Three Final Tables

This week was one for the Aussies here at the World Series of Poker, with no less than three consecutive final tables featuring an Australian player. Not bad for a place with a population a fraction the size of the US, and a sign that both established pros and up-and-coming players from ‘Down Under’ are capable of again making their mark in the toughest tournaments in the world. I also added my own (much more modest) win to the week’s list of cashes, scraping into the money for a second time this Series.

First up we saw reigning WSOP Champion Joe Hachem manage to outlast more than 800 players to make the final table in Event 5, the $2,500 Short-Handed No Limit Holdem. Joe spent much of the latter part of the event as a relatively short stack and made a heroic comeback to beat the likes of Daniel Negreanu (who was chip leader for most of the tournament) to the final six. He eventually finished as runner-up, and if not for some bad luck on the final hand ~ Joe went all in as a huge favourite with A-Q against Dutch Boyd’s A-5, but a 5 came on the river ~ he could well have gone on to win the event. As it was he took home more than a quarter of a million dollars for his second place finish, an achievement which shows that Hachem’s win last year was no fluke.

Mark VosThe next day’s tournament featured an even more impressive finish, with young Australian pro Mark Vos besting a field of nearly 2,000 to win Event 6, the $2,000 No Limit Holdem. Mark is fresh from some notable wins in Paris, London and Australia, and combined his top notch game with a bit of luck to overcome final table players including 2001 WSOP champion Carlos Mortensen and 2006 WPT Bay 101 winner Nam Le. Mark will take home his first WSOP bracelet, along with more than $800,000, the biggest prize so far in this year’s World Series.

Carlos MortensenThe following day, Australian-born Jeff Lisandro made it a final table hat trick for Australia in the $3,000 Limit Holdem event.
Jeff survived a 415-strong field to head into the final table fourth in chips, but his flopped set of threes didn’t hold up against
Rich Zhu’s nut flush draw, which hit on the turn. He was eliminated in 9th place, earning $23,000 for his efforts.

By comparison to these impressive achievements, my own small win in the Limit Holdem event barely rates a mention….
but I’m going to tell you about it anyway. My tournament started out slowly, and I was enjoying the limit structure ~ playing more hands and seeing more flops, without having to face the constant prospect of an all-in reraise. This helped to ease the stress of playing against
Phil Ivey, who was a few seats to my
left, and I managed to beat him out of a small pot in early play. It wasn’t long before he won his chips back though, along with what seemed like most of everyone else at the table’s chips too ~ in fact Ivey quickly accumulated a stack of more than 15,000, raising every other pot and barely showing a hand.

I hovered around the original starting stack of 3,000 until into the 5th level, when our table broke and I escaped to a somewhat easier lineup. While I won a few pots here and there though, I stayed short-stacked until well after the dinner break, surviving two all-ins to inch up to 4,700. With blinds at 300-600, I was facing elimination unless I could take down a pot or two ~ and that’s when the deck just hit me in the face. I picked up aces three times and kings twice in the space of less than two rounds, and got paid off each time ~ once eliminating a short-stacked Daniel Negreanu. I then flopped a set which filled up on the river, and again won a huge pot which put me at nearly 25,000 (comfortably above average) heading into the final level of the day.

With 60 players left and 45 being paid I could have just cruised through to the next day and still stayed ahead of the field…but instead I ran into one of the more horrible hands of my poker playing career, and lost most of my chips in a huge pot. The action had been folded around to me on the button and I looked down to find A-Q, so I raised. Jim Bechtel folded in the small blind, but Jordan Rich in the big blind re-raised me, and then quickly called my re-raise. He then check raised me on a flop of A-J-rag and called my re-raise, and bet the
turn after a blank came and called my raise ~ by which time I was beginning to worry that he may have had me beat. When the river came a jack though, I knew I was done for. He bet out, I called, and he turned over…
J-7 offsuit. I felt sick.

I was crippled after this and struggled to make it through the few remaining players left before the prizemoney kicked in. As it happened I busted out right on the bubble with pocket queens all in against four other players, one of whom paired their king. However with the WSOP’s new ‘round-for-round’ rule replacing the standard hand-for-hand play that takes place at every event bubble, I still managed to scrape into the money, sharing 45th place with Michele Lewis who was also eliminated during the round. Annoyingly the shared prize amounted to less than the event buy in ~ so I still managed to come out in the red. I guess it’s better than nothing, but after 13 hours of play it somehow didn’t feel that way.

