WSOP 2006 Las Vegas, NV

I cashed in a WSOP bracelet event today!!! OK. It wasn’t a lot of money, but what a treasure of memories. Get ready for the bragging. I made it because of the chips I took from Phil Hellmuth.

Details first, then the stories.

Event #43 - $1,500 No-Limit Texas Hold’em on August 7, 2006
Finished 44th out of a field of 420 players (paid to 45th place)
Money won: $1,720
Started at 11:00 am
In the Money at 8:21 pm
Eliminated at 8:40 pm

I took Seat 8 at Table 22 in the Amazon room to find the following players at the table:

Seat 1 – Unknown player
Seat 2 – The Shaker – The guy in the 2005 WSOP main event video whose hands were shaking in a hand with Phil Ivey.
Seat 3 – Girl in Pigtails
Seat 4 – Nice lady who ended up being one of the 3 original members of Table 22 to cash
Seat 5 – Jason, nice guy who ended up being one of the 3 original members of 22 to cash
Seat 6 – Unknown player
Seat 7 – Minh Ly, professional player who finished 7th in the $10,000 WSOP circuit event at Bally’s Nov. 19, 2005
Seat 8 – James A. D. also one of the 3 original members of Table 22 to cash
Seat 9 – Unknown player
Seat 10 – Doug Lee, professional player who finished 3rd in the $10,000 WSOP circuit event at Bally’s Nov. 19, 2005

I am writing down the stories which follow to help me remember this event. They come from notes I took as the hands were being played during the tournament. That said, here’s more than you will ever need to know about my adventures in Event #43:

At 10:50 am I’m sitting in my seat waiting to start at 11:00 am and this Asian looking guy comes to seat 7 and a floor guy is talking to him and asking him how he’s doing and he says he lost $650,000 last night. Hmmmmm…….

This other sort of Asian looking guy takes Seat 10 and starts talking to the guy in Seat 7 and asks him “Where’s your cowboy hat?” The guy in Seat 7 is a little hard to understand as his English isn’t great, so I don’t really hear exactly what they are saying.

I am on the button in an early hand (blinds 25/50) and I bet 125 to steal the blinds, Seat 10 is the big blind and he accuses me of trying to steal and I thought he was about to move all-in, but he folds. Whew! He tries his best to get it out of me what I had, but I won't say.

In the Amazon room where this event is being played, in addition to all the screens that have the clocks and statistics for the events being played, there are huge TV screens with sports and, you guessed it, past poker events being televised. One the screen adjacent to our table 22, they are televising the WSOP circuit event held a few months ago at Bally’s. And there is the guy in Seat 7 in a cowboy hat and the guy in Seat 10 playing in the event. Turns out this is Minh Ly and Doug Lee, professional poker players. It was a little surreal watching these two play on TV while playing against them on my table. They were talking about and explaining the hands as they were shown on TV while we were playing. I really had to focus to keep my attention on the game on Table 22.

Doug Lee is picked off by another player with pocket 33 after a while.

In one hand, Minh Ly raises to 150 under the gun and I raise to 600 with pocket 10’s and everyone folds back to him and then he folds. This is early in the tournament and we had only started with 1500 in chips and the blinds were 25/50 at the time.

By the end of the second level, I had 3025 chips. Soon after the break after level 2, at 2:38 pm, we were down to 200 players (out of 420 starting). I have 3100 in chips then.

At 2:40 pm it is announced that Humberto Brenes, Jack’s table-mate in the main event, is eliminated from the main event with 36 players left. (The main event is also going on in the Amazon room while we are playing our tournament.) Huge media coverage over by the main event and most of the spectators are over there.

At 2:49 pm, Minh Ly is eliminated from our tournament with a short stack of 600 going all-in with A7 offsuit to call a larger bet. The original bettor has AQ offsuit and neither player gets any help from the board.

At 3:00 pm, I have KQ suited in spades and I called the 200 big blind and we have a family pot of 6 players in for 20 each. Two spades (one the 5 of spades) in the flop and I bet 1200 and get an all-in call from a guy with only 2000 left. Everyone folds but me and I call the additional 800. He has pocket 5’s and the turn and the river don’t produce a spade, so my stack is mortally wounded. On the very next hand, I call an all-in from a short stack with pocket 9’s and he turns up AKoffsuit. I win when a 9 shows up in the flop. I now have 1700 chips.

Soon after that, in the next hand I play, with pocket 4’s, I bet 700 from the cut-off to steal the blinds and the small blind calls all-in with 650 chips. He was playing A3 and got an Ace. Ouch!

