Carpetbagging the British Columbia Poker Championship, Day 3

Such a great day! Where to begin? My day actually started around 9:30. Emily was sick and needed some things from the grocery store, so I biked over to the Whole Foods (I told you we’re in the yuppy district!) before leaving for the casino. It was a beautiful morning. The sun is slow to rise this time of year in Vancouver, so the day still had an early morning freshness to it. The sky was clear but the ground wet from the previous day’s rain, so everything sparkled. Our place is on top of a hill, so I could see down past the red and gold trees to downtown and to the mountains beyond.

The lovely ride and crisp air put me in a good mood, and after dropping off the groceries, I walked off smiling to the bus stop. It’s so nice being able to play a live poker tournament but still sleep in your own home and just take public transportation to and from work like any other commuter. I could see the bus approaching from a block away and so sprinted for it, very nearly falling on my face in the process. I really thought it was a sure thing that I was going down face-first, don’t know how I managed to keep my feet. I made it, though, and as I boarded the bus I thought, “Hope that’s the only time I run bad all day.”

It wasn’t, but it was a good day anyway. My table was relatively soft, though my buddy Steve was with me again, our third table together. I was pleased to find Riley on my left. To his left was a mountain of a man named Norm. He was like 6’5 and thickly built, with a weather-beaten face, a full head of shoulder-length hair, a thick mustache, and a rough, booming voice. The best way to picture him is to imagine that George Thorogood and Lunch Lady Doris had a child who was raised by yetis and fed only broken glass. He was intimidating as hell but thankfully very friendly and nice, all around a really cool guy who made the table a lot of fun.

Norm brought a beer to the table with him when we started up at noon, and he had a woman, pretty in an aging barfly sort of way, bringing him beers throughout the day. I asked if she was his wife and he deadpanned, “My wife’s at home,” but later told me he was recently divorced. The drinking generally made him more entertaining. The only drawback was that he liked to bump fists whenever he won a pot, and the more he drank, the harder his bumps got. I was legitimately afraid that his massive fists, easily twice the size of mine, were going to break my fingers.

Riley and Norm were both good enough to agree to pictures, though neither of them came out that well. Steve saw me taking Riley’s picture and said, “What is this, Riley is a celebrity now? Can I take your picture too, Riley?”

“Sure, but don’t jerk off to it.”

“Jesus, why would you say that? Have you done that?”

“Oh ya.”

“To a picture of yourself?”

“To picture of you! I come on your face! Ahahahaha.”

I feel like this just comes across as crude in print, but in person Riley has this impish charisma that makes him seem playful rather than coarse.

The pro’s from CanadaPoker got a much better shot of Riley and Norm than the ones I took with my camera phone:

The day got off to a good start pokerwise. Blinds were 200/4000/300, and I picked up a few smallish pots from short stacks, busting one with AK > AT and another when I min-raised QQ UTG and got two callers, inducing the BB to shove A8s.

I was deep in conversation with Norm when I looked down at my cards and found KQo. I shut up, perked up, and looked to see what had happened in front of me. Steve had opened to 9000 UTG+1 and looked to have about 120K behind. KQ didn’t seem good enough to call, but stacks were good for a 3-bet. I had some reservations after 3-betting him so much the previous day, but I was also aware that I probably gave off some strong tells when I looked at my hand. That settled it, and I popped him to 20K. He agonized for a while and folded.

At 1500/3000/300, I opened to 7500 with J9s in middle position. Norm, not seeing that I raised, tried to put out a raise that turned into a call, and the BB came along as well. The flop was T83, giving me an open-ended draw and an overcard to the board. I bet 16K, Norm raised to 35K, the BB folded, and I shoved and took it down.

Meanwhile Steve had gotten short enough to where he was shoving pre-flop. He shoved 25K from early position and I picked him off with Ah 9h only to lose to his Qh T. Then a few orbits and lost pots later he shoved 30K that I called with 55, losing to his KJo.

At 4K/8K/500 I raised to 18K with Jd 8d and called by the BB. He checked and quickly called 22K on a Td 9c 4d flop. The turn was a K, and he checked again. I considered barreling, but his stack was pretty ideal to check-shove, which would be a disaster, so I checked it back. The river was an A, and he quickly checked again. Arguably I should bluff now, but I actually put him on Ace-high on the flop and was planning on bluffing a lot of blank river, so I checked this one back. He showed 88 and I felt a little silly, since it probably was mine for the taking on the turn or river.

There was another pot at that level where one of the better players at the table opened to 18K and got called by a guy who only had about 200K to start the hand but was probably calling too wide of a range given that fact. I woke up with KQo in the BB and popped it to 58K, intending to fold to the initial raiser but reluctantly call a shove from the other guy. In the end I got what I wanted and they both folded.

At 5K/10K/1K I raised to 22K with 66 in early position and got called by the BB. On a K52 flop I put out a suspiciously small bet of 24K hoping to induce floats and other weak calls. He called. We both checked a J turn, and then he bet 24K on a 9 river that completed a backdoor flush. It didn’t take me long to call, since my whole plan on the flop was to induce a bluff, but I raised a few eyebrows. Naturally I was right.

By this time I had such a badass image that people weren’t going out of their way to tangle with me. Quite a few times, the button open folded and left me to slug out from either the SB or BB. As the BB, I got three walks, folded once to a SB raise, and called one SB raise after which he check-folded the flop.

Riley was in the BB when I was in the SB, and he did not like to fold pre-flop. The first time I raised him he barely looked at his cards before calling, and I ended up check-folding the flop. I gave him a walk or two after that, then picked up AK and raised to 3.5x. He re-raised and agonized when I shoved on him, finally folding A4o face-up. “You were in bad shape,” I told him.

“That’s OK,” he assured me. “I like to get it in behind and suck out. That’s my style.” So that gives you an idea of what he thought of me and provided some context for our next blind battle.

I raised to 30K with Ad Js at 5K/10K/1K, he called, and I bet 30K on an Ah 7c 7h flop. He quickly raised to 60K. I stared hard and made it 100K. He quickly shoved for 325K and I beat him into the pot with my call. He looked so excited when I called that I asked him, “You have trips?” He turned over Kh 5h. “You seemed pretty excited to get called,” I said as I tabled my hand.

“I told you, I get it in behind and suck out!”

“There’s no one I’d rather lose to, Riley.”

“Me too, me too,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. My hand held up, and that was the end of Riley.

I already had a big stack, and that was a big pot, so after it I think I was probably 2nd or 3rd overall with more than 1 million chips. It didn’t last long. I dropped 160K getting it in with AKo vs. ATs from a short stack and losing. Then towards the very end of the day, I got QQ all-in pre-flop against AA and lost 360K. Despite that, I ended the day with 500K, which was about 110% of average. There were only 18 players remaining, and a lot of the people I was most worried about at the start of the day (Scott Clements, Shawn Buchanan, Steve) had gone out, so I felt good. There’s a temptation to dwell on unfortunate things that happened, but plenty had gone well for me, too, and all in all it was a great day.