The update you've all been waiting for... Shana!
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Saturday, January 08, 2005
One final note
I think I was out 180th out of 461. Not too bad for my first time in a live tournament.
I'm out
Well, here comes the post I didn't want to write.
I started out with about 26k in chips. My game plan was to loosen up a bit, see more flops and take shots at short stacks if possible. The deck continues to hit me over the head for the first few hands. Reraise with AK and take it down preflop. Raise with AJ and take down the blinds and antes. Limp with KJs after one limper, flop top two and take it down on the turn. I build my stack up to about 40k. It quiets down for awhile until one woman going all in for a few hands in a row. She goes in with K8o, gets called by AA and flops trip 8's. Her stack is maybe 20k or so now, but she continues to play a lot of pots and goes all-in pre-flop or post flop.
And then comes the first big hand. Early raise, 3 cold callers, I have 87s on the button so what the heck. It's only 1500 to call. Flop comes Js, 5s, 9h. Raiser checks, the all-in woman bets 2000, two cold callers drop, I think for a bit and raise to 7000 hoping for a free card. Raiser folds. The woman goes all in. It's about 10k more to call, so I definitely have pot odds and have to call. I figure she's got a 9 or a J. But no, she has KTo. I'm stunned. One less than the most possible outs since she has one of the tens I need. Turn 9, river A. I'm down to 21k-ish. Still workable.
I take it easy for an orbit or two to keep my composure.
Then, with blinds 300/600+100 Allen Cunningham raises to 1800 UTG. I look down at QQ, and I don't think I can let it go. I'm sure he'd raise with AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ. I raise it to 5k. He asks for my stack count, then pushes in. I beat him into the pot with a call. Flop comes 3 low cards, but I still can't start breathing yet. Turn comes the dreaded A. I get up, dazed.
I think it's going to be difficult to get my mind off these hands for awhile, but I don't think I would have played them differently. I'll be quite a bit of work to enjoy the rest of the vacation here, but I'll try my best.
I'll see everyone back at home...
I started out with about 26k in chips. My game plan was to loosen up a bit, see more flops and take shots at short stacks if possible. The deck continues to hit me over the head for the first few hands. Reraise with AK and take it down preflop. Raise with AJ and take down the blinds and antes. Limp with KJs after one limper, flop top two and take it down on the turn. I build my stack up to about 40k. It quiets down for awhile until one woman going all in for a few hands in a row. She goes in with K8o, gets called by AA and flops trip 8's. Her stack is maybe 20k or so now, but she continues to play a lot of pots and goes all-in pre-flop or post flop.
And then comes the first big hand. Early raise, 3 cold callers, I have 87s on the button so what the heck. It's only 1500 to call. Flop comes Js, 5s, 9h. Raiser checks, the all-in woman bets 2000, two cold callers drop, I think for a bit and raise to 7000 hoping for a free card. Raiser folds. The woman goes all in. It's about 10k more to call, so I definitely have pot odds and have to call. I figure she's got a 9 or a J. But no, she has KTo. I'm stunned. One less than the most possible outs since she has one of the tens I need. Turn 9, river A. I'm down to 21k-ish. Still workable.
I take it easy for an orbit or two to keep my composure.
Then, with blinds 300/600+100 Allen Cunningham raises to 1800 UTG. I look down at QQ, and I don't think I can let it go. I'm sure he'd raise with AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ. I raise it to 5k. He asks for my stack count, then pushes in. I beat him into the pot with a call. Flop comes 3 low cards, but I still can't start breathing yet. Turn comes the dreaded A. I get up, dazed.
I think it's going to be difficult to get my mind off these hands for awhile, but I don't think I would have played them differently. I'll be quite a bit of work to enjoy the rest of the vacation here, but I'll try my best.
I'll see everyone back at home...
Table Draw, Day 3
Table 9, seat 5. I'm the fourth largest stack at the table with 3 others in the 30k range. Only player I recognize is Allen Cunningham. A couple of smaller stacks in the low 10k range. Not too bad.
Friday, January 07, 2005
After the first day
Man, I'm beat and it's only 10pm. I sure felt myself slipping after 9 hours of poker. Luckily the cards have been running very good and I'm up to 26,575 now. I have not had bluff (much) and I have only showed down two hands vs. all-ins. AA and AJs. We'll redraw for tomorrow so I can't take advantage of my tight image anymore.
First hand after the dinner break, blinds 100/200+25 I started out with AJs, raised early to 600 and got reraised all-in by 77 all-in with less than 1000. Off to the races and I turn a flush on him.
Second hand I raise with AQo and steal the blinds and antes.
