I'm out

Well, that was a pretty messy last hand. But before I get to that.. basically for 4 levels I got hardly any playable hands. A few small pairs that went no where, got reraised off a few steals, but generally played very tight until the last hand. Was blinded down to about 21k with nothing very eventful happening. No big pots, just a pretty quick blind structure and high antes. With blinds at 600/300 and a 7 ante I raised to 2000 with 9d7d in second position. This was the loosest raise I had made all tournament and figured I'd just take the blinds. Every hand I won before I had showed down AA, KK or AK. Big blind, a pretty bad internet player who got very lucky before calls. Flop is 843 one diamond. He bets out 2k I raise to 7k to represent an overpair. He calls. Turn comes 6d to give me an open ended straight draw as well as a flush draw. He checks, and think for a bit then jam in the rest of my chips. He hums and haws and almost folds then calls with A5o! Ugh.. river comes a 6 and I one again fail to make a big draw in a big live tournament. I should probably learn but it's probably too late for me to mend my ways. That's it for me for now, time to enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Holy crap

First break.. with starting stacks of 20,000 chips, I'm at about 44k. On the 10th hand of the tournament, managed to double up with AA vs KK when we got it all in on the T high flop. Then proceeded to pick off the guy with 88 vs AQ a few hands later so I was the early chip leader and knocked out the first guy of the event. Picked up KK twice, AA once, AK and that's basically all the hands I've played.

Table 12, seat 6

The few moments before a poker tournament reminds me a lot of exam time. Many young, boisterous people gather around the entrance trying to convince themselves that they know what they're doing and perhaps intimidate their peers. This is especially the case here were the age required to play is only 18 or 19 years old, versus 21 in the US so they stereotypical internet pro is disproportionately represented here. In the lobbies where wireless access is available you can't look around without seeing someone multi-tabling poker on their laptop at all hours of the day.

The poker room this year takes up the grand ballroom where over 40 tables are set up to accomodate the tournament and side games. Not quite the spectacle that was the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas but still quite impressive. A quick glance over the starting table list reveals no one recognizable at my table, so hopefully I'll have a fairly soft table. My goal this year is to hit a flush draw and not bluff off my chips when I miss.

The poker express

So the adventure begins again. I'm just about to board the flight for the bahamas which is sending at least a dozen poker hopefuls on their way to fame and fortune. The departure area is full of bad beat stories, suckouts and tales of huge pots. Defending champion steve paul-ambrose is also here, taking a westjet flight like a true balla. I'm playing on the first day of the tournament tomorrow but it's unlikely I'll be able to post live updates since the blackberry probably doesn't work down there There will probably be coverage on pokerwire.com and cardplayer.com as well as the official pokerstarsblog.com so perhaps if I get knocked out by someone famous ill be mentioned.

PCA Qualifying Tourney Report

The structure of these tournaments is pretty good: 2500 chips to start, blinds 10/20 and 30 minute levels (double the normal length and more chips to boot) so it was my intention to play a very conservative game. I figured that most people wouldn't adjust well to this structure, being too aggressive and ending up playing big pots far too early. For the most part I stuck to this strategy until closer to the prizes when most people went a little too conservative, although in a satellite tournament with a flat prize structure this isn't too wrong. I actually get very few decent starting hands until deep into the tournament so the first few paragraphs are pretty boring. You can skip down to the later ones where more interesting things happen.

Not much happens for the first few dozen hands.. I do tight things like fold KJs to a limper, open fold 75s and 63s. The first hand I somewhat get involved with is hand #24 where I call 2 limpers and a raise with 98s and check/fold a JAQ flop. In the next 40 hands I get 88,77,22,44 and whiff on all of them except for winning with 22 in a four way shown that's checked down flop, turn and river. It's a pretty boring tournament so far. I finally pick up QQ, raise and get 4 callers!? Do they not see how tight I've been playing? I bet the 8J9 flop, get raised and reraise (a massive overbet push) and have to lay it down. Ugh. Down to 1805 now. It's still early with blinds 15/30 so not terrible yet but going in the wrong direction. I win a small pot with AQ to get back over 2000.

