Something to Tell the Grand-kids Part II

Dave Russell won the Mob Forum League 2 and enjoyed an all expenses trip to the 2007 WSOP in Las Vegas with The Mob courtesy of Full Tilt Poker. His first live event was at the Gold Coast the day before the WSOP Main Event and Dave kindly shares his experience of the $10,000 event with us in two parts.

The Mob Forum League 3 is just underway and there are four added $4,000 packages to the 2008 WSOP to be won. It takes place every Tuesday from August to November, why not play tonight? You can join at any time, read this forum post.

WSOP Main Event 2007 Day 1B (part 2)

After a break back at my hotel for dinner, I headed back to the Rio for the night session. I chatted with a couple of other players in the lift. They had 40k and 20k respectively. I was feeling quite good about my position and just needed to keep my plan going for another few hours.

With blinds now at 200/400 and a 50 ante, Sam Farha was moving in every other hand. He won a couple of blinds before his A9 was called by A5 in the BB. A 5 hit the flop and that was the end of Sam.

Within a few minutes our table broke and we were all split up. I decided to carry on playing just as tight on the new table until I picked up on their playing styles – I didn’t need to, though, I got no cards worth playing for the first couple of circuits! There was a young guy opposite, though, who was raising a lot of pots to 1100. He was winning some preflop, but I saw him laydown one to a reraise as well. He’d raised my blind on both the first 2 circuits and I’d laid it down. He was clearly raising a bit too much. When he raised my blind to 1100 for the third time, everyone else had folded and I decided enough was enough. I hadn’t played a hand yet and I reraised him to 5k.

He nearly fell off his chair “Are you serious?!” he said. “Well, you get a decent hand that you have to play every once in a while, don’t you?” I replied. He fiddled with his chips for a few seconds then threw his cards in the muck.

I flipped over my Qc 2c in the middle of the table. A couple of players jumped up and shouted. They were all having a go at the young guy. He went bright red. I just raked in the pot and didn’t say anything . I might have just done myself some good……But 5 minutes later my table broke again!
So, I haven’t had any cards worth playing for about 2 hours now. I’ve still got around 60k, so no need to panic, and it’s about 9.30pm. I’ve just moved to my third table about 20 minutes ago. I saw one guy lose a big pot when his aces were cracked by a guy who made a flush and I’ve seen a couple of really short-stacks go out. I’m in seat 1 this time, which is horrible.

On the button, I pick up AJ. It’s the first playable hand I’ve had in ages, so I’m going with it. Unfortunately, I forgot to engage my brain first……There’s one limper before me and I raise. The BB calls and the limper calls.

The flop comes JT3 rainbow. Not bad for me. The pot has about 5k and the limper bets out 2k. He’s in seat 9, so I can’t see him at all. I haven’t seen him play more than a couple of pots though. I check his stack and see he’s got around 50k – I’ve just got him covered. I call and the BB folds.
The turn card is an Ace. He bets out again, around 5k. I raise, another 10k and he thinks and calls. The river is an 8 and he checks. I thought about checking-behind here, but for some reason I bet out 10k. He min-raises me. So now I’ve got to call another 10k, with top-2-pairs, into a pot of 55k. A no-brainer, even though I’m almost sure I’m beaten. He turns over 33 for a flopped set. Ugh. This hand bugged me for hours. It was SO obvious what he had and checking-behind on the river was exactly the right thing to do. It cost me a lot of chips – I had about 25k now.

I’m still card-dead whilst the guy immediately on my right picks up AA, JJ, KK and then AA in consecutive hands. He doubles up twice.

I pick up 88 and raise. One caller. The flop comes all diamonds. I don’t have one. The caller, from the blinds, checks. I bet out. He raises me, I fold.
A few hands later, I pick up 88 again and raise. One caller. The flop comes all diamonds. I don’t have one. I bet out, he folds. Some you lose, some you win…

I lose another 6k double-barrelling a bluff from the BB in a limped pot when I have to fold to a big river bet. The blinds have gone up again, and I’ve still had no more decent cards.

We can see our table is about to break with about 10 minutes left in the level. I pick up a seat-card that moves me……a whole two feet to the table immediately behind me……which will be the very next table to break! I don’t get anything playable before the break, but now the 25 chips get raced off. I ended up racing 2 and lost them both. We went to a break before the final level of the day.

I came back and, you guessed it, the table was breaking. I got moved right across the room this time though.

So, blinds are now 400/800 with a 100 ante. I have about 16k giving me an M of 7 and putting me into push/fold mode.

I could probably have nursed my stack to the end of the day, but I didn’t want to be coming back in 3-days time to only last a couple of hands. I decided I needed chips, or at least I’d die trying to get some!

In the first circuit at my new table I got 44 UTG. Usually, this is an easy fold, but with the cards I’d been having I just couldn’t let it go. I pushed all-in. Everyone folded. Phew.

At this table I’ve got a big stack (150k) on my right, but everyone else is relatively low – the biggest other stack is about 50k, with a lot of players 30k and less. The big stack on my right was being aggressive, which didn’t really help my situation. I watched him win an all-in when he called with JT and another when he called with A8. When he doubled up another player, though, he seemed to calm down a bit.

The guy on his right appeared to be a pro as the cameras and microphones were on him every time he was in a pot. I didn’t recognise him though.
He had a similar size stack to me. The last two circuits he’d open raised to 3k on my Big Blind and I’d laid them both down. Memories of the young kid from earlier filled my mind and I decided to try it again. The third circuit in a row he open-raised my big-blind to 3k. I pushed all-in with KQ. He thought for a minute….But then called with AQ.

The flop came an interesting AKJ, but the turn A and river A just rubbed salt in the wound……It turned out I had him covered by 1300.

The next hand it was folded to me…..I had 52o. I folded 🙁

The next hand it was folded to me again. I had 8h 5h. I pushed my last couple of chips in and was insta-called by the guy to my left (He actually reraised). He turned over KdQd, which surprised me.

Flop came Kh 6h 7s giving me lots and lots of outs, but I didn’t hit any of them and my night was over.

There was 30 minutes left in the day and it was just about 3am. I’d been playing Poker for nearly 15 hours and, I thought, I’d played pretty well except for one hand. Isn’t that how all your Poker tournaments go, though? You screw up one hand and it costs you.

I want to thank the guys from the Hendon Mob who I hung out with in Vegas, particularly Joe, who was a real gentleman and is a great guy. I had plenty of support from Rob and Adam too, and Alex who played on the same day as me – I think he did a bit better than I did though  Mind you, he never got to play against Sam Farha……Wow. Something to tell the grand-kids eh?!