Third hand I raise UTG+1 to 600 with red kings and figure someone's going to look me up now. Sure enough the really aggressive huge stacked bully calls me. Flop comes Axx with two to a suit. Well, I figure I'll play it like AK protecting against a flush draw. I check, he bets 1500 and I check raise to 5000. He lays it down after a few seconds thought. Phew. That puts me at 20,000 and I decide I better slow down.
Not much happens for while.. the bully goes to battle a couple of times with a 10k stack or so, who gets really lucky by doing things like hitting a gutshot all-in and hitting two pair with his A9 vs. AKs. He is very re-aggressive, reraising all-in a few times and either not getting callers or making hands.
Seat 3 is somewhat of a revolving seat. There are still 7 of us from the original 10 still at the table since the beginning of the day, but seat 3 has gone through 5 people already. Cursed, we decide.
With blinds and antes growing to 200/400+75 the short stacks get really tight and the big stack gets really aggressive - it seemed like only once he doesn't open raise, but no one has the guts to take a shot. Must be nice to have 52k or so.
I make a couple of "loose" plays like calling a raise and cold caller (although that Mr. bully) with ATs in the big blind, and manage to flop top pair with the T. I bet out 5k and the bully folds, saying it was push or fold. I would have been left with 10k if I folded so I'm not sure if I would have called a push. Tight image helps I guess.
So I'm probably in decent shape now, maybe in the top 1/2 or top 1/3 of the field. We'll pay again with about 270 people so it'll be another slogging day tomorrow. I've been really happy with my play, although most of the hands have played themselves and I haven't needed to make any fancy plays yet. Conserve and survive again. Hope it continues tomorrow!
First hand after the dinner break, blinds 100/200+25 I started out with AJs, raised early to 600 and got reraised all-in by 77 all-in with less than 1000. Off to the races and I turn a flush on him.
Second hand I raise with AQo and steal the blinds and antes.
Third hand I raise UTG+1 to 600 with red kings and figure someone's going to look me up now. Sure enough the really aggressive huge stacked bully calls me. Flop comes Axx with two to a suit. Well, I figure I'll play it like AK protecting against a flush draw. I check, he bets 1500 and I check raise to 5000. He lays it down after a few seconds thought. Phew. That puts me at 20,000 and I decide I better slow down.
Not much happens for while.. the bully goes to battle a couple of times with a 10k stack or so, who gets really lucky by doing things like hitting a gutshot all-in and hitting two pair with his A9 vs. AKs. He is very re-aggressive, reraising all-in a few times and either not getting callers or making hands.
Seat 3 is somewhat of a revolving seat. There are still 7 of us from the original 10 still at the table since the beginning of the day, but seat 3 has gone through 5 people already. Cursed, we decide.
With blinds and antes growing to 200/400+75 the short stacks get really tight and the big stack gets really aggressive - it seemed like only once he doesn't open raise, but no one has the guts to take a shot. Must be nice to have 52k or so.
I make a couple of "loose" plays like calling a raise and cold caller (although that Mr. bully) with ATs in the big blind, and manage to flop top pair with the T. I bet out 5k and the bully folds, saying it was push or fold. I would have been left with 10k if I folded so I'm not sure if I would have called a push. Tight image helps I guess.
So I'm probably in decent shape now, maybe in the top 1/2 or top 1/3 of the field. We'll pay again with about 270 people so it'll be another slogging day tomorrow. I've been really happy with my play, although most of the hands have played themselves and I haven't needed to make any fancy plays yet. Conserve and survive again. Hope it continues tomorrow!
Dinner break, day 1
16975 in chips (started with 10,000). Blinds going to be 150/300+50 ante. We started the day with about 260 people and are down to 190 I think.
I was really nervous and it showed at the beginning. I was hoping people would mistake it for shaking hands = big hands.
It was during the first level I managed to get most of my chips. First 4 out of 5 hands I had Ax and had to fold since I was in mid/early position. However, on the fifth hand, the x was a T and I was in the big blind. One limper to me. Flop comes AKT. I bet, limper calls. Turn brick. I bet, limper calls. Same on the river. I think I was too cautious here, and just bet a small fraction of the pot. Limper calls and turns over AJ and I win the first pot. It turned out this guy won his way in via the rebuy sat last night and was terrible. He shortly got crippled later when he called a check raise all-in with A9 and the board 578. Like the guy next to me said, no one else here could have made that call. I have 12k or so.
7th hand of the tournament. Folded to me on the button, I look down at pocket kings. Raise to 200. BB reraises to 2000. I start panicking about busting out on the 7th hand of the tournament, so I call. I decide to see if an A comes on the flop. Flop comes T84. BB bets out 2000. I start to think.. does he have aces? Does he have aces? Argh.. I don't know how long I took, but it must have been 3-4 minutes. People started asking how long we could wait to think.. you can think for as long as you want, but someone can call a clock on you. Then you have 1 min 10 seconds left to think. Anyway, I decide screw it.. if it's Aces so be it. All-in. The guy thinks for a sec, then says i'd have called if you didn't do through that acting job. He folds and gets really pissed off. I wasn't acting though, I was seriously just not wanting to bust out so early. I caught up to him later and he said he had QQ and figured the only thing he could beat was JJ. Good laydown on his part. So I end up with 16,000 or so.
