Thursday, June 09, 2005

Vegas Diary Part Deux

Day 2

Down to business. $2500 Short handed (6 per table) No limit Hold'em.

Now, when discussing this event with "Bad Beat" Channing he made a very good point.

Seemingly every player had been strutting round the Rio saying: "Yep, this short handed game is the one I've really been looking forward to. It will really suit me as I'm so aggressive." We had not heard anyone saying "I'm not playing this event, I'm a rock and much prefer the 11 handed game".

I rarely make a battle plan before I start a tournament. It is too dependant on factors such as who the other players on my table are, whetrher I get off to a fast start, whether I'm on tilt or not and how many beers I've consumed.

But, on Tuesday I decided if everyone was going to play like Gus Hansen on speed I would try and do the opposite. We were given alot of chips in proportion to the starting blinds ($2500 and $25/$25 respectively) so the plan I hatched was nto sit back and try and do some serious trapping.

In order for the master to be successful it needed a couple of loose cannons on my right. And there was! 2 Septic Tank "uber pro's" (copyrite N Channing) who insisted on raising every pot. Now, all I had to do was find a hand to catch them with...

I did get the boots early but succeeded in winning in winning a very tiny pot as I slow played them and it came a very scary board and it went check check through the later streets.

Then just before the first break my opportunity arose. Bottle blond Yank makes it 200 to go on the button (blinds now 25-50) I call on the sb with AJ. Flop comes: J72. I check (obviously) and he fires out 400. Call. Turn card is a 4. I check raise him all in. He has to call about 1400 into a 3 grand pot. He does without blinking his eyes and shows 78. And obviously he hits. Wanker.

Andy Black, the poker player turned monk from that TV prog a few years ago, was on my left. He played absolutely beautifully and had a wagon load of chips by the time I exited. Really nice bloke, I was funking for him to go deep in the event.

I was decidedly tiltyafter being knocked out so I decided to retire to my room for a kip. Well, the laptop obviously was positioned in the way of my kingsize and I settled down for a couple of hours of PokerStars action.

There must be some deep psychological reason for the fact I nearly always win on Stars when I'm away from home. (If that doesn't bokk myself, nothing will!).

If playing 15 heads up matches sounds sad, it's because it probably is, but in my defence 90% of my matches are completed in level 1 so it only took about 3 hours to compile a record of 5-0 in $210's, 7-2 in $520's and 1-0 in $210 stud hilo's. Don't ask me why I played a stud hilo heads up match. I can't answer you. I promise I will never play another one so I will be able say with complete certainty that like baccarat (also 1 bet, 1 win about 15 years ago) I am ahead lifetime at the game. So, there.

I was absolutely knackered after these travails so I did the sensible thing: got a taxi back to the Rio for the $225 late night tournament. I found a flyer with 10 reasons why you should play this event. After all the boring reasons, a cheap way of winning a WSOP event, manageable buyin, fast structure etc the last reason made me giggle. They said, the event fiunishes so late, it will be very unlikely anyone you owe money to will be around to see the conclusion if you cop!

My heart wasn't really in it, and I busted out in level 3.

I watched a bit of the omaha hilo final. I hate watching poker at the best of times but this must be the most boring spectator event of all. The action is totally inpenetrable. I gave Jeff Duvall a bit of vocal support along with a couple of other diehards: Gary Jones and Rory Liffey. But, I couldn't keep my eyes open and left them 4 handed with Jeff in second place. He eventually came 3rd for a $77 grand payday. A great result for a good guy.

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