Posts Tagged ‘WSOP 10’

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.

This year’s WSOP journey ended for me about an hour ago. Out of more than 7000 players, I finished 87th and won just shy of $80,000. There was nothing dramatic about it. I lost two very standard pre-flop hands to Eric Baldwin, once with A4s < KJs for a 700K pot and once with A8s < JTs for a 1.6M chip pot. Then I made a standard preflop shove with A7, got called by QQ, and lost.

There is always a modest amount of disappointment when it’s all over, but of course all in all I’m quite pleased with the result. I’m also very happy that for the first time ever I feel like I played through this whole tournament without making any big mistakes and with only a few small ones. That doesn’t mean that everything always went my way, but as they say you play the cards you’re dealt, and I believe that I would play most of them the same way if I had it to do all over again.

I was on the secondary feature table for the first few hours today, meaning both that I managed to secure an endorsement deal that brought me a little extra money and also that I’ll likely make an appearance on the ESPN broadcast of this tournament. One hand in particular is quite likely to be on there:  Read the complete post...

Thanks to piefarmer for finding and posting this.

Seat 1: David Baker (951000) NOT Bakes of FTOPS final table fame, I’m told
Seat 2: Andrew Brokos (1223000) table chipleader
Seat 3: Eric Baldwin (292000) Basebaldy online, 2009 Cardplayer player of the year, WSOP bracelet, UB sponsored player
Seat 4: Russell Rosenblum (152000) lawyer from Bethesda, MD; final tabled the main event in 2002
Seat 5: Brian Jensen (521000) 2007 PCA winner; played with him on Day 3
Seat 6: Rafael Sansrodrigo (440000) can’t find anything but chip counts
Seat 7: Breeze Zuckerman (738000) last woman remaining (I played with the second-to-last yesterday)
Seat 8: Paul Evans (305000) middle-aged guy, a lot of lifetime cashes, including two 2nd places in WSOP prelims
Seat 9: Adam Levy (1147000) Roothlus online, played with him deep in the 2008 WSOP, also UB-sponsored

Sure would be fun to bust both of UB’s horses today….

The starting table was about what I was expecting. There were a couple of good players, one of whom quickly lost a flip to me with AK to my JJ to get busted, and then a few quite weak players. Even more to my good fortune, a few of the weak players took sizable pots off of a few of the good players, which helped to keep the latter out of my way. In addition to the coin flip, I won two big pots that skyrocketed me over a million chips in the first half hour:

I call an early position raise with 22, and the SB calls also. Flop 7s 4c 2s. We all check- against better players I might bet here but right now I really felt like it was overwhelmingly likely these guys had nothing. Turn 3s. SB checks, other guy bets 26K, I make it 90K, SB folds, guy calls. River 3, guy bets 100K, I shove for like 300K more, he folds.

SB (TheOracleAA) open limps, and I check Q3s. Flop Q86, he checks, I bet 7K, he calls. Turn 3, he bets 16K, I make it 60K, he calls. River 3, he checks, I bet 200K, he calls and mucks.  Read the complete post...

I woke up this morning convinced that I would be assigned to the table of tournament chipleader Tony Dunst- the first time we met in real life was just moments before learning we’d be seated next to each other in a 5K 6-max- but I was spared that fate at least. Here’s how we’re currently fixed, though naturally a few of these names will probably change pretty quickly:

Seat 1: Vincent Chahley (167000) investment banker
Seat 2: Dorothy VonSachsen (112000) has final tabled WSOP prelims
Seat 3: Dimitri Rassam (529000) there’s an actor by this name, but he looks too young, as the poker player took second in a senior’s event at the Bellagio
Seat 4: Neil Tyler (220000) online player TheOracleAA
Seat 5: Andrew Brokos (487000) 4 for 5 in WSOP ME cashes
Seat 6: Steven Burkholder (356000) PiKappRaider online, won two FTOPS events, a WCOOP, and several Sunday majors, runner up in a $1500 PLO WSOP event
Seat 7: Gary Kostiuk (253000) no info
Seat 8: Lou Barlow (361000) not the musician. He won an online contest (not a satellite) to get his seat
Seat 9: Nikolay Losev (181000) a lot of deep cashes on the European poker circuit. I do like that his last name is “Lose EV” though.

Couldn’t find much on most of these guys, which is probably a good thing:

Vincent Lodato 134,700 AMAZON/322/1
Andrew Brokos 503,300 AMAZON/322/2
Andrew Jeter 124,300 AMAZON/322/3
Simon Ravnsbaek 233,200 AMAZON/322/4 (couple of shallow cases on the circuit: WSOP, WPT, EPT, Aussie Millions)
Daan Slutter 172,900 AMAZON/322/5 (sponsored by Everest Poker, but only one live cash)
Spencer Hudson 167,600 AMAZON/322/6 (online player UHBigTex, won the Sunday Million, second in a WCOOP FLHE event, his P5′s profile lists JJProdigy as one of his favorite players WTF)
James Coca 121,000 AMAZON/322/7
William Schweinebraten 200,500 AMAZON/322/8 (5th in a WSOP circuit event, no other cashes)
Shane Rose 414,400 AMAZON/322/9 (LA live player, won the CA State Championships but no other notable cashes)

What a run. In the last two days I’ve 20x’ed my chips without ever seeing TT, QQ, KK, or AA. I did have AK quite a few times today, though, and I connected with a few flops when it counted.

I stole more than my share of pots for a few hands, then made a questionable 4-bet shove with AKo. UTG+1 had raised to 2500, and I called with AKo next to his act. Then Brian Jensen re-raised to 8500, the raiser folded, and I shoved like 55K. He snap-called with KK, and then though I turned a flush draw, I couldn’t get there on the river. I probably should have just 3-bet the original raiser, and that would have had the added advantage of being able to get away if Brian cold 4-bet. Anyway, that didn’t help.

Not long after, I flatted a raise from a kind of active older Japanese guy with 99 on my BB. Flop was perfect: A92 with a flush draw. I check, he bets 4000, I raise to 14000, he calls. Turn A. I bet 30K, he puts me all in for like 75K total, I call and hold vs. his AQ.  Read the complete post...

For those that didn’t see PieFarmer’s comment, here’s his summary of my Day 3 table draw with my parenthetical additions:

Danny Dam 198,000 AMAZON / 264 / 1 No info
Vincent Van Patten 174,200 AMAZON / 264 / 2 Celeb/Pro [wpt color commentator]
Thong Tran 57,100 AMAZON / 264 / 3 Vegas Pro w/ 3 cashes this WSOP
Cristian Busi 151,400 AMAZON / 264 / 4 No Info
Andrew Brokos 110,400 AMAZON / 264 / 5 philosopher
Michael Bunin 26,200 AMAZON / 264 / 6 no info [actor on TBS sitcom "My Boys"]
Brian Jensen 55,000 AMAZON / 264 / 7 pro from Denmark [won 07 PCA]
Vincent Elkael 25,000 AMAZON / 264 / 8 cashed Venetian deep stack 09 and 10
Dan White 56,900 AMAZON / 264 / 9 few small cashes 2009, non WSOP [active online player]

Play starts at noon PST with occasional updates on twitter.com/thinkingpoker…