354 players
Total Prize Pool: $17700.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/21 - 15:00:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 3rd place.
A $1,964.70 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 293.42 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

The fourth and final tournament I played was the $3+Rebuys. $3 doesn't sound like much, but there are so many players in this tournament and so many rebuys, that the prizepool is often higher than most of the $55 and $109 rebuy tournaments! The total number of players who joined this tournament was 1354. That's a pretty massive field to weave through. I played normal poker for the first 5 hours, and I was sitting in the middle of the pack with around 100 players left. Then I got a few good hands and all of a sudden I was in 1st place when were down to 30 players. Then I just started to run over the table with my stack. I had over $1 million in chips, and the next guy had $500k. I took quite a few bad beats but I just kept rebuilding my stack by stealing pots. By the time we got to the final table, I was in 1st place with $1.5 million in chips. Then came the following hand:

PokerStars Game #4368876543: Tournament #21579041, Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIV (30000/60000) - 2006/03/21 - 20:37:11 (ET)
Table '21579041 156' Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: pkjack1 (1541788 in chips)
Seat 2: GodPanix (711574 in chips)
Seat 3: RI Tony (937692 in chips)
Seat 4: Bergzilla (349693 in chips)
Seat 5: dogsballs (1540618 in chips)
Seat 6: temerityj (1487444 in chips)
Seat 7: mysterio6044 (1547355 in chips)
Seat 8: TruemperWay (1134448 in chips)
Seat 9: stretch2win (380888 in chips)
pkjack1: posts the ante 3000
GodPanix: posts the ante 3000
RI Tony: posts the ante 3000
Bergzilla: posts the ante 3000
dogsballs: posts the ante 3000
temerityj: posts the ante 3000
mysterio6044: posts the ante 3000
TruemperWay: posts the ante 3000
stretch2win: posts the ante 3000
temerityj: posts small blind 30000
mysterio6044: posts big blind 60000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mysterio6044 [5s Kc]
GodPanix said, "gg bro"
TruemperWay: folds
stretch2win: folds
pkjack1: folds
GodPanix: folds
RI Tony: folds
Bergzilla: folds
dogsballs: folds
temerityj: calls 30000
mysterio6044: checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 2h Kd]
temerityj: bets 60000
mysterio6044: calls 60000
*** TURN *** [Ah 2h Kd] [5c]
temerityj: bets 60000
mysterio6044: raises 180000 to 240000
temerityj: calls 180000
*** RIVER *** [Ah 2h Kd 5c] [5d]
temerityj: bets 60000
mysterio6044: raises 480000 to 540000
mysterio6044 said, "whats ur kicker tem?"
temerityj: calls 480000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
mysterio6044: shows [5s Kc] (a full house, Fives full of Kings)
temerityj: mucks hand
mysterio6044 collected 1827000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1827000 | Rake 0
Board [Ah 2h Kd 5c 5d]
Seat 1: pkjack1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: GodPanix folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: RI Tony folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: Bergzilla folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: dogsballs (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: temerityj (small blind) mucked [7c Ad]
Seat 7: mysterio6044 (big blind) showed [5s Kc] and won (1827000) with a full house, Fives full of Kings
Seat 8: TruemperWay folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: stretch2win folded before Flop (didn't bet)

That shot me up to $2.5 million in chips. Soon after, I had $6 million and the next guy had $1.5 million. When we got down to 2 players, I had $6 million and player 'pkjack1' had $3.5 million. This was the final hand:

PokerStars Game #4369731417: Tournament #21579041, Hold'em No Limit - Level XXVIII (60000/120000) - 2006/03/21 - 21:43:18 (ET)
Table '21579041 156' Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: pkjack1 (3533246 in chips)
Seat 7: mysterio6044 (6098254 in chips)
pkjack1: posts the ante 6000
mysterio6044: posts the ante 6000
mysterio6044: posts small blind 60000
pkjack1: posts big blind 120000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mysterio6044 [Ks Kd]
mysterio6044: raises 240000 to 360000
pkjack1: calls 240000
*** FLOP *** [2h 5c Ts]
pkjack1: checks
mysterio6044: bets 480000
pkjack1: raises 2687246 to 3167246 and is all-in
mysterio6044: calls 2687246
*** TURN *** [2h 5c Ts] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 5c Ts 9h] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pkjack1: shows [6c Tc] (a pair of Tens)
mysterio6044: shows [Ks Kd] (a pair of Kings)
mysterio6044 collected 7066492 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7066492 | Rake 0
Board [2h 5c Ts 9h Jh]
Seat 1: pkjack1 (big blind) showed [6c Tc] and lost with a pair of Tens
Seat 7: mysterio6044 (button) (small blind) showed [Ks Kd] and won (7066492) with a pair of Kings

I don't think I've ever ran over a table like that, it was the best feeling in the world. I rarely had to show any of my hands, and just kept building my stack with pure pressure on my opponents. This is the biggest tournament I have ever won, beating 1353 other players.

PokerStars Tournament #21579041, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $3.00/$0.30
1354 players
Total Prize Pool: $18429.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/21 - 14:10:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $3,455.44 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 556.32 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

What a day!

Welcome

2006-03-20T12:24:00.000-05:00

Well I figured I might as well start a blog, since all the cool people do it. ;)

Actually, I've had about 20 people ask me to start one, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to. If I think about it, I've been using http://www.pokerpoker.ca as my blog whenever I'm at a major event, so I might as well have my own. I'll still post on pokerpoker though.

I'll be using this blog to post interesting hands in cash and tournament play, results of tournaments I make it deep into, and regular updates whenever I'm in a major tournament anywhere in the world.

In the past 5 months, I have played in tournaments in Sarnia, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Bahamas, and Monte Carlo. My next destination is Las Vegas on April 4th. I'll be trying to qualify for the $25,000 WPT Championship.

Until then, I'll be playing mostly online at Pokerstars under the name 'mysterio6044'. In preparation, I'll be focusing only on tournaments. I had a good start yesterday, placing 1st out of 235 players in a $33 Omaha tournament. It paid around $2000, which is still pretty good for a $33 buy-in. I also came so close to qualifying for the $10,000 WPT Foxwoods event. The qualifier started with around 300 players, with the top 2 players winning the package. I ended up busting out in 5th and only made $175.

PokerStars Tournament #21184952, Pot Limit Omaha
Buy-In: $30.00/$3.00
235 players
Total Prize Pool: $7050.00
Tournament started - 2006/03/19 - 17:45:00 (ET)

Dear mysterio6044,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $1,938.75 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 380.29 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.