And again…

31. July 2006 | Category: 50outs

…somebody called me with the worst hand for all his chips and got there on the river. You could probably estimate this as I had’nt posted yet (I am always more motivated to post good news). Here is the long version of my WSOP 2006 main-event experience:

I had some hours of deep sleep after picking up Katja the night before at 4 PM when she was finsihed with her Day1A (she made it to Day2) and woke up at about 9 AM. Katja was still sleeping like dead, who wonders. So I went down and over to the Rio’s to get some breakfast in the PokerStars room and pick up a new .net shirt as all .com is not permitted in the tournament. When I got back to the hotel at about 10:30 I answered some emails and stuff and relaxed for another 30 minutes before finally going over again and arriving just in time to get to my table. I had table 103, seat #5. I don’t like the seats 4-7 as your view on many opponents is limited, I personally prefer seats 2/3 or 8/9 on a 10 handed table. Anyway, no major name on my table except Paul “X-22” Magriel, famous for his “quack quack” (see link). I actually played several times with him already so I had a little idea about his style. All other guys seemed young internet qualifiers.

Right in my first BB I found pocket KK. Paul raised and I made a re-raise, he called. Flop was good, J high and he check-folded to my bet. Right the next BB I found AQs, raised again and got the pot on an A high flop. One round later I checked my BB with 96s and found a 96x flop. No callers to my bet and I was off to a good start. The next hours went all unenventfull, I slowly builded my stack by playing super-solid poker and staying out of all problematic situations. I played like 2-3 hands per hours, lost no pot, was never all-in and only one showdown: I open-raised on the button with ATs and got called by the SB. Flop came 89J, I checked and he checked. Yes I checked here and would have given up to any bet, that was how tight I played. Anyway he checked after me and the turn came a Q giving me the straight. Now I made a small bet of 300 into a 500 pot and he raised to 1500. I simply called, expecting a split pot (and I did not had the nuts). I checked the 7 on the river and called his 1500 bet (no flush on board). He showed JJ for a set. I gladly took down the pot which boosted me to about 20,000 in chips after 4 hours of play (2 levels). Good! As said, this was my only showdown of the day so far. The next 2 hours were uneentfull also I went with 23,000 into the dinner break. Katja had no time to visit me, she had a business meeting at the Bellagio (she gets now official member of team PokerStars which I will cover separatly very soon here). I went over to the room, ate something very small and chilled half an hour on the bed before getting back to work. Level 4 had 100-200 blinds with 25 ante. Again, same style. Two players on my table got broke including X-22 and were replaced. One by the actual chip leader with about 70,000 in chips and one by an asian guy with about 12,000. Action got a little hotter but not for me. The asian player got a though beat by “the guy” when all-the money went in on a KT7 board with two clubs, showing KK for top set. “The guy” had QQ and was all-in but runner-runnered a flush! Asian player was crippled severly down to 2000 in chips but decided to wait for good hands so no more action from this player. The chip leader lost a very big three-way pot (about 45,000) when he had the second-nut flush against the nut-flush against a set (he and the other player played horrible that hand). Anyway, I had 27,000 at the end of the level. I had two AK’s, two times KK, one time QQ and about 5 pocket pairs so far in the tournament so I was really not getting run over by the deck. I felt very confident about my game and my table image. I had no plans to “get fancy” that day as my only goal was to survive to day2 with a stack of 25,000 or more.

Level 5 was going ok. Katja came about then to looked after me. A little later the setup for the disaster begun: “The guy” was playing a medium-tight game but hitting some hands. He open-raised the 300 big blind about 90 minutes into level 5 to 1000. I reraised to 3000 with pocket kings. He called. FLop came K93 unsuited. He checked, I checked. On the A turn he made a bet of 2500 and I raised to 10,000. He thought about it, gave me “the look” (like: be carefull my friend, I am dangerous but I let you go on this one) and folded. I did not show anything. Only 6-7 minutes later the very same situation arose, I found KK in the hole and he open-raised to 900, I made it 3000 to go and he called after some consideration. After nearly 10 hours of play I was absolutly sure he had no aces (had him see holding those three times). The pot had about 7000 and he had 18000 left, I had 28000 left. Flop came QT5 with two spades. I had to speak and thought about the situation. He could have a good draw like spades, KJ, AQ, JJ or a set inmy worst scenario. I looked at him and saw him calculating something so I was pretty sure he had no set. Must be a draw. I decided to play this one straight and destroy his odds by going all-in right away. So, he had to call 18000 to win 25000 chips. This is not a correct price to draw, especially given you are in the main event of the WSOP, deep into the day and have about a little more than average chips. Anyway, he quickly decided to call and showed AT of spades for the nut flush draw and one overcard. I had the K of spades so he had 8 spade out and 3 aces for 11 direct outs. PokerStove tells me ha had an 44% chance of winning this pot. And winning this pot he did when a spade came on the river.

I was left with 10,000 in chips and before the cards got shuffled the tournament team came over and broke the table! Damn! I got to a new table with my remaining chips (in bad mood). In the hand directly before the break to level 6 I played bad for the first time of the day, still steaming: I had JTs on the button and called a 900 raise (now a substantial part of my stack). The BB went all-in for 2000 and the initial raiser just called as did I. It got checked down and the BB won the hand to triple up and I went into the break feeling bad about my fate and my last play. Katja, DevilFish and Tammy helped my a little to get over it and re-motivated me. Dave actually asked a lot about the hand so I could steam off a little by talking about it. Back to level 6!

I did not played any hand for 10 minutes (200/400 blinds with 50 ante cuts quick into a 7500 stack) when I found 44 inthe cutoff and open-raised to 1200. The SB re-raised to 5000 and I folded. He showed QQ. Ok. I called one more raise of 1200 with AJs but totally missed the flop and did not call the 4000 flop bet. Then, with about 4500 left I found AQo in the SB and all folded. I went all-in versus the BB who called. He had AKo and the board blanked out as did I. Shock. Pain.

I was out. In the course of just a few minutes I blewed a 33,000 stack to nothing. We went over the the Plams, moaning. Katja felt with me, she had wittnessed all those hands first hand. I went into a bad sleep very soon, totally exhausted.

Today it took me some hours to recover, I had not even any fun in updating the blogs so I did not. We went into the Desert Shops to do some lunch and shopping but I did not bought anything (which did not stopped Katja, lol). Then we went to the Rio’s as Katja had a media briefing. I played some battleship-poker at the pokerstars booth in the meantime which was fun and I won my match and a $50 iTunes card.

I am positive tomorrow I will be OK again (but still out of the main event). Pictures thanks to B@ndit from PokerAcademy.de