I’m back from the WSOP so I figured I’d write up a trip report. No pictures though because my digital camera, which is now 4 years old, has some problems and my phone’s camera kinda sucks too. Time to upgrade.
I got in on the evening of June 8th and promptly got lost getting to my hotel a couple of blocks east of the strip. There’s a ton of roadwork going on all hours of the day which is probably the most annoying thing about Las Vegas. Flamingo from the Strip to Paradise is completely tore up and closed down to one lane at night, the interstate to Henderson has some lane closures, and even some side road next to the Rio that I was on once to avoid rush hour traffic was being worked on.
The first event I played in was the $1500 shootout. The WSOP this year started with triple chips but the structures on some events were modified. Overall, though, events were a tad slower than in previous years. If you know me you know I love fast structures with short stacks, but even with the structure changes the $1500 seemed to go by too fast for me. Nobody notable was at my table and everyone was pretty bad. I caught every person open limping at least twice, but could never get anything going and lost my first flip, 99 < AK to bust during the third level.
A couple of days later though, I sweated JCarver when he made the final table of the event. Got to meet gobboboy, mlagoo, Adam Junglen, ActionJeff, Unamuno, EC10, and Psyduck, amongst others. I think the 50k HORSE event was on the final two tables, so both the feature and secondary featured table (they are adjacent to each other) were being used for that, which relegated the shootout final table to a nearby table that didn’t have much room on the rail. After a level or two the HORSE event went down to one table and the shootout got moved over. JCarver got 2nd and didn’t really have much of a chance once it got heads up as his opponent had pretty much steamrolled everyone and had a massive chip lead, something around to 10:1. Big congrats to Jason for shipping about $200k in that though.
I’ve been thinking of moving to Vegas for a while now, and so the next week I checked out Panorama Towers, where a ton of poker players live. It’s a very nice place. Gated access, valet, movie theaters in each tower, exercise rooms, pool, great views, etc. You have to rent through real estate agents, so MTC got me in contact with his current agent and we toured the place. No 1-bedroom condos were available to look at, so I just got to see a couple of 2-bedroom places and tour the grounds. I went back a few weeks later when I could see a 1-bedroom place and saw a small one that I didn’t want, and a larger one that was just perfect. Too bad it wasn’t available, sigh.
Unamuno and MTC both made it deep in the $10k heads up event, so I sweated them starting with the round of eight. Actually MTC busted by the time I got there, and Johnny Chan was playing vs someone for the last spot in the final four, but Leo had won so I stuck around for that. He eventually won his final four match, versus the guy who beat Johnny Chan. The plan was to play through the best-of-three final match that night but delayed it until the next day because it was midnight. A ton of people showed up for it, with very little rail space, and the match took forever. Leo’s opponent was John Duthie, who created the EPT and is a well known figure in poker in Europe. Some of the Hendon Mob as well as Andy Black were there sweating Ross Boatman who had made a final table nearby, and when he got knocked out of that they started sweating Duthie. However all the internet kids were there sweating Leo. Even lilholdem showed up to sweat a while. He’s much more well spoken in real life than he is online. The first match lasted 100 hands and Duthie won, the second match took fewer than 10 hands before Leo won, and the third match went 200 hands, and Leo won a bracelet. So sick. After the second match they agreed to chop $450k and play for 100k and the bracelet, so he shipped $550k. He also got a lot of press because of his law background and the fact that he’s here in Vegas doing work for the ACLU and could only really play events on the weekends.
The next event I played in was the $5000 shootout. The structure was a bit deeper and slower than the $1500, which I definitely preferred. Unfortunately, there were actually notables at my table this time: Nick Binger, Isaac Haxton, and Scott Seiver. I know Ike and Scott are good friends, and were backing a lot of people in events. MTC even talked to them about backing me in some stuff, but they ran out of backing money. So, they obviously are very familiar with each other. This led to some interesting spots where we would all be involved in a pot and I’d end up tossing the best hand when one would bet and the other would call and somehow my weak 2nd or 3rd pair would have been good. Hasan Habib was also at my table but he showed up very late and lost QQ < AQ to Seiver and was gone.
After a while I kept hovering between push/fold and slightly above push/fold stack size. When it was down to 4 players it was me, Isaac, Scott, and a local guy. I doubled through Scott twice, with KQs > ATo, and AA > TT, then Isaac busted to the local. I then busted Scott, AA > A6, and was heads up versus the local with about a 4:1 chip disadvantage. I was still in that push/fold mode for most of the time heads up because I had 10-15bb or so. In probably 100 hand I must have pushed on this guy like 40 times but he would never call. He also open folded his sb only twice, and limped it the other 90% of the time. Eventually he does call, and fortunately for me I have AKs, but he has AA and I’m gone.
I spent most of the next 10 days in bed with pretty bad allergy problems, but it finally cleared up a couple of days before the main event. I registered on the Friday that the main event started and then hit up the Pokerpalooza displays they have near the poker rooms. JCarver works for PokerVT, and I’m a member there even though I haven’t ever really used my account, oops. But that was where ultimatemike and a couple other goons were hanging out so I went there for a few hours before crashing.
When I first decided to play some events it was just going to be the two shootouts and that was it. JCarver told me to play the main event because it’s the softest tournament of the year, but I wasn’t sure if anyone would back me for it. Thanks to StefanProdan, EC10, and Unamuno buying the majority of my action, though, I was able to play it. Unfortunately for them and me I got an incredibly tough table draw.
There were several PokerStars Supernova Elites at my table, including on my immediate left and immediate right. Urindanger (Di Dang) was also at my table, and he struck up a chat with one of the other players and they reminisced about playing 25/50 on Party five years ago. Nobody was over 30, everyone was pretty good. Most people were tight but not afraid to play back.
Jeff Lisandro was at an adjacent table, so he got some camera time, especially since he won 3 bracelets this year. 2008 final tablist Dennis Phillips was nearby as well, complete with trucker fan contingent and trucker horn sounding off during level 1. The call of “shuffle up and deal” was given by Barney Frank, and during the day I saw Norman Chad and Lon McEachern walking around. In Lon’s case it was on crutches due to knee surgery. I also got to see Phil Hellmuth’s entrance, which was pretty retarded.
During the first few levels of the main event I was really card dead except for a ton of pocket pairs, none of which ever flopped anything. We started with 30k at 50/100 and I was down to 23k pretty quickly, then back up to 30k by the end of the second level. Right before the end of the third level, and dinner break, I lost about half my remaining stack. After coming back one of the SNEs, Richard “Tzen” Veenman, a limit grinder from the Netherlands, busted. I figured the table would get easier at this point, but his replacement is Adam Junglen. During the 4th level I 3bet urindanger’s CO open with AKs. I have slightly more than a PSB after he calls, so I jam on a Q52r flop and he calls with AQo and that’s the end of me.
Despite not doing shit in WSOP events, I enjoyed the trip. Bad Beats Crew members have about $1m in cashes this WSOP, and ultimatemike is still in the main event and in the money so good luck to him. I didn’t get to grind at all, but now that I’m back in Austin I am going to tear it up. If things go right I’ll be moving to Vegas at the end of August. It would be very nice not to have to put my life on hold for 1-2 months for the WSOP every year and being so close to a bunch of other poker players I know, including BBC members, should be fun as well.
