Posts Tagged ‘live tournament’

I started to title this blog something about getting eliminated or finishing in 53rd place but that’s an awfully pessimistic way of looking at it. I just won $160,000. I cashed in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker for the fifth time in six years, a feat that I’m told is unmatched in poker history. Perhaps more impressively, I’ve been in the top 100 three times in the last four years. I suppose that was an easy feat in the early days of the WSOP, but the average field size in the years I did it was over 6000.

On Day 1, I bet third pair for value on the river and got paid off. On Day 2, I called a turn check-raise all-in with an underpair to the board in a 3-bet pot, and I was right… until the river. On Day 3, I rode out a day-long run of bad cards without getting frustrated and doing anything (too) stupid. On Day 4 I induced a player to 5-bet his A9o all-in against my QQ. On Day 5, I had one of the best tournament players in the world on my left but even from out of position I kept him on his toes all day. On Day 6, I called three bets with Ace-high, and I was right. I almost called a flop check-raise all-in with Ace-high, and that would have been right too. On Day 7, I flipped a coin for hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity, lost, felt virtually no disappointment, and displayed even less.  Read the complete post...

Just a quick update to say that I survived the day with a little shy of 1.6 million chips. I think that’s a touch above average. In some ways it wasn’t a real significant day. I won a sizable pot early on with a set vs. an overpair, but other than that I was mostly trading medium pots back and forth.

I knew that a lot was going to hinge on what happened with Christian Harder, who started the day on my left with just 200K. If he busted, he was very likely to be replaced by someone less good, but if he ran up his stack, it was going to make the day tougher for me. Well, he ran up his stack. I put a little thought into how to keep him from making too much of his position, but overall I definitely had to adapt my game as a result of his being there.

I did a few interviews today as well. Here’s a piece from ESPN’s Gary Wise wrote, and here’s an interview with PokerStars.tv. I did one with Cardplayer as well, but I don’t think it’s up yet. I’ll try to get you a link when it is.  Read the complete post...

Thanks to Dana Rossi for posting this in the comments.

Deepak Bhatti	77,510	Pavilion / 42 / 1
Paul Farmer	77,700	Pavilion / 42 / 2
Ryan Hall	94,300	Pavilion / 42 / 3
Vladislav Varlashin	111,000	Pavilion / 42 / 4
Lonnie Heimowitz	90,000	Pavilion / 42 / 5
Nicholas Newport	49,800	Pavilion / 42 / 6
Andrew Brokos	137,900	Pavilion / 42 / 7
Fabrizio Gonzalez	157,500	Pavilion / 42 / 8
Nathaniel Wachtel	161,300	Pavilion / 42 / 9

Not thrilled with the table, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be breaking the Pavilion tables first, so shouldn’t be stuck there all day. As Dana points out, the bigger stacks are to my left, and they appear to be mostly internet pros.

Just published, thanks to Kevmath for getting this out in the Twittersphere so quickly!

Sorel Mizzi 47900 – ie imperium ie famous multi-accounter and also frontrunner for last year’s player of the year
Andres Rodrigues 24125
Lauchlin McKinnon 35100
Claudio Rinaldi 63900
Russel Rosenblum 36975 – final tabled the main event in 2002, also played at my Day 6 table last year, pretty solid
Andrew Brokos 62475
Riekushein Wijermars 44500
Marc Wehrenberg 10200
Jason Newburger 33175

Those are the only two I recognize. I’ll be doing some research later today, but of course any info provided by enterprising blog readers would be most appreciated!

I’m about to leave for the airport, and it occurs to me that I haven’t actually posted about my Main Event plans! I’ll be at the 2+2 party tonight and then playing my first day on July 9th, Day 1C. I’m in Vegas until at least the 12th, hopefully longer, so please let me know if you’re in town. I don’t have a lot of plans past the 9th.

Despite the record-setting turnout in the preliminary events, I’m predicting a smaller main event than we’ve seen in recent years. I think the influx at the prelims is largely due to relatively serious American players who in past years skipped the prelims to play online but this year didn’t have that option. I believe most of the players were already playing in the Main Event, so there won’t be the same surge of new players. Add to that the lack of online satellites for US players and I expect to see fewer than 6000 this year. Of course I hope to be proven wrong.

I know the Twitter account hasn’t been too active lately, but now is a good time to start following @thinkingpoker, because there will be plenty to say while I’m in Vegas.

Wish me luck and stay tuned!

Andrew busted at EPT Madrid shortly after the dinner break Day 1A.

I expect he’ll post a more thorough recounting tomorrow, but he did have a Spanish friend relay the busto hand info for me to share -

It was shortly after dinner break, with blinds at 300/600, Andrew had around 45.000.

Young aggro player with big stack opened to 1400 UTG+1, then UTG+2 called, and MP1 3-bet to 4200.

Andrew 4-bet to 14,000 from the CO with AK suited, and it got folded around to the 3-bettor, who called.Then flop came AQx, the other guy openshoved for around 30,000 (close to the pot size), Andrew called and the guy had QQ for a set of queens.

Thanks Nicolás!

Didn’t get the table draw until the very last minute, but here it is:

1 Richard Woodall 81,000
2 Andrew Brokos 30,800
3 Mario Nagel 18,600
4 Douglas Johnson 33,000
5 George Kalaitzis 37,000
6 Mike Beasley 34,300
7 Cliff Josephy 32,100 (JohnnyBax)
8 Chris Bonita 24,500
9 Tony Cousineau 9,400

I know a lot of you have seen these already, but I promised a few people big clear links in the body of a blog post, so here we go:

Poker News Video Interview

Poker News Hand Analysis

Let me explain for the record why I am wearing the ridiculous backwards hat in the video. I’d been wearing a hat all day, which I usually do when playing poker. They wanted me to take it off because the brim was casting a shadow over my face, but I had awful hat hair. So we compromised on a backwards hat.