Posts Tagged ‘PCA’

During the second half of Day 1 of the PCA, I had a young, apparently very successful high-stakes cash game player on my left. I didn’t recognize his name or screenname, but he talked about playing 10/20 and 25/50 NLHE games on PokerStars and a 50/100 game here at Atlantis. He clearly had money to throw around, because several of the masseuses knew him by name, and he talked loudly and often about the thousands of euros he’d spent on massages.

In addition to all the bragging, he had a really condescending attitude towards everyone else at the table. A recreational player sucked out on him in a big pot and apologized. He laughed in the guy’s face for apologizing and sent a clear message: “I don’t care about the $10,000, and you’re a fish if you think a bad beat is something you need to apologize for.” When the same player later lost his stack on a questionable shove, the kid said to him, “That’s how you spend my chips?”

People like this used to really get under my skin, especially when they directed their attitude at me. It made me want to prove something to them, and sometimes it even intimidated me. They and other types of unpleasant people (angry people, whiners, degenerates) were a big part of what I didn’t enjoy about live poker.  Read the complete post...

47 1 Rudi Vanheeswijck 34.100

47 2 Sam Greenwood 90.100

47 3 Eric Mizrachi 58.000

47 4 Andrew Brokos 38.500

47 5 Greg Gokey 31.200

47 6 Corey Burbick 50.000

47 7 Micah Smith 141.100

47 8 Maria Panyak 39.700

47 9 Martin Debruhl 61.500

I think this is a typical PCA table, in that it looks good (i.e. no names I recognize) until I start googling names and realize I’m with a bunch of internet wizards. The three on my immediate left in particular have impressive CVs. I don’t know much about Eric Mizrachi, but I think he’s the one with glasses. We’re a little poor in chips, but that won’t be a barrier to me doubling up .

Edit: Fixed the suit of card (c) so it doesn’t match what’s in Hero’s hand. 

It’s Level 4 of the PCA. Hero is wearing his PokerStars Team Online patch, which in Villain’s eyes probably makes him a cash game grinder with minimal tournament experience. Villain is a young online MTT wizard: highly ranked on Pocket Fives, tons of success, modest live experience but certainly knows what he’s doing in any tournament situation. He’s new to the table in the last hour and neither he nor Hero has done anything remarkable in that time. With the exception of Villain and one other good but short-stacked player on Hero’s left, the table is reasonably soft, certainly above average for the field.

Blinds 100/200/25. Villain (13K) opens to 500 UTG+2. Two of the looser players (16K and 40K)  at the table call, and Hero (35K) calls Kc Ts in the BB.

Flop Qd Jd Th. Hero checks, Villain bets 1450 into pot of 2300, the other two fold, and the action is back on Hero. What’s your plan?

Just to focus the discussion a bit, let’s assume that if you raise, Villain will shove or fold. If you call, talk about how you’d proceed on each of the following turns:

a) 2s

b) Kh

c) Tc  Read the complete post...

I took plenty of notes for a full write-up, but for now I’ll just say that we started with 30K and I finished with 38.5K. I think the average is between 50 and 60, and blinds will be 500/1000/100 on Monday, so I’m in OK shape. I had two other PokerStars Team Online members at my table, first Bjorn Schneider on my left than Jorge Limon on my right. Other than Bjorn and a pretty good Dutch player my starting table was probably softer than average. By the end of the day we had Jorge and two other good high-stakes cash players, so it was pretty tough then.

I played a funny hand against one of them. Blinds were 400/800/100, and I opened to 2000 with K9s in the HJ. He called in the BB and check-called 2400 on a T55r flop. We both checked an 8 turn, then he bet 5600 on a T river. I wasn’t 100% sure he wouldn’t value bet an A, but I doubted it. I did think he was capable of floating out of position, and this was an ideal spot for it. So I called, and he showed A3 and seemed surprised to win the pot. “I was trying to bluff you off a chop” he told me. Lovely.  Read the complete post...

It’s a beautiful morning in the Bahamas. Walking around in the morning is a totally different experience, because they are empty except for some grounds crew and a few early risers such as myself. Later today there will be screaming kids and booming speakers, but right now it’s oddly serene.

I’ve got stuff with PokerStars all day today and then I’ll be playing the tournament hopefully all day tomorrow, which means I won’t be able to take full advantage of the facilities until Sunday. Of course I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for those other things, so I can’t complain. I just hope the weather stays nice. One time!

Ballin’: I’m current on my way to the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where I’ll be staying for eight nights and playing in the $10,000 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.

Anti-Ballin’: I’m bringing a small pantry with me, because it kills me to pay $20 for a sandwich.

So wish me luck, and please be patient if the blog and Twitter feed are quiet. Historically the internet at Atlantis has been atrocious and expensive, so while I’ve pre-written a couple of posts, I may or may not be blogging from the Bahamas.

Fellow Poker Savvy Pro Andrew “achen” Chen is at the final table of the PCA $5000 Bounty Shoot-Out event, set to begin at Noon today. There were prizes for winning the first two tables, but now everybody has same chip count and it’s winner take all for the remainder of the prizepool ($200K or so). Gogogogo.

Oh some guy named Shawn Deeb also still in the hunt.

I am totally addicted to this 2+2 thread “Stingiest Thing You’ve Seen Someone Do“. In between some stupid arguments about tipping and such, there are some truly jaw-dropping stories:

my ex gf’s mother finds overripe fruit at the store, takes it home and removes all the good parts, then drives back with the rotten parts and demands her money back. she cycles stores so she can do this on a regular basis.

Since it’s nearly PCA time, this seems like an opportune moment to recount a tale of my own stinginess, which began with me winning a seat in last year’s tournament (well I guess technically it was January of this year). The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is hosted at the Atlantis Resort and Casino, which, unbeknownst to me at the time I won the satellite, is an outrageously expensive resort. It’s essentially its own self-contained world, and everything costs a gajillion dollars: continental breakfast $25, barely functional internet $13/day, sandwich $16, etc. Had I known how high the incidental costs would be, I probably would not have played the satellites in the first place.  Read the complete post...