WSOP Trip report, Huck, Phil and of course me.

[ohkanada]

This is the 2nd year I took a trip to Vegas during the WSOP. Last year I played one of the 1500 NL events.

My 1st event was the 2k NL event on June 28th. 1072 players attempted to win nearly 1/2 million. The only known player at my 1st table was Juha Helppi who won the Aruba WPT in 2002. Adrenaline was running high and although I had a plan for the tourney, I made a few poor decisions (too aggressive) in the 1st round which cut my stack almost in half within 15 minutes of the start of the tourney.

In the 2nd round, my stack had wilted to 550, when someone open raised and Juha called. I pushed with AKs and was called in 2 places. I flopped a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw and caught my gutshot on the river to beat out AQ. That brought me back to my starting stack. I also had QQ in round 2 but only won the blinds.

In round 3, Jason Lester replaced one of the players. I open raised UTG with TT and Lester called in the blinds. I caught a set but unfortunately he caught nothing and mucked to my bet.

When the blinds raised to 100-200, my stack of 1800 was lagging behind. Lester open raised in mid-position and I pushed with 99. He called and had TT. I turned a set, but Lester hit his 2-outer and I was knocked out somewhere in the middle of 1072 players.

My 2nd event was the 3k NL event on July 1st. 1010 players attempted to win nearly 3/4 million. I didn’t recognize anyone at my opening table. A guy who placed 6th or 7th in the 2k event was at the table as was someone who claimed to have backed Josh Ariel for a few years (but not last year). After my terrible 1st round in the 2k event I made a few changes with my play. I took an extra few seconds on every decision. Normally I have a fairly quick pace and make quick decisions but decided to slow things down and make sure I thought things through. No real decisions in the 1st round so things started fine.

In the 2nd round, I picked up QQ and later flopped a set with 77, but couldn’t get any action on either hand. My stack was up to 3600 so I was doing fine.

In the 3rd round, I picked up AK three times and either raised or reraised with them and had my stack up to 4300.

My opening table closed in the 4th round and I got moved to a table with Phil Hellmuth, Paul Wolfe and someone I saw make the money in the 6-handed NL event that Doyle won. One guy at this table had a hat that said “IM ALL IN”. This was a good name for him. He had a pretty good stack and Wolfe open raises in early position and IM ALL IN, went all-in. Wolfe mucked and showed 77. IM ALL IN showed AK. A few hands later, Wolfe open raises again. IM ALL IN goes all-in again. Phil “hollywoods” about his hand and eventually mucks. Another player also takes a long time, and says to the IM ALL IN guy “If you have Aces, you played it terribly”. He then calls with JJ. Wolfe mucks QQ face up and sure enough IM ALL IN has AA and wins a big pot. Everyone had a good laugh at the JJ guy. Phil claimed to have TT that hand. I open-raised with 88 and folded to IM ALL IN guys all-in raise. That time he showed AK. Hellmuth is quite an active player. He open-raised 4 times in a row but his stack shrunk from maybe 5k to less then 2k when our table broke. He was calling the guy who made the money in the 6-handed event a donkey for the way he was playing. Very funny! He was upset when the table broke because he was convinced he would get that guys stack.

My next table had Huck Seed and Tom McEvoy. I was really only on this table for 4 or 5 hands before it broke. The 1st hand I arrived, Huck was losing a huge pot when he had 99 and someone else had JJ. Huck still had chips and open-raised on the next hand to 600 (blinds 100-200) in early position. Guy to my right makes it 1500 and Huck calls. Flop is Q87 ( 2 diamonds). Huck moves in and the other player beats him in the pot and tells Huck that he is dead. He spoke too soon. Huck had 95 of diamonds and the other player has QQ. Huck hits his gutshot, survives the river and wins a monster pot.

My stack was staying near the 3k mark during these past 2 tables. When I was moved to my final table, I knew I needed to find something and double up. There were lots of big stacks so the potential for doubling was good. I picked up the blinds a few times but never found a decent pair. I did get 77 in late position and mucked to a raise and a cold call. I probably should have pushed but at the time didn’t realize the cold caller was a complete donkey. The donkey had a big stack and was raising very liberally. One hand that the table was befuddled at was a hand he limped. There was 4 way action. Flop was KKJ. Pro to my right bets and donkey calls. Turn is another J. Pro bets and donkey calls. River is a blank and the same action occurs. Pro flips up Jx. Donkey flips up K7. When asked why he didn’t raise on the river, Donkey claimed he was worried about AK. My final hand happened when a reasonably short stack moved all-in with 88. I found AK and with 3200 and blinds of 150-300 (25), I called. I flopped a nut flush draw and overs but it wasn’t meant to be. I finished roughly 280th out of 1010.

So in the 2 tournies I played about 10 hours and had 2 big pairs (both QQ). I did flop 2 sets but opponents didn’t have anything either time. I should have taken a few more risks and maybe tried to steal a few more blinds although my tables in the 2nd tourney were fairly aggressive and there were not many blinds left to steal.

I will post a separate Vegas report about the rest of my Vegas trip in the B&M forum in the next day or so.

Ken

[BruinEric]

Thanks for the interesting read.

[MortalWombat]

[ QUOTE ]
There was 4 way action. Flop was KKJ. Pro to my right bets and donkey calls. Turn is another J. Pro bets and donkey calls. River is a blank and the same action occurs. Pro flips up Jx. Donkey flips up K7. When asked why he didn’t raise on the river, Donkey claimed he was worried about AK.

[/ QUOTE ]Yeah, those kickers will come back to bite you when you hit your boat. Did everyone just stare at him for about 45 seconds with their mouths open after he said that?

[canis582]

Good report. Too bad you forgot to bring your luck box with you.

[Steve Chase]

nice report.
thanks for taking time to write it up for us.

[ohkanada]

Maybe not 45 seconds, but certainly we were all wondering whats up!

I believe the pro was Minh Nguyen and he claims he wouldn't have called a raise anyways.

Ken

p.s.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that in the 1st tourney, the 2 decks of cards at our 1st table were missing cards. For the 2nd deck, one of the players pointed out the missing card. The dealer did not notice the missing one. Fortunately it was caught.

[LetYouDown]

How did he notice a missing card? I can see how they'd notice two of the same card, but I'd be interested to know how he managed to notice that.

[ohkanada]

They spread a new deck faceup on the table. Since the cards have not been shuffled and are in order, pretty simple to do.

Ken

[LetYouDown]

Gotcha, thought you meant during play.

[Scooterdoo]

Nice report and funny story about the guy being scared of AK when he already made the full house. I was playing a $200 heads-up match on Pokerstars today and had AT. There was a lot of betting on every street and the board finally showed TJQKA with no flush possibilities. I was first to act and pushed just for the heck of it. My opponent folded with about 1/3 of all the chips in the center. Can you believe that!