WSOP 2006 - TP's Updates...

[Talking Poker]

So... I played online for a bit yeserday, having to set up and customize PT, PAH, etc on my laptop - what a pain. I was down early, but ended the session a winner, thanks mostly to Suckout #3 (of my last nearly 7000 hands). I'll post that one later with some others I've set aside.

I drove down to the Rio in the mid afternoon. Did I mention how hot it is here in Vegas??? It was 111. And my rental car's AC sucks. It usually starts to cool off (to like a cool 98 or so inside the car, if I had to guess) about the time I'm pulling into the Rio parking lot.

Anywa, I bounced around the Expo thingee for a while, got some more free loot, and then went to the Poker Players Alliance thing. They had free food (I didn't eat) and drinks (I drank). Speakers included Ferguson, Lederer, Raymer, and the dude who runs the PPA. If you guys aen't members yet, you really should be. It's $20, and they even send ou a nice tshirt:

At 7:30, I met 2Tone at the Irish Kilt bar in the Rio, as planned. Lightfungush and his frind Rob showed up a while later, and Zybomb sent a few text messages saying he was running late. Running late turned into standing us up - jerk! hehe... Anyway, we had a nice time chatting, drinking, and eating.

The four of us then went down to check out the Main Event, and Rob left us. We got on the list for some cash games ($4/8 limit for 2 Tone, and $2/5 NL for fungus and me). After a good 45 minute wait (ugh) we finally sat down.

Stupid me only had $600 in his wallet, so I bought in for the max. After folding every hand for two orbits, I lipmed in from the button out of boredeom with T6s. One of the blinds raised (to $20), another guy called, and I called. The flop came 234 with 2 spades. The SB bet $45, the other guy called and I called. The turn was a blank and it checked around. The river was a K and they both checked again. I bet $120, the SB folded and the other guy called with KQ. Well, that play didn't quite work.... just bad timing, but an annoying start.

I reloaded for my last $100, and continued to not win a single hand for a while. I took a walk to find an ATM so I could reload properly, and it had a $31.99 fee on a $500 withdraw!!! No thanks - I'll play short stacked, even though I hate it.

Well, eventually, after taking a beat or two but mostly being card dead, I get 64s in the SB. I flop a 4 and 2 hearts and bet. One caller. The turn gives me a flush and I bet again, and he calls gain. The river pairs the board and I check/call, and sure enough, he shows me a bigger flush. This left with with a whopping $55 in my stack.

I literally laughed and said it would be stupid for me to stay, but then I jokingly said I'd play until the BB (why not, right?), expecting to get AA and double up to a whopping $110. Ohhhhh....

Well, first hand on the button, I limp in after a few others with QT. The flop comes Qxx, I check raise all in and get no callers. The next hand, I am dealt AA. Are you kidding me??? There is a raise preflop, I reraise, the button and original aiser both call. The flop is 3 rags, it checks to me and I push in. The button calls and the other guy folds. the button shows KK! I double up.

The very next hand, I call a raise from the CO with KQ. The flop is QQx with 2 spades and the raiser bets. I call. The turn is a K - he checks and I check, hoping he'll catch a flush or something on the river. The river is a J and he bets about half of his stack, so I push in and he calls, showing JJ for Jacks full of Queens. I flip of my Queens full of Kings and actually take his entire stack, as I had him covered. Note that this was THREE HANDS IN A ROW from when I almost left with $55.

The very next hand, I continue to play my rush and limp in with T9. I end up flopping an open ended straight draw AND a T high flushdraw (with a Q on the board), but I let it go on the turn, because I'm all but certain he has a bigger heart than me and I don't have nearly as many outs as it looks like. He later told me he had KK with the Kh, meaning I had 6 outs, and not 15. Good fold. The rush is over, but I'm back to having a reasonable stack, in the $400ish range.

I play for another hour or so, and finally leave a bit after 3 with..... $602, for a sweet $2 profit! The Main Event was still going on when I left, so it looks like I can expect to be playing until about 3:30 AM Sunday night, give or take.

BTW - 2Tone left an $11 winner and fungusboy was up when I left him, so hopefully he had a nice session.

Ok, that was a long update.... More later. No poker or alcohol for me today, so don't expect anything too exciting from me. Tomorrow is the big day!!!

[Brijac]

Sitting here at work at 4pm on a Saturday, I am daydreaming about watching you kick ass tomorrow. Good Luck!

[BrianSwa]

great updates, thanks for this and for last years updates Mark and gl dude. I might be there next year on vacation with family to watch you repeat

[Talking Poker]

Time for today's update...

First, an addendum from yesterday: I forgot to tell you guys I bumped into Isabelle and we chatted for a few minutes. She's playing on Monday and was headed to "the mountains" today, to get away from everything for a bit. I told her to drink lots of water.

I played online for about an hour today, four tabling $2/$4 NL at Full Tilt - Four tabling on my laptop is not particularly fun, btw. I needed to play one more day (earning 200+ points) this month to qualify for their Gold freeroll next month, so I figured I'd get that out of the way today. After some sick hands, I ended up down a bit, but no worries. At one point, I flopped a set of 7s on one table and trip 9s on another. The set ended up losing to a flush and the trip 9s lost to the oh so annoying bigger full house, when the board paired the overcard (99T flop), which my opponent was naturally holding (AT). Ah yes, I do love the three outers.