Soon after that, in the next hand I play, after the 200 big blind is called by the guy on my right (who replaced Minh Ly) from early position, I go all-in for my 1050 chips with AQoffsuit and he calls with pocket 6’s for a little less than my bet. It’s a 2400 chip pot. I bad beat him when QQ88 showed up on the board making me a full house. This is at 3:10 pm.

To replace the guy I knocked out, in comes Phil Hellmuth, Jr. with about 1500 chips. He walks around the table and shakes everyone’s hands. Phil wins 500 or so chips in a hand with another player and so he has maybe 2000 chips to my 2400 now.

Next hand or so, Phil is on the button and I’m in the big blind which is 200 now. Phil bets 600 from the button and I go all-in with K-10 of diamonds. Phil asks me if I would do that with KQ or something like that and I stare at the pot and ignore him as he questions me. Finally, I look up and ask “Are you talking to me?” He then asks, “You wouldn’t bluff the best poker player in the world, would you?” He folds and shows an Ace as he folds. He wants to know what I had, but I refuse to tell.

Some more hands and I am getting short-stacked again and I go all-in with K8 hearts. I am called by AJoffsuit, but get an 8 and win with a pair of 8’s.

At the next short break, I am back to 2850 chips which is still more than Phil, although, he has won a couple of hands with other players.

After the break, Phil gets up to 5500 chips when he bets 600 and then calls all-in with 88 when The Shaker raises him larger than Phil’s remaining stack. The Shaker has AK and Phil wins when another 8 comes on the turn even though the guy hits an Ace on the flop.

OK, here comes the big hand. It’s 22 minutes before the dinner break. Blinds are 150/300 with a 25 ante. Two limpers before Phil and Phil limps in from the button. I go all-in with my 2500 or so chips from the big blind with Hallelujah!!!! POCKET ACES and it is folded back to Phil who almost immediately calls with AQoffsuit. Another Ace flops and I end up with a full house. His chip stack is crippled and I more than double up because of the other limpers and the small blind to 5900 chips or so. He says because I played that K8 earlier, he was cocked and ready for me, but ended up shooting himself in the foot.

Next hand or so, I put Phil all-in after he makes a 600 raise and he folds. (I have QQ.) He has been telling people what they have, etc. and just being Phil, so when he folds, I ask him if he wants to take a shot at guessing what I have, and he says “Just throw them in face down.”, so I do. The very next hand, Phil is in the, by now, 300 big blind and I raise to 1650 with the AK hearts and the whole table sort of gasps and a guy says incredulously “He’s raising Phil’s big blind!!” It was too funny. Phil folds.

He continues to talk about these hands and the first hand he folded to me. He is none too happy with me, but in a nice way - at least he acknowledges that I have the goods when I play a hand. He is not so respectful of some of the other players.

At 5:52 pm we get our dinner break and I have 7,350 chips (mostly from Phil) and his stack is in bad shape. Phil is eliminated in the very first hand after the dinner break by another player when he goes all-in with AQ unsuited and is called by a player with pocket Jacks. To add insult to injury, another Jack comes in the flop. We had returned from our dinner break at 7:00 pm.

At 7:16 pm I am moved to Table 21, Seat 10. In Seat 9 is Cycalona “Clonie” Gowen. She is this gorgeous professional poker player. Very friendly and personable. She has a short stack when I come to the table (I have at least twice as many chips as her), but soon she doubles up and wins a couple of pots and has a pretty good stack.

We are down to 50 players or so and I have about 5000 chips. The blinds are 300/600 with a 75 ante. I am determined to make it to the money. I fold, fold, fold. I fold pocket 7’s and pocket 4’s. I fold AQ hearts. (Thank goodness I did, because that hand played out and I would have lost.).

At 8:21 pm we are down to 45 players and we are in the money. I have 2750 chips left. Another player is eliminated. I actually steal the blinds once, but then move all-in soon after with I think KQ hearts, but I can’t swear that was my hand. Anyway, a guy with a mega-stack calls me with an Ace in his hand and the board doesn’t help either of us. So, at 8:40 pm, I finish in 44th place and win $1,720. The money did not increase again until 36th place and I had to make a move or get blinded out anyway.

So goes the story of my cashing in a WSOP bracelet event in the very first World Series of Poker I ever played in. I am a very lucky guy to have had this opportunity. Thanks to everyone who helped make this possible, including but not limited to: the members of the Houston Hold’em Club and all of my other poker buddies, my friend and money-partner in this event (Jerry) and last (but certainly not least in his own mind) Phil Hellmuth, Jr., a nice guy no matter what anybody says about him.