The blinds are up to 25/50 now and someone is doing idiotic things re-raising AKo all-in preflop with 50+ big blind stacks. Let's call this guy Pauly since he comes into play in every hand for the next little while. Lucky for him he's up against KK and obviously sucks out with an A on the river. The next hand I play (#93 - yes, quite a lot of folding.. I am both playing tight and getting no cards) I tangle with Pauly. I raise UTG to 150 with AKo, get a caller and the Pauly reraises to 750. I know if I jam here I'm getting called so I reluctantly fold and tell myself there's still plenty of time. At hand 104 I finally flop a set with TT and pick up some chips from Pauly, so I'm above my starting stack for the first time at almost 3000.

Blinds are now up to 50/100 and Pauly is still providing entertainment (and blog content). He's still got a big stack from the suckout, about 6000. It's folded to him in the SB and he jams vs the BB's 1000 stack. He's got K3o, and the BB calls with AA. No one is surprised when the flop comes 733. Although everyone is surprised when the river comes... A! Nice suck/resuck. I win a pot c-betting AQ on the flop, then lose a pot c-betting 77 on the flop. I flop a set of 44 vs Pauly and play it poorly, letting him off the hook by check raising all-in on the flop and he manages to somehow find a fold.

With blinds up to 75/150, I get some more chips off Pauly with this questionable play. I raise in mid position with TT, Pauly calls in the big blind. Flop is 347 rainbow. I bet, Paul calls. Turn 8. I push slightly more than the pot and he folds. I'm not sure what that push accomplishes since he calls with 56, a set, or an overpair and folds everything else. Or maybe he's the type of guy who would call with A7 there? Or a bare 5 or 6? Who knows. Anyway, we're 150 hands in now and I haven't seen AA or KK yet so I'm starting to feel I'm due soon. I win a small pot with AQ vs Pauly. Looking back at the record, it's amazing how many chips I've peeled off him. I think I can safely say I owe him for this win.

I build my stack up to 5000 with the blinds 100/200 by reraising all in with 44 to a mid position raiser. Image resteal there since I've been very tight. We're at hand 180 now and I've documented every hand I've played so far, which is not very much. Here's another pretty questionable play by someone else which I'm thankful for. UTG limps, I call with 22 in mid position and the big blind checks. Flop comes 6T9 with two hearts. Checked around. Turn is an off suit 8. Checked around again. River 2. Checked to me and I bet and get called by UTG's QQ. Score! I can't believe she didn't put any chips into the pot before the river. I fold AQ to another massive over push reraise and am at 6500. I get up to 7100 by reraising with AK and taking it down, then blind down to 6300. I steal the blinds with TT at hand #225.

At hand #230, I encounter the only peril I'd meet for pretty much the whole tournament. The button raises to 600, and I re-raise to 2000 with JJ in the SB. The big blind pushes and I hesitate before calling the rest of my 4300 chips. Luckily the BB has AK and I double up on a blank board. I'm finally in very good shape now with 13,000 chips and the blinds 100/200. I pick up some more re-raising with QQ vs a raiser and a caller. I lose a bit with 99 trying to pick up the pot on a KQ4 board but get raised off it, then win the blinds with AQ. 250 hands now and no sign of AA or KK yet, odd of this are like what, infinity to 1. Pick up another pot with AQ re-raising on the flop. So far no one's played back at my re-raising so things are going very well.

At hand 266 the table breaks. A shame since I've been the same table for the whole time and have pretty good reads on most people. 6 hands into the new table I play two hands which I'm very proud of. I've folded everything so far. The first hand, with the blinds 200/400, it's folded to 'Pwnasaurus' in the SB. He raises to 1000. I figure with a name like that he's pretty aggressive so I reraise all-in (to 9400) with 44 and he folds. The very next hand, he raises again to 1000 on the button. I have AQd in the SB and just call. I figure if I reraise him again I'm going to get called and I didn't want to flip for my stack just yet. It seems unlikely he'd be trying to steal after getting caught in the previous hand. Flop comes AT3 two spades. This was the perfect flop for me since I can represent a flush draw, a gutshot straight draw, or a pure bluff and can get called with pocket pairs or other semi-weak holdings. I check, he bets 1400 and I raise all-in. He thinks and thinks and thinks and finally calls with JT! My hand holds and I bust him. I resist the urge to type 'pwned!' in the chat window. I guess he really didn't believe my two all-ins in a row. I pick up a few more blinds preflop with 88 and QQ, fold AK to a raise and reraise, fold AJ to a raise. It's been a really long time since I've been playing deep stacks and so it feels odd to be folding things like that.

