WSOP aftermath

19. July 2005 | Category: 50outs

Back at my workplace. Pipe dream is – over. For now.

The WSOP 2005 was not good for us – you may have already read about the first part of our trip, starting early July. Now it was time for our second departure to sin city. I will be short about the trip here as it was no fun at all, again. The trip went well, we got rooms at the Treasure Island arranged by Pokerstars and first thing we done is go over to the Rio to get the seat assignment card. We meet Willie Tann there, the eventual winner of the final $1000 NLHE event (good for $188,000). While we stood in line there waiting Willie brought a full steak-and-beans meal over to us as we were very hungry from the trip. Thank you Willie and congratulations! We had plans to attend the evenings Pokerstars party at the Mirage but sleept thru it.

We we woke up at about 4 a.m. on thursday morning, the official “day 1” of the main event. We were refreshed and feeling well. My first day of play was “day 2”, friday. We had a nice early breakfast and then went over to the Bellagio were we played a little 30-60 holdem. It was a wild game (lol) and after 6 hours I was stuck about $1500. Katja went to the pool and room in the meantime and when she returned we decided to play the daily $500 NLHE event at the Bellagio which had a new-record number of players participating, about 240 this day. I got assigned table #10 and could not find it! I searched and searched but still no table #10. Finally I got instructed to get into “Bobby’s room”, the high-limit room-within-a-room in the Bellagios poker room. Wow! A few days ago I have seen Doyle sitting right there in that seat that I had, raking a $500k pot (sea of yellow chips, wow). Now I was there. That still felt special, although I played so many thousand hours of live poker for all kind of stakes already.

Anyway, I played good and almost tripled my stack when right before the break I lost a key hand with KQ in the SB against QJ in the BB when KQ8 flopped and the money went in but he runner-runnered a straight to beat me and leave me with only less than the starting chips. I never recovered from that beat although I manged to last until only 60 players were left when I ran with AK into AA in the BB. Katja was out before me and was flirting with frenchman, superstar and singer Patrick Bruel, who promptly invited her to a “drink” the following day (while I would be in the main event).

After that we lost something more in a 30/60 game where the turning hand was my AK vs. AQ with A in flop and Q on the river. After that beat all went wrong and we finshed kust another loosing session.

Next day, friday was the main events day 1b, my starting day. I slept well and got there on time. My pulse was calm as I was not excited about the event. In the first level I had to lay down overcards after the flop against a re-raise two times and was down to about 9,000 in chips.

I got KK once UTG and made standard raise only to win the blinds, 75 in chips. In the second level I got KK again in the BB and busted a player who had only 200 left from a tough beat before and who went all-in with 99. I won this hand.

Until level 6 I had 46 times (!) 83, combined with all the 82, 94, J2 and stuff like that I played more or less no hand in that time. The cards were really ugly and the few times I had something like KQ I was called by a calling station two seats behind me who made every hand but forgot to bet them when I checked the hand down. Once I got desperate and moved all-in after a standard raise on my left (75/150, raise was 450 and I moved in for 6800) with junk only, 95 of hearts. Mr. Calling-Station called me! I already stood up as I figured him to have QQ or higher and was very surprised when he opened KQ of hearts. This guy called more than half of his chips with KQ, wow. The flop came 95x and it got scary again when the turn was Q but the 7 on the river doubled me up.

I played solid again until the dinner break. Katja was there, returning from her date with Patrick Bruel and we went to the Rio buffet together. I was in good mood, having about only slightly less than average chips and we talked about the tournament. When I returned to the table I made a bad mistake: JJ in middle position, standard raise, only Mr. Calling-Station called. Flop came J74 offsuit. Wow, top set! I thought about what to do and hoped for Mr. Calling-Station to call again so I made a small bet. Think how disapointed I was when he folded! Then I got nothing for the rest of the level when I finally found AA in middle position for the first time (note, exept for 2x KK and one time JJ no pocket pairs higher that 77 for me, 1x AK and 2x AQ, that was it in almost 12 hours). There was raise to my left and I seriously consideres only calling, to make this a “make it or break it” hand but finally I made a strong raise. All folded to the player on my left who thought for 5 minutes and finally called. Flop came T63 rainbow, he quickly checked. I had him covered and put him all-in. He called in a split-second, showing 66 for a set. Ohhh wow. I lost the hand and had about 5000 left. A few hands later, in my BB there was raise and 4 callers, I found KQs and also called. Flop came QQ7 and it was on me. I thought about the originaly raiser who had a lot of chips but played very tight – I thought he had AA, KK or AK to raise UTG. I decided to push and the UTG raiser thought for some minutes before finally – raising! Holy shit. I was hoping for a protection raise but could not really believe that. All folded, I showed my hand and he showed AQo. No help for me and I went out of the main event very late into level 6. Sigh.

After that we decided that it was enough and we went back home as soon as possible, which was the next sunday. I took a week vacations at home before I returned to work yesterday. We will take some time off from poker now, for mental and financial reasons, at least July and August. It was a tough year for us, with 6 loosing trips in a row, no great tournament success and a big money looser overall. It is time to step back and re-adjust just in case that the way we have been running in fact altered our game to the worse. So, don’t be surprised if I post here only rarely, there will not be much to report about the next weeks. But – we will be back, that’s for sure. Good luck to all of you!


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