From there not much happens... up and down between 12k and 18k. A really young kid who won't tell us his pokerstars name builds up a stack to 25k or so with really agressive play and really good cards.
On the third level or so, I get AQh in the cut off. UTG raises 3x BB. He's pretty tight so I decide to call and see a flop. In retrospect, a really bad idea. Flop comes Qxx all black. He bets about 1/3 of his stack for 2000. Man.. I hit the flop and I think I make an too tight laydown. I'm happy with my 16000 and don't want to turn it into 10k. Too tight? Probably, but ah well.. probably should have reraised pre flop or something to see where I was.
Anyway, Gloria was nice enough to bring me dinner. Time to eat and I'll check in after the day is done.
I was really nervous and it showed at the beginning. I was hoping people would mistake it for shaking hands = big hands.
It was during the first level I managed to get most of my chips. First 4 out of 5 hands I had Ax and had to fold since I was in mid/early position. However, on the fifth hand, the x was a T and I was in the big blind. One limper to me. Flop comes AKT. I bet, limper calls. Turn brick. I bet, limper calls. Same on the river. I think I was too cautious here, and just bet a small fraction of the pot. Limper calls and turns over AJ and I win the first pot. It turned out this guy won his way in via the rebuy sat last night and was terrible. He shortly got crippled later when he called a check raise all-in with A9 and the board 578. Like the guy next to me said, no one else here could have made that call. I have 12k or so.
7th hand of the tournament. Folded to me on the button, I look down at pocket kings. Raise to 200. BB reraises to 2000. I start panicking about busting out on the 7th hand of the tournament, so I call. I decide to see if an A comes on the flop. Flop comes T84. BB bets out 2000. I start to think.. does he have aces? Does he have aces? Argh.. I don't know how long I took, but it must have been 3-4 minutes. People started asking how long we could wait to think.. you can think for as long as you want, but someone can call a clock on you. Then you have 1 min 10 seconds left to think. Anyway, I decide screw it.. if it's Aces so be it. All-in. The guy thinks for a sec, then says i'd have called if you didn't do through that acting job. He folds and gets really pissed off. I wasn't acting though, I was seriously just not wanting to bust out so early. I caught up to him later and he said he had QQ and figured the only thing he could beat was JJ. Good laydown on his part. So I end up with 16,000 or so.
From there not much happens... up and down between 12k and 18k. A really young kid who won't tell us his pokerstars name builds up a stack to 25k or so with really agressive play and really good cards.
On the third level or so, I get AQh in the cut off. UTG raises 3x BB. He's pretty tight so I decide to call and see a flop. In retrospect, a really bad idea. Flop comes Qxx all black. He bets about 1/3 of his stack for 2000. Man.. I hit the flop and I think I make an too tight laydown. I'm happy with my 16000 and don't want to turn it into 10k. Too tight? Probably, but ah well.. probably should have reraised pre flop or something to see where I was.
Anyway, Gloria was nice enough to bring me dinner. Time to eat and I'll check in after the day is done.
Table 1, Seat 9
Fortunately no one famous I recognize at the table. I was somewhat looking forward to watching them see right through all the players though, including myself.
Results from Day 1 (not me)
Looks like the final chip counts are in from Day 1. 201 entrants, with 116 remaining. They had to play extra time to get the numbers down to a managable level for Saturday (Day 3). Today, 225 players (including yours truly), for a total of 426 entrants. That's a pretty sizable field to get through, and some pros have busted out already. It looks like they'll need to get the field down by 1/2 or more today so wish me luck! :) The official chip count can be found here:
Official Standings after Day 1
Official Standings after Day 1
Addicted
WARNING: Little poker content
It's 12:30am the day of the big day and I'm here updating the blog because I found out I actually have wireless internet access from the hotel room. Speaking of the hotel, it's huge, has a mind blowing aquarium, beautiful weather and people, and food is really really expensive here. Although after spending some time here, the $9 USD I paid for coffee, juice and a danish seemed like a real bargain. The main thing that blew me away was that the restaurant we had dinner at tonight had not just one, but a page full of wines over $10,000 per bottle.
PokerStars has really treated the player very well. They threw a great cocktail party the night before to open things up, and when we got back to our rooms we found a huge tote bag crammed full of goodies for everyone. Who knew they made a PokerStars teddy bear or PokerStars luggage tags? They've even embroidered our names on the bag.. luckily real names, but screen names.
