back from WPT cruise

[sawil]

Hi all,

Got back last night from the P* carib adventure. Had a great time on the cruise. I went out of the big tourney about 90th to Hoyt Corkins ... he cracked my PP when he turned 2 pr after all-in pre flop with his 7 9 off /images/graemlins/frown.gif

Played several SnG and faired quite well. Also played some PL and gave some back. Quite a learning experience, I'll post some specific hands etc. against the big guys if you all are interested ( last half of 1st day was with the likes of Howard Lederer, 55Lucky55, Jeff Rothstien, etc.).

One quick tourney hand early on ... I think it was 3rd or 4th hand played ... little preflop action 3 way with the board looking Ad 8c Ac ... 200 bet, fold, and 1 caller. heads up, turn is As. 200 bet and call. river is a blank. Same guy bets 200 and gets called. First guy shows KK for Aces full of kings .... and second guy shows A 2 off for QUADS!!! When the bettor asked why didnt you raise? He said " "was scared of my kicker /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif /images/graemlins/confused.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif ... best line of the week /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[JayLeno]

And what was that guy doing there - I thought the cruise was only with professionels?

[eMarkM]

C'mon, don't tease us, give us a real trip report!!

[sawil]

Hey eMarkM,

I'll give more detail once I get settled in at the home front. I got a fresh 6" of snow to push around here!

[sawil]

Poker* did an excellent job (as expected) with the poker room, tourney, etc. Had a nice cabin with balcony and lots of poker stars goodies, shirts, hats, watch, etc. I had Alex, the captain of South Africa's HU team in one cabin next to me and Danny, the captian of Costa Rica's team in the other side. These teams met in the finals with Costa Rica winning the HU world championship.

The first day, they had the World Cup HU matches starting and several ring games and SnG tourneys, with a couple of sat. to the main event going on. I watched the 200/400 mixed game for about 45 min. with the likes of Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch(sp), etc. Ivey was tearing them up. I played 1 $30 SnG and 2 $100 SnG, cashing in all of them. /images/graemlins/grin.gif
They had 28 tables in a conference room with food and drink. They were usually open until about 3 or 4 AM.

First day of WPT tourney
We all started with T7500 and blinds of 50/100 and 75 min rounds. No familiar faces at my table, more of a deer staring in headlights look from most of the players. I was in seat 1 and decided to play extra tight at first to get a feel for my table. Play seemed somewhat typical ... seat 2 was LAG, seat 3 and 4, weak passive. Rest had solid play so far. I got a free look at the flop from BB with J9off. Board came 7 8 10 with 2 clubs. I bet 200 into a 350 pot and everyone folds ... I get AhKh in BB and min reraise a MP player who folds. I got quite a few small to medium PP but never could hit a flop with them. Was able to steal a couple of times. I think my early tight play set this up nicely. I only played about 12 -15 hands the first 1.5 hours. I then got QdQh in EP. I raise 5xBB and get 3 callers including both blinds. Flop A J 10 with 2 spades and fold to a bet and reraise. Right before dinner break, I try to mix it up a bit. (i've been playing quite tight thus far). I play 7 8 suited and make 2 pair on turn only to lose to a rivered strait. Dinner break comes and I have T6800.

Right after dinner, our table breaks, and I get moved to table 6 with the likes of 55Lucky55, Howard Lederer, Jeff Rothstien and a couple more seasoned looking tourney players. Top stack at table was an older guy with T20K, everyone else at T10K or less. Not many flops seen at this table with healthy PF raising and eveybody folding. Interestingly, if there was a caller, the play from the flop on seemed VERY weak and passive. Sometimes they would check down to the showdown. If someone did make a play after the flop it was very agressive. 55Lucky55 called a short stacked all-in with QdJd and rivered a flush beating the guys KK. After this, he got very agressive preflop raising quite a few times (I'd say 1 in 3 hands). With blinds 150/300 and 25 ante, he raises T1000. I hold AKo in BB and move all in, he quickly folds. The very next hand I call a T800 raise from SB with AsJh. Flop is K J 7 all spades!! I wanted to bet here but decided to check hoping for a free look at the turn. My opponent moves in for about T7k after looking quite disgusted at the board. I fold my mid pair nut flush draw, but it was quite hard. Later this guy told me he had 77 for bottom set. A conversation starts about some of th wild and crazy play people have been experiencing at other tables. Howard is quite vocal about some of the beats he has seen. Not really mad, just quite talkitive. I share the story of the guy with quads aces worried about his 2 kicker and that starts him off on several similar high stakes stories. Quite entertaining. Then I wondered ... is he trying to relax everyone here and mesmerize us with his stories for some type of advantage? Twice I see him make a hefty reraise PF only to lay it down to an all in. One instance ...
A LP short stack of about T 6k raises T800 and HL in BB reaises 2k to T2800. Short stack moves all-in and HL folds? Resteal attempt I guess?!? What could he have had to raise that much and then fold? The last round I was dealt AA three times!! Always in EP to MP. I would make a moderate raise only to have everyone fold. Just could'nt get any action with my bullets. I almost limped once but was scared to death the BB would flop 2 pair or something. Couldnt get any value for my premium hands. Although I was up to about T12k, by the end of the first day, I had T9500. We lost about 100 players the first day and some big names were gone (Chris$maker, Phil Ivey) and some big names in the lead (Chris Ferguson, Daniel N, Andy Bloch). I feel I let some opportunities slip by playing too tight. There were several times I would have made a strong hand and taken a sizable pot if I would have loosened up a bit. I think in order to be sucessful in these tourneys, you have to willing to gamble it up and go broke in order to live longer and not play with such a desperate stack.