I played in the 8:00 pm tournament at the Venetian tonight. 108 players and it paid the final table of 9. I finished 14th. I ran into trouble when I tried to isolate a short stack and steal the blinds at the same time. My KQ suited behind the button ran into AA in the small blind. No help from the board. It was $175+$20 to get into the tournament for 2500 chips plus a $5 dealer bonus rebuy for another 1000 chips, with no other rebuys, but there was a fun twist. $10 of the $175 went toward bounty. Every time you eliminated a player, you received a $10 bounty. I collected $50 by eliminating 5 players. It was really fun, but in retrospect on that last hand, maybe I should have . . . . . .

It’s been a long stay in Vegas. I was mildly thinking about going home early and skipping the last two bracelet events I am planning on playing. But not now.

I finished 531st (not sure the board was updated – seems like it was showing 531 left for a long time – I may have finished a little better than that) out of 1007 players in Event #41 $1500 NL just a little while ago. But what an experience. I am now fantasizing that I can play with the big boys. Since that is just what I did.

My first table had 3 pros on it. They all knew each other and were chatting about games and casinos, etc. and asking if so and so went to so and so’s party, etc. I didn’t know any of them from TV, but it was obvious that they played with each other and the big names frequently from their conversation. Then I knocked out a regular joe on my left. (I had my King high flush on the turn with my K-2 suited and he hit a straight on the river.) I couldn’t believe he called when I bet big on the turn with 3 hearts on the board. But he did (at this point, I sort of thought he might have the Ace of hearts and needed one more heart for his flush) When he went all-in when he hit his straight on the river (not a heart), I called instantaneously. even though I only had the King-high. I figured if he had the Ace and another heart, so be it. But he didn’t and I won.

He was replaced at our table by Barry Greenstein. Barry’s girlfriend was at an adjoining table, and one of the other pros (before Barry knew she was there) told Barry to check out the cute girl on the next table. Barry jumped up and went over and gave her a kiss. Next hand or so she was telling Barry, “Look what you did. I was winning before you came over. You touched my chips!”

We started with 1500 chips and by now I had slightly over 3000. Barry came in with about 1600. I told him I was glad to get to play with him, but I wish he was sitting to my right. He said not to worry, I had him covered. About two hands later, Barry won a big pot and I told him that blew me covering him right out of the water. We both counted our chips and he had 75 more than me.

I watched Barry play A3 clubs from under the gun (he raised 300 – one-tenth of his chips) and got a call from a very short stack. Barry called the additional and hit an Ace to take it down.

A few hands later I lost about a third of my stack with a small pocket pair in the cut-off. It was folded to me, so I raised 300. Barry folded and then the small blind went all-in for 900. The big blind folded. I had seen the guy start to call, then think better of it and bet all-in instead. I figured him for two big cards, instead of a big pair, so I called the additional 600. Sure enough, he had AQ unsuited. It was a race. I looked it up just now and my small pair wins 52.41% of the time against AQ unsuited, but and Ace and a Queen came in the flop. Barry said, “The good news is that you made the right read and the right call, but the bad news is you lost.”

I just think you have to go at it like that to have a chance in these big tournaments. It would have been different, if it would have ended my tournament to lose. But you just simply have to take some chances to accumulate chips.

They broke our table soon after that and Barry and I were moved to adjacent tables. My table was right next to the one Phil Helmuth was playing on. Gavin Smith was on another near-by table.

It was very instructive to me to listen to Barry and this one other pro in particular talk about the hands (after the hands were over). And also a hand this other pro had taken a licking over the night before. He described the hand, and Barry would comment on (and correct) his analysis, etc. with instantaneous quotes of the outs, the odds, and the moves in the hand. I mean these guys know the math and the strategies like the backs of their hands. Barry knocked out one of the pros with a pocket pair of 7’s when the pro made a huge all-in bet with two overcards to the board. Barry called and said, “I’ve got you – I’ve seen you do that before.” And so he did.

As a note, I was also called (and I lost the hand) one evening in a cash game by a guy who told me basically the same thing – “You did that to me a couple of nights ago – that’s why I called.” I knew he looked familiar. When he said that I told him he had an awesome memory and the guy so my left told me “ I remember you, too. You were driving me crazy with your Mississippi Straddle bets.”

So, I intend to sharpen up my memory and go take down a bracelet in one of the next events I play in.

Never mind the post time. My computer is still on Houston time. It's actually 1:10 am in the morning of Friday, August 4th here in Las Vegas as begin this blog.