Anyhoo, back to Vegas. The first thing I did today was go out and buy some new shoes. I got a pair of Merells that I really like. I had never even heard of them, but they are apparently very popular. They are sneaker style shoes, but made for hiking, which I fairly often back home. They are waterproof and also designed to keep your feet cool... they fit me better and cost less than all the other brands I tried on, so I'll be wearing these for duration of the Main Event. Comfortable shoes are a MUST.

After my big shopping spree, I headed down to the Rio and once again missed Zybomb, even though he was there. Dude's avoiding me, me thinks. In the UB VIP Suite, I got to talking to Krazy Kanuck (one of the UB Pros) for a minute... just small talk about when we each play (both tomorrow), etc. Anyhoo, it turns out his girlfriend Monica (I met her in Aruba and the Bahamas) won the $1000 tourney at the Bellagio last night! Well, she was part of the final chop anyway, pocketing over $37k. Nice! As I was congratulating her, Phil Hellmuth came over and hander her a pile of casino chips. I guess she's playing so good lately that he wanted to buy 20% of her. That's got to be pretty flattering. She won her way in on UB after winning an $11 qualifier to a super satellite. Well done!

They had the Amazon room (that's the name of the HUGE room where 2200+ people play poker) closed off to spectators today... well, sort of. You could get in if you waited in a huge line - no thanks. I walked to the front, told them I was going to play in a cash game, and got right in. I went to put my name on the list (even though I didn't know if I'd actually stick around and wait to get called), and instead of writing my name down, the girl with the pen pointed me to a table a few feet away. FINE - I'll play. No sooner did I buy in for $500 than did the Main Event players go on break. Steve (aka stolz in this forum) called me and told me where he was going to eat. I finished the orbit and left to join him and Linda for a while. I wasn't planning on eating, but Linda INSISTED (and I'm not even kidding) that I eat half of her sandwich and a bunch of her fries while Steve was telling me all about his day. These are seriously two of the coolest, nicest people I have ever met.

I stuck around for 45 minutes or so and then headed back to my cash game. No huge hands today, good or bad... I did miss one monster draw for a big pot, but I also got paid off when I was holding a nut flush with a five card straight on the board. Don't you just love when your opponent leads out at the river when you are holding the nuts? I actually did a little acting before raising his $50 bet to $150, and sure enough, he paid me off. I didn't play all that long, because I wanted to get out of there early and get a really good night's sleep tonight. I finished the session up $30. Ohhh - look at me go! First 2 bucks and now 30! I'm a machine.

I guess that's about it for today's update. I'm just getting caught up online right now, and then it's off to bed. As everyone knows by now, I start playing tomorrow at 12:00 (3 PM ET). I won my seat back in NOVEMBER of 2005, and all the waiting is finally over. I'll be text messaging Robbie Robb with updates throughout the day (mostly just chip counts as my stack changes significantly), and he'll be posting them here. Based on the number of people who will be playing, I highly doubt CardPlayer will be running my chips counts, but you never know... if I end up at a table with a big name player, you may see my name there, but otherwise, I'm thinking the updates from RR will be about it.

I'm not setting any specific goals for myself tomorrow, other than to play he absolute best poker I can play. And for what it's worth, I am totally ready. I'm feeling really good, which is very important going into a big tourney like this. Of course, even when you are feeling good, you can have a bad day (see Hellmuth today), but that's beyond your control.

Anyway, I know I just said I didn't have any specific goals for tomorrow, but I guess I do have one: I want to survive and make it to Day 2. I'd like to have about 45k chips at the end of the day, but that's not a "goal" - just something I'd be pretty happy with.

[Penguinfan]

I like the idea of not having a chip count goal, screw that. I have heard a few people say they want xxx amount to start day two or it's not worth it, BS.

Play EVERY hand the best you can, doesn't matter if you come back from 2000 chips or if you chip up to 100,000 the first day, as long as you have them all in the end. Obviously the 100K stack makes it easier but I guess I'm saying don't let a goal of 50K dictate your play at the beginning.

I don't know if you'll see this before you play today or not TP, but best wishes, I'm honestly rooting for you hard!

[Robbie Robb]

Well, hey, look at this way - with the $32 you're up from the cash games, you can now cover the juice on the ATM withdrawl!

[Penguinfan]

<snicker>

[Talking Poker]

Yeah, that ridiculous - the "it's not worth it" part. What, if you only have 5 BBs, it's not worth getting up and going to the Rio for a shot at $10 million??? On what is basically (at this point) a freeroll for you, since you've already paid?

Specific chip goals are fine, so long as you don't let them dictate your play. And since it's not really a goal if you don't work towards it, I agree that they are a bad idea. But I'll say again I'd liketo have 45k at the end of the day!

BTW, not this this will matter for anyone unless you are here in Vegas, but I will be at Table 56, Seat 8. I've scoped out the table, of course. I like the 8 seat on a table, but this one will have my back to the rail - not my first choice of where to be (people standing behind me, more body heat, etc), but I'll deal with it.

Time to get ready. Catch ya on the flop side of Day 1.

[left68wing]

Good Luck!