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.

Second break

Back down to about 12000. Not much action. Made one full house and got paid off then chased 3 flushes and didn't hit any and got 2 bluffs snapped again. No more bluffing!

Sick sick poker

I started out ok, calling with pairs and high cards and completely missing flop. Got involved with some aggro guy and bluffed off about 2000. Got involved with another ok guy and bluffed on a 789Q board and got snapped off for another 2000 or so. Ugh, I have a terrible image now. I get AK twice in two hands, raise and get called and get checkraised off my hand both times, once in a raised pot and once ina reraise flop. I almost called once but the guy had been so agg that I didn't think he would do it again. After about an hour and a bit I was down to 2000 ish and was having my dreams crushed once again. So sick.

  I tighten up and decide for a hand to commit to and double up but nothing comes. About 20 mins before the break I get AA utg+1 and limp 50. I had limped a fair amount in various places so not strange. Utg+2 raises to 300 and I repop to 1000 hoping its not too obvious. He makes it 1500 and I call and my hand holds up vs his QQ. Very next hand I get KK utg and raise to 200. Late position makes it 700 and I call. Flop 642 and I check raise him all in and my KK holds against QQ again.  About 10 hands later I call a raise on the button with 86o with about 4-5 players. Flop comes 975 two spades. Aggro bets, I call, the QQ guy from the first hand makes it 3000.  Aggro folds and I jam for about 4000 more. He flips 55 for a set and I sweat the board not pairing.  I snap a bluff with 94o on a 6433K board and feel like I can do no wrong.  I end with about 23000 in chips after being down to 2000 in the first break. So sick.

Table 164, Seat 5

That's where I will be for awhile I hope. One interesting technology they're using for photos this year is FaceIT. You basically sign up by giving your name and having them take your picture. Then as they take pictures throughout the event, they use face recognition technology to automatically label the pictures so you can search for people you know. I've signed up so I'm curious if I'll eventually end up in their DB.

Here's an article about it:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2006/6/high-tech-wsop-facial-recognition.htm

To search for pictures, go here:
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/photo_store/

Warming Up

Yesterday I played a bit of baby NL (1-3 blinds, max $500 buyin) to warm up. Good thing I did, since it's been quite awhile since I've played live in a casino - perhaps not since the WSOP last year?

Anyway, I had a pretty bad case of the shakes on the first hand in but got over it pretty quickly. Originally I planned to play at the Wynn but the list was was too long there in mid-afternoon. I ended up back at Treasure Island since it was unbearable to walk more then across the street in mid day. I sat down at 4:00pm and didn't end up leaving until 11:00pm since the table was pretty juicy. There were a couple of really weak tight locals to my left, a couple of ultra aggressive pros to my right, and enough tourists to build pretty big limped pots so perfect position. Many people would sit down with only $100 or so, blow them off and rebuy, repeat then leave. One pretty good guy racked out about $3400 although he had been there longer than I had. Apparently some guy sat down with a ton of blacks ($100 chips) and just blew them off before I got there, although I'm not sure how he managed to get more than $500 in play. Normally you don't see black chips at a 1-3 table but there were about $1000 in blacks in play here.

The aggressive pros would straddle to $10 whenever they could, and induced some tourists to do so as well. Turned into a pretty volatile game but I had great position on the deep stacked pros and managed to win and lose my share of pots chasing straights. The two aggressive pros busted multiple times and probably were down over $1000 each. One of the other locals was just so weak tight it was unbelievable. He was sacred to play post-flop. Some examples: early raise to $10, a caller, and he jammed to $100 from the big blind with JJ, saying he was happy to win the $20 because he didn't want to see overcards on the flop. Another hand, I raised to $10 with QJs on the button and he makes it $40 from the big blind. I make a motion of kissing my chips goodbye and throw them in. Flop comes Kxx and he checks!? I check behind. Q turn and he checks again!? I bet and he folds!?

I stacked AK with 54o, on a A23 flop, called down a bluff with 22, flopped a few sets, standard stuff like that. Nothing too memorable but cashed out up $425, down from a peak of over +$600. One comment from a guy about me: "I'm scared of this guy, he probably does all the math and stuff".

A nice warm up but I will definitely have to tighten up and be more aggressive today. I didn't bluff a single hand last night but that will have to be part of the game plan today.

So it begins again

I arrived in Las Vegas last night on my first ever Westjet flight. Not too bad, with leather seats and live satellite TV. It arrived about 20 mins early, but traffic at 10pm on a Friday night in Vegas was terrible and it probably took atleast 30 mins to make the short trek from the airport. Oh, I ran into Steve Paul-Ambrose at the airport who was waiting there for his family to arrive on the same flight I took. Steve was the winner of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure this year and hails from Waterloo. Other than him, I haven't seen any well-known poker personalities so far.

I'm staying at Treasure Island this year - tried to slip the front desk clerk $20 to upgrade, but either she didn't see it (I'm just too smooth) or they actually were full. Ended up with a corner room overlooking the strip on the 34th floor anyway which is just fine.


One neat thing about the poker room here is they actually have the waiting list available on TV. At 6:30am there wasn't much of a wait but I thought that was useful.. and signs poker is quite popular, if you hadn't noticed.



I picked up my goody bag of stuff, shown below. Shirts, hats, jerseys, a nice jacket, bag teddy bear, a baseball and trading cards. Not too shabby. The strange thing this year is that Harrah's decided not to allow .com advertising, so all players sporting shirts from poker sites have either had to wear .net (play money) gear or tape over the .com portion of the logo. So there are plenty of people walking around with duct tape on their clothes.



I went to the Rio to finalize my registration which went fine. I was a bit worried because I heard people were getting their days changed without notice but everything is fine and I'm playing tomorrow as expected.

They had a "poker lifestyle" exhibition which was a small trade show. All the major sites had booths with girls handing out free stuff. I managed to accumulate about 10 lbs of hats, shirts, bags. The biggest score was a 1GB flash drive.

PokerStars had a booth where you could play "Battleship Poker" for prizes. It's basically laptops set up face to face and you play a heads-up match. I was out pretty quickly with AQ vs 74s on a Q72 flop (7) turn and the guy who beat me draw a video ipod for a prize. That would have been sweet.





Some more pics from the trade show

PokerStars Aston Martin (they're a sponsor)

A view of a poker table with built in screens - no dealer required!

The Bodog poker bachelor pad - complete with lingerie clad girls upstairs. You could line up for a pillow fight with them.


A case with all the bracelet from members of the Full Tilt team in their hospitality suite

It is a happy Canada Day indeed

I just qualified for the 2006 WSOP Main Event, after weeks of trying. The tournament I won was a $33 rebuy (same as last year) where I beat out 198 other players for the single prize. Near the end of the rebuy period, I was allin preflop twice within 4 hands when I hit a set vs an over pair (TT vs QQ and JJ vs KK) to emerge from the rebuy period with the chip lead. From there I maintained the lead almost wire to wire, never dropping below 15th spot and winning 4 huge coinflips vs other top 10 players including the last hand.

Total investment in this tournament, $93. Total investment trying to qualify this year - too scary to add up.

The tournament starts July 28th in Las Vegas.