I am sitting here listening to the alarm clock going off in the next room. It's been sounding off ever since I returned to my room about 25 minutes ago. I've been down in the Amazon room playing cash $2/$5 No Limit Texas Hold'em since about 8:30 pm Thursday evening. I played about 3 1/2 hours until 11:45 pm and then got a bite to eat before coming back to my "home" of the last 11 days on the 15th floor of the Ipanema towers at the Rio.

I keep a record of every game I play in: type, beginning and ending time, amount won or lost, etc. I put it in a spreadsheet for later analysis. I am averaging playing a little over 5 hours a day since I got here. Since I won $455 in this latest session of cash hold'em, I am a couple of hundred dollars ahead at the cash games in 11 sessions, having bought in for a total of about $6,100 and cashed out for about $6,300 in those 11 sessions. I usually buy in for the $500 max at $2/$5 NL. Since I haven't cashed in a tournament yet, I have spent about 4 grand on the 14 tournaments I have played (not counting the $10,000 main event, since I won that entry). I won a couple of single table satellites, but those got me seats in larger tournaments and not cash (a small amount of cash, $50, did come with the seats).

But what a fun experience!!! I was walking by the Sao Paulo restaurant which is open to the walkway down to the Amazon room this afternoon and Joe Hachem was sitting with a couple of friends at a table talking. I almost expect him to know and recognize me now I have seen him so many times here and there. In the tournament I played in today, John Juanda walked by going to his table. Phil Helmuth lasted a short while in the tournament. I lasted much longer. Maybe he should stick to playing the top 10 hands. :)

Tonight, I met Men "The Master" Nguyen - fearsome on TV - but quite personable tonight. He signed a picture of himself for me. "To James. Men "Master" Nice Hand Sir." and told me that is what I should say to him when we play together. Quite the card. He played for a short time at a $5/$10 NL game at a table next to mine.

It is so funny that anywhere in or around the Convention Center where the Amazon room is (where all the WSOP events are being held), you constantly here the chatter of hold'em hands being discussed. "And then there were two queens in the flop", "and the turn was a club", "and he got his flush on the river to beat my set", etc. etc. etc. You hear it frequently throughout the hotel and casino, in the restaurants and elevators, but anywhere near the Amazon room it is constant. They are standing and telling the stories of the hands to each other and on their cell phones. It never ends, 24 hours a day, it is poker, poker, poker.

I had a wonderful meal of Jamaican spiced scallops and Chilean Sea Bass with mushrooms, miso sauce and seafood ravioli last night in Buzio's, an upscale seafood restaurant also located on the way to the Amazon room. I sat at the bar to eat, because the tables were all reserved for poker players. The main event was rolling and I was there during the dinner break. I got to talk to several players still in during their 2nd day of play. I heard the strategies, the bad beats, and the chip counts. What a growth experience this is for an amateur player like myself. I am soaking it up like a sponge. I love just being immersed in this iconic event.

There's the old joke about getting suited Aces, etc., but tonight, there was talk of the suited pairs that were dealt in the main event. Apparently, suited Kings and suited Sixes were both dealt during day 1D. The decks of cards they are using are almost identical on the backs except for some lettering in the center that is red on one deck and black on the other. I can see where if a card got mixed into the wrong deck, it would be hard to detect from the backs. Anyway, when the suited pairs are discovered, the hand is declared dead and everyone's chips are returned.

There is much talk about the snafus that have occurred in the running of the WSOP this year. Apparently, all the dealers almost walked out and hundreds quit over the way they are being paid and how the tips are being handled. Supposedly, they turned away 400 people from the tournament today because they did not have enough chips (because of the number of chips bagged for main event players) but the dealer at my table tonight said it was actually because of the shortage of dealers since so many quit. I do know they capped the entries at 1100. (I finished about 370th at around 4:00 pm today. They were just into the money at 99th place about 10:30 pm while I was down there playing cash NL.) This is approximate.

It's now almost 2:00 am and I'm about to wrap this up and hit the sack. I have to be over at the Wynn this morning around 9:30 am to play a satellite for the $500 Noon tournament there. Then Saturday, I begin the 2-day WSOP $1500 event. It will be the 4th WSOP bracelet event I play in. It would sure be nice to cash even if I don't get the bracelet. After that one, I just have two more attempts at a WSOP bracelet. I'll never catch Phil and the others who have ten if I don't soon get my first one.