I was a bit below average stack and decided I would need to take some chances early on the next day. Gotta go right now, I'll type more later. I'm a slow typer and my fingers are going to fall off. CYA

[Stew]

Good stuff, can't wait for the next report.

Thanks!

[sawil]

Can anyone tell me how to cross post this in the tourney forum? I'd like to post it there too without retyping ... I'm sure it's easy, just get me started ... thanx

[Stew]

You've got a couple of options.

Either copy and paste the whole text. Or you could just copy and paste the shortcut to the thread in the forum.

[eMarkM]

Now that's more like it /images/graemlins/wink.gif. Can't wait for the next report.

curtains and gotmilk, we want to hear from you, too!

[curtains]

There is picture of me on website ...

http://www.pokerstars.com/PCAday3.html

8th one down....the one with the suit and glasses that they title "dapper poker player"

Lost a little money on ship but then got 2nd place in $100 NL tournament while staying in a Miami motel for 7k :-)

[rusty JEDI]

Curtains......Was the cel phone really needed? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[CrackerZack]

They had single table tourneys on the ship? Live? Like when 10 people wandered into the room and decided on a $30+3 SnG it started? If so, that's cool.

[sawil]

[ QUOTE ]
They had single table tourneys on the ship? Live?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, they had a big sign up board that you could put your name on for varoius ring games and 1 table tourneys. They also had a few people wander in and asked what was going on and they sat them down at a table and taught them the basics. Lee Jones was signing his book and passing it out too.

[t_perkin]

I don't see much of a stack there either /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[Gotmilk]

Like sawil said, Pokerstars did a very good job (big time difference between cruise and Aruba. UltimateBet did a decent job, Pokerstars spared no expense and everything was almost perfect). On the first night of action I played a s upersatellite that paid 5 seats, we got to 7 remaining and each took $6000 (with the two as of yet unqualified players ponying up $2000 to buy their seats). Cash games were far looser than I expected based on the typical Pokerstars game, all the $10/$20 I played was great action. My girlfriend was a sit and go killer, she won two of them, however whenever she busted out she looked as if she was going to cry.

The Main Event:

DAY 1

First day was mostly uneventful, I lost a pot here and there and won a pot here and there. I doubled up towards the end of the night when I rasied to 400 with Ac7c (75/150 blinds) and the small blind made it 1000 to go. I called ( I started the hand with 6800) and we took the flop heads up. Flop was JcTc8d. He led 1500 at the pot, and I moved all-in. He thought for a while and called and flipped QdQs (or maybe two other queens not containing the Qc). Turn was a blank, caught the 9c on the river. I just wish that he had KK so I'd have been a slight favorite instead of a slight dog! Anyhow I finished day 1 in the 14000s

DAY 2
I start with Hoyt Corkins on my right and don't recognize other faces at the table. Again no real significant hands, at some point I raise with 7s and get reraised a modest amount by a fairly shortstack. I call, the flop is rags, I set him in and he folds. I was up to around 17k when two holes at our table are filled by Daniel Negreanu (to my left) and John Hyung (3 spots to my left). Needless to say in this whipsaw I play very tight, tight enough to get respect the couple times I move all in and when this table finally breaks with an hour and a half to play in the night I find myself with $28k (high water was $32k or so). At the new table there are a couple huge stacks...Andy Bloch was pushing 100k and WestTexasMan had a bunch of chips also. After being blinded off for a few rounds I make a dumb move, reraising WestTexasMan from $2500 to $6500 in my small blind (I felt like I had to do something sometime) and when he moved all in I folded. Blinded off some more, I was around $18k when a $10K stack opened for 1700 UTG (blind 400/800 ante 100 or something like that). On the button everyone folded and I made it 3700 with KK. He calls and flop Comes AK4 rainbow. He moves all-in for 5600, I call and he flips QTs. Jack immediately, no help on river and I'm in bad shape. I blind off some (miss a couple chances to double up if I had a stronger right hand...they would be lucky of course Ax hitting aces to beat better hands...but maybe I shoulda been gambling while doubling up still meant something), finish the night at 4200 good for a tie with Brad Daugherty for last place.

DAY 3

I win my first hand by drawing the button. Fold everything to my big blind where K7o was the best hand I had seen. UTG had raised, everyone folded, I called. ATo for UTG. Flop K66. Turn Q. River J. Nice hand sir. I go and sign up for the $300+$20 Omaha HL tournament (Where with 6 players left I would proceed to lose a $41000 pot on the river, with $75,000 total chips in play :-( )


OK so I had a nice and profitable trip...I'm waiting for the tourney where I get super-lucky and just never lose a hand ever no matter what :-).

[curtains]

Cell phone was simply used as a timekeeper - so I knew how much time there was until the next round.
Also my stack is bigger than it looks at that time...it was about 6000-6500.....this was right before end of the first day. The next day built it up to 20k before disaster struck.