We hardly see a flop anymore since the prizes are in sight now. Blinds are 400/800 and we've been playing for 5 hours now. I can quickly tell who the really tight players are and start stealing their blinds at will, meeting absolutely no resistance. There are two of them in perfect position, one to my left and one 3 to my left. Unfortunately someone else to my right also picks up on it so they start stealing those blinds before I can get to them. I win preflop twice in 5 hands off the stealer by re-raising first with AA (finally!) and AK. I'm really surprised I didn't get called the second time since a) I thought he'd have something raising again so soon and b) he didn't think I'd have something re-raising him again. But whatever, thanks for the chips. This boosts me to 29k and pretty healthy with the blinds 400/800 and very tight play.

At hand #369 I have 30k chips and am probably in the top 16 with maybe 30 players left. A pretty quiet guy with 16k raises to 4k (blinds 400/800 still). Folded to me in the BB with JJ. I fold!?!? My thinking was with such a large raise, he's committing his stack so I'm not sure I want to flip or run into an overpair. I have a healthy stack and plenty of blinds to steal. I'm not used to this conservative style of folding JJ to a single raise but I think its the right move.

At hand #397 (600/1200) I make a really questionable play that I think could have cost me the seat. I have 32k and raise to 3000 with KQs in mid position. The button re-raises all-in for 11.5k. I have seen his name before at a final table of the Sunday million tourney (more than once I think) so I know he's good and observant. So he's seen me steal a lot, especially versus these blinds in particular. So there's about 15k in the pot and I have 8.5k to call. In a cash tourney it's an easy call since I'm easily getting the right odds vs his range of hands (any pair, probably almost any ace). But in this sort of satellite survival is the goal, not winning. I think for about a minute before my finger clicks the call button without me commanding it to do so. He has A6o and I fail to suckout. I'm down to 20k and not feeling great with the blinds 600/1200. My gut says it was the wrong thing to do, but I really wanted to defend my raises to make others things twice about re-stealing from me.

Less than 10 hands later, I pick up AA in mid position and raise to 3k. I get reraised all in by someone with 23k (like I said, no small pots around here) they hold up against AQ. So with 42k, I'm comfortably in the top 10 and coast to the seat, picking up the blinds with AQ twice, JJ and stealing a little here and there just to stay even. Play is really tight and conservative and takes about 70 hands to bust the last couple of people since no mid size stack is willing to play back with anything less than AK.

WPT Bahamas, redux

At long last the blog can once again rightfully be called the WPT Bahamas blog as I have just qualified for the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure 2007 (held Jan 4-11 at the Atlantis Resort and Casino

Luck was definitely on my side this year as I played only 6 tournaments to qualify, a $33 rebuy, a $80 satellite and 3 $22 rebuy tournaments. I won one of the $22 tourneys to qualify for a $650 super satellite. In the $650, there were 318 players and 16 packages awarded. Total investment, $310.

Details to follow tomorrow.

Some more pics

The crowd to fight your way through to get to the tournament area

Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher from ST:TNG) who now writes for PokerStars

Still happy before it started

Finally thanks to everyone for their support and for reading this!

WSOP Wrap Up

After having some time to reflect on it, I think I have a lot to learn about deep stack live tournaments. I'm going to attempt to write down these thoughts in hopes it'll be useful if I ever play any other large tournaments.

Small pots - I'm sure I could have conserved a lot of chips by playing less aggressively and keeping pots small. Ironically, I went into the tournament with the intention of playing more aggressively and stealing more pots. Those kind of were at odds with each other since everytime I took a stab at pots I'd be bloating them up and it would result in more chips required to push someone out and making it more likely to get called since the pot is so large.

Physical tells - not sure if I had any but I got picked off on two big bluffs so it's something I need to consider. I think I need to pause and act more deliberately each time. It would also help a lot at thinking through the hand. I'm still too used to having only 15 seconds to think online and usually just go with my instincts. Against most of the people at the table I wasn't too worried about giving off tells but there was one guy who was obviously much more comfortable playing live most of the table.