I'll close by mentioning one of the favorite T-shirts of many at this event. I got a picture of Jack in one. It says on the front "Money won't change me" and on the back "much". There's a variant that says "Winning a million dollars won't change me . . .much." I'd like to see if that's true for me.

Good night from this student and lover of Hold'em. May all your cards be live.

It is 4:41 pm in Vegas. (8-3-06) I just finished 370th out of 1,100 players in the $1,000 2-day NL WSOP event that started at 11:00 am this morning. It will pay down to 99th place. My huge raise with AK was called by pocket 7's and I got no help on the board.

One interesting note is that the first big pot I won was on the 9th hand of the tournament with 68 offsuit. I was in the big blind and there was no raise. 655 flopped and I bet out. Another player put me all-in and I decided if he had a big pocket pair, so be it, but I didn't think he did, because he didn't raise pre-flop. I called and he had A7 spades (two spades in the flop) but he didn't get another one. That gave me almost twice the 1500 chips we started with.

Goes to show any two cards can win a monster pot.

It is 10:24 pm Las Vegas time and I just got a call from Jack that he is busted out. A huge chip stack got moved to his table. Jack flopped a set of J's and made a big bet. The big stack went all in and Jack called. The guy had pocket K's. Only two cards in the deck that could beat Jack, but the guy gets another K for the bad beat and Jack is eliminated.

Jack is still in. He has been playing on the same table as Humberto Brenes. Jack has about 41,000 chips at this point. My laptop thinks it is on Houston time, but it is actually 9:00 pm here in Las Vegas.

Jack's wife, Pat, and I just ate dinner with Jack and he is now back at his table looking at 500/1000 blinds with 200 antes. This level will last two hours and will be followed by two more 2 hour levels before they adjourn for the night. It will be about 4:o0 in the morning before Jack can get to bed.

There was an announcement that more players have been eliminated in this tournament than the total number that played last year. 8700 plus players in this year's event. The top prize this year has been announced to be more than $12,000,000.00 (yes, twelve million dollars).

I am finding it very difficult to find time to blog. We are having a great time.

I am going to enter 4 more bracelet events beginning on Thursday (events 40, 41, 43 and 45).
All are NL hold'em events with one a $1,000 buy-in and the other 3 will be $1,500 buy-ins.

Chris Ferguson and Phil Ivy are playing tonight also. We talked to Robert Varkoni a while ago and he plays in the group tomorrow. He and his wife just had a baby 11 weeks ago and named her Valerie Lucky Varkoni.

Jack's wife, Pat, is collecting autographs (I am too, but not so many as she has). I got Doyle Brunson to sign a picture of himself and a cap for me. He is a super guy. We have gotton autographs of Humberto, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Devilfish Ulliott, Robert Varkoni, Mike Caro, and several others. We missed Phil Helmuth (he got knocked out early and left), Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon. I am still watching for Daniel Negranu (spelling?) I am not sure what his status is now.

I finished 27th of 108 players in a second chance tournament the other night. I just won $466 in a 2/5 NL cash game in the room during the last main event level while waiting to go to dinner with Jack and Pat. (Makes up for part of the $600 I lost from 11:30 pm last night until 4:30 this morning.)

Send your best vibes this way for Jack to get some cards. He only got to play a few hands last level. He had to fold a pocket pair of 5's to a raise and re-raise and would have made quad 5's. He wasn't too happy about that.

One guy has flopped a royal flush. No hand is safe. Pocket rockets are routinely cracked. You can sit for hours and get nothing but trash hands. You just have to sit and watch the other stacks grow. If Jack can just get some cards, there is no doubt he knows what to do with them and can make a stand. We have our best man on the job.

BEST OF LUCK JACK!!

Looks like Jack is going to survive the first day with an above average chip stack. With only one more 2 hour level to play tonight - it's about 1:30 am right now - Jack has about 38,000 chips and the average chip stack at the end of today's play should be about 30,000.

I am exhausted and have come up to the room to retire for the evening. Jack will let me know how he finished the first day's play sometime tomorrow and I'll report his first day results as soon as I can.

I was eliminated about 11:21 pm this evening almost eleven and a half hours after the event began. 1340 players were left out of over 2000 that started the day when I met my demise. I had gotten as low as 3000 chips and then built back up to around 8000, but by then the blinds were 150/300 with a 25 ante and so my "M" was about 11. My last all-in was with AQ diamonds against AK hearts. All black cards on the flop and no Q came to my rescue. I had a great time in the time I played and will blog more details for posterity tomorrow when I have rested.

I outlasted Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson who also played today, Doyle being eliminated about an hour and a half before me and Phil much earlier in the evening.