On to poker.. the first night was super satellite night, where people could enter a tournament that would pay out entries into the WPT tournament. It was $200 plus rebuys and it was somewhat of a surprise to me that the room was almost full of super sat players. They ended up payig 17 seats - so over $136,000 in the pool for a super sat. Not bad. Other cash games and small tournaments started up, but I vowed not to play until the big event to keep myself from tilting before I even started.
Apparently there was a big pent up demand for poker from hundreds of internet starved players. Later on that night, when I was walking back to my room, I passed by a bar where they had wireless coverage. It was full of glowing laptops, more often then not open to PokerStars or Party Poker. Should I have expected any less?
Today I played poker groupie and hung around the room to get a feel of what was going on. I managed to recognize quite a few pros playing today - John Juanda, Moneymaker, Raymer, Kathy Liebert, Hoyt Corkins, Dewey Tomko. Managed to get a few pics without making myself look like too much of a dork. I spent most of my time wandering around the resort and eating, so for real poker updates, see the official blog: http://caribbeanpokeradventure.blogspot.com
Enough for tonight, I'll try to keep everyone posted tomorrow.
It's 12:30am the day of the big day and I'm here updating the blog because I found out I actually have wireless internet access from the hotel room. Speaking of the hotel, it's huge, has a mind blowing aquarium, beautiful weather and people, and food is really really expensive here. Although after spending some time here, the $9 USD I paid for coffee, juice and a danish seemed like a real bargain. The main thing that blew me away was that the restaurant we had dinner at tonight had not just one, but a page full of wines over $10,000 per bottle.
PokerStars has really treated the player very well. They threw a great cocktail party the night before to open things up, and when we got back to our rooms we found a huge tote bag crammed full of goodies for everyone. Who knew they made a PokerStars teddy bear or PokerStars luggage tags? They've even embroidered our names on the bag.. luckily real names, but screen names.
On to poker.. the first night was super satellite night, where people could enter a tournament that would pay out entries into the WPT tournament. It was $200 plus rebuys and it was somewhat of a surprise to me that the room was almost full of super sat players. They ended up payig 17 seats - so over $136,000 in the pool for a super sat. Not bad. Other cash games and small tournaments started up, but I vowed not to play until the big event to keep myself from tilting before I even started.
Apparently there was a big pent up demand for poker from hundreds of internet starved players. Later on that night, when I was walking back to my room, I passed by a bar where they had wireless coverage. It was full of glowing laptops, more often then not open to PokerStars or Party Poker. Should I have expected any less?
Today I played poker groupie and hung around the room to get a feel of what was going on. I managed to recognize quite a few pros playing today - John Juanda, Moneymaker, Raymer, Kathy Liebert, Hoyt Corkins, Dewey Tomko. Managed to get a few pics without making myself look like too much of a dork. I spent most of my time wandering around the resort and eating, so for real poker updates, see the official blog: http://caribbeanpokeradventure.blogspot.com
Enough for tonight, I'll try to keep everyone posted tomorrow.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Celebrity watching
I'm on the Atlanta-Nassau portion of the flight now. I feel like such a poker groupie by getting excited when I spot Josh Arieh and John D'augustino on the same flight.
Monday, January 03, 2005
T-3 and counting...
Only three days left before I leave this ice coated wasteland that is West Waterloo. The "first day" of the tournament has been split up into 2 flights. I've been assigned to the second one, which means I'll have all of Thursday to start getting nervous before I being play on Friday. All the big names of poker look to be there, some notables that are beginning on my day include Barry Greenstein (one of the biggest cash game players out there), Chip Jett, Daniel Negreanu (2004 Card Player Magazine player of the year), Erik Siedel (you may remember him from Rounders - although he only came in 2nd the World Series that year), Juha Helppi (won a WPT on season 1), Phil Ivey, Josh Arieh, and 170+ other assorted fish. There's 360 entrants now, but I would expect a few more since they are holding satellites on Wed and Thurs.
PokerStars has also decided to um, copy me and they have their own offical blog coverage of the tournament here at http://caribbeanpokeradventure.blogspot.com/
To get ready for the tournament, I practiced in the $200 weekly tournament at PS today. According to the law of averages, I'll probably win the WPT because the best hand I got was AQo and competely missed on the flop. Ended up going all in with 78o vs 77 and went out in 1148th place out of 2386. Bodes well. I'm due!
PokerStars has also decided to um, copy me and they have their own offical blog coverage of the tournament here at http://caribbeanpokeradventure.blogspot.com/
To get ready for the tournament, I practiced in the $200 weekly tournament at PS today. According to the law of averages, I'll probably win the WPT because the best hand I got was AQo and competely missed on the flop. Ended up going all in with 78o vs 77 and went out in 1148th place out of 2386. Bodes well. I'm due!
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