Identifying the fish - one thing I've read a few times is that you must identify the people who can't get away from top pair types of hands and stack them early before they lose their chips to someone else. Very good advice. I think I did a good job of doing so, but just wasn't able to get involved with them with a decent hand.

I'm pretty sure I'm able to play strong hands much better than I can play mid/weak hands. That might be an obvious statement but I think I am reasonably good at getting max value out of strong hands, as opposed to keeping the pots smaller for weaker hands.

Some other interesting hands, from memory:

Early in the first level I get QQ UTG+1 and raise to 150. Aggressive guy makes it 500, everyone else folds and I repop him to 1500. He reraises to 3000. I think, look at him and ponder. He has been very active but says reasonably confidently "I have a monster, no bs, I'll show you if you fold". Immediately I discount AA but not 100%. But what does he put in a 4th raise with? And a min raise at that. Hellmuth says 4th raise = AA. So I think KK is most likely. I fold, he shows QQ I quietly puke in my mouth and manage to agree when someone asks if I have AK.

Last hand before a break. I pick up JJ and raise. Bad/loose guy (who raises KJo UTG, plays many Ax hands out of position) reraises out of the SB. Knowing he over values hands I reraise him and he calls. Flop Axx. Most of the table has left for the break but one guy stayed behind to watch the action. the SB leads out with a healthy bet into the pot. I think and he says I'll show if you fold. Ugh.. that dreaded line again. I ask him if that means if it's good or bad and he shrugs. I think AK is most likely here since AA and KK probably would have gotten all the chips in preflop. I think I make the easy decision to fold and he shows QQ. Bah.. at least I was behind but I really didn't think he had it in him to make a move like that with and A high flop and so much raising going on preflop. The guy watching says I laid down KK there and I don't do anything to disagree with him. So the moral is if they want you to fold (by offering to show), it's usually a good hand that can't stand too much action.

The bust out hand. I think I cold called because I gave the UTG raise too much credit. I had only played about 2 orbits with that table and the normal raise was 800 (too high in my opinion). I didn't expect much action but I think Agustin might have been right for me to reraise and hopefully isolate with position or fold to a reraise. I also regret leading out and bloating the pot but after two checks to me I habitually stab at it. I think that was a big mistake though because someone has AA/KK/QQ/TT/JJ and none of them are going anywhere. Once I did that though I was committed.. running the numbers I'm 33% vs a set, 55% vs QQ or KK and 45% vs AA. So an easy call even if I go home 2 out of 3 times.

The day after busting out I played about 6 hours of mixed games at Treasure Island (they call it "tangerine" for some reason). We played Razz, 5 card draw (no one ever plays that anymore), stud (high), omaha hi/low, 2-7 triple draw low, crazy pineapple and eventually badugi got thrown in. It was originally 4-handed with 3 other internet players who had been up all night playing those games for mostly the first time. It was a friendly game with lots of discussion about the hands. I was extremely impressed with how sharp they were in their analysis of other players hands, making good value bets or making good folds. I mean really impressed, especially since they had been up for more than 24 hours. I was a lot of fun until some local pros showed up and actually tried to play seriously. Very educational though and much more fun that just grinding out hold'em even if I gave back all my winnings from the previous days. I think we'll start to see these other games grow in popularity on the online sites pretty fast. Stars is going to start offering HORSE soon and it'll even be their biggest tournament ($5000) in the upcoming World Series of Online Poker.

I'm out

Well, that didn't last too long. The table broke shortly after the break and I got moved to another table. Folded for a round or two then comes the fateful hand. Utg raises 800 with the blinds 100/200/25 ante. I call with AKc. Late position calls and BB calls. Flop comes J6T two clubs. BB checks and utg checks. I lead 1500 and the limper raises to 5500. I'm getting ready to fold when the BB cold calls 5500. Ugh. I've got about 7500 behind. At this point I figure that there's got to be a set out there but I have the nut flush draw and the gutshot queen draw also should be be good. So I jam in the rest of my chips. Some contraversy occurs about whether the limper can reraise (he can't because I didn't raise enough). With the pot so large I don't think I can fold there. So obviously the turn and river brick out and I'm going home.

Dinner break

Down to 7000 pretty card dead and only played about 6 hands all during that level. Lost a sizeable pot with JJ vs QQ on the last hand before the break. Ah well, still got some room to maneuver and I'm certainly due for big hands now.