The fantastic results of my fellow countrymen this week are enough to keep me inspired though. Here’s hoping for a few more Aussie final tables and bracelets this WSOP. So far, so good.

Still No Bling Wrist Attachments

Events # 3 $1500 PLH, #5 $2500 Short-handed NLH and #6 $2000 NLH.It is often said that:"If it was easy everyone would be doing it."When you look around the NLH tournaments at the Rio you can see that everyone is doing it.Pot-limit though is a different animal. It requires subtlety, finesse and, as a last resort, the ability to play some poker.The American people have some fine qualities but subtlety is not their strong suit. They do not turn out in force for this event.If they listened to the advice of one American I heard, they may have felt more comfortable with the format."Don’t play a hand for the first three levels." he advised his young protege,"It’s like No-Limit then and you can stick it in."I was easily able to make the neccessary strategy adjustments which mean you can play more hands. You don’t have to fear being raised out and can small pot sized reraises as you’re getting your odds.Soon I’d managed to weakly call a series of raises with 7s, 8s and 9s only to pass feebly on the flop when overcards came.I took my paltry stack to a new table and sat next to European poker’s latest "overnight" sensation, ("I’ve played for 20 years but have only just discovered tournaments"), Marc Goodwin. He’s tremendous fun and regales us with tales of golf games with his pal Phil Ivey. He also becomes the third person in as many weeks to say that he’d heard I was a rock. He doesn’t offer any better suggestions of how to play my stack of 5 big blinds.

I soon find a suitably bad hand to lump it in with and that was it. Just before the end I did get a good laugh from the table. One guy had been very generous in doubling up four short stacks murdering his enormous stack. As the fourth guy counted his winnings the guy exclaimed:

"That’s the worst hand I’ve played all tournament."

With no pause I replied "Oh, I wouldn’t say that."

Thursday was a Limit Tournament so I decided to join 130 others at The Bellagio for the 2pm $1000 freezeout.

I won’t try to describe the highly sophisticated play I made here with a pair of Jacks as some of you may not understand it. The lady with the two queens barely grasped it at all. Friday was back to the Rio and a chance to play Short-Handed. I never usually mind it during the four of five times a week that I play Mike Ellis at the Vic so I wasn’t going to complain here. I was also pleased, for amusement value, to see a little red-headed geek called Adam. Some of you may remember him as the guy on the ESPN coverage of last year’s Main Event who makes a smaller flush and then bursts into tears. I played with him that day and he was an arrogant little tosser. When I reraised all-in against him I saw the old bottom lip going.

Today Mike outplays him beautifully a couple of times but despite a minor sulk the table stays dry.

I’m soon moved, with a below average stack, to play on a table with former World Champions Berry Johnson and Huck Seed. Chip Jett is also on the table and has a massive stack.

When Chip knocks out Berry he shows a lot of class and respect, shaking his hand and telling him it’s a privilege to play with him. I muse out loud that Berry is not a great one for histrionics. This mild looking old grandfather is a ferocious player and I suggest to Chip that he may be the least likely person to ever whoop, rub it in someone’s face or high five after a hand. He’ll probably add further to his 50 WSOP cashes though and take home a lump of money quite quietly.

I’m quite pleased when young, aggressive Chip agrees that this is the right way.

When Alan Goehring, who may be the best of the lot, joins the table I look at my tiny stack and decide I may need to gamble. When I flop a King to go with my AK I just check despite the flush and straight draw. That Chip Jett is too clever though and checks behind me so I don’t put it in until the safe looking deuce hits the turn.

Chip Jett has a set of deuces. Marvellous.

I was mostly just dissappointed that I didn’t get to stay for longer. It was brilliant fun and you can learn so much from these guys. There won’t be a shortage of NLH Champions this year. Friday it’s $2000 NLH and 1900 people turn out to play "The Cadillac of Poker".

I get a nice "pro-free" starting table and move up from 2000 to 6000 ("I’d like to be locked up with this lot"). There follows and incident involving a pair of 10s, a pair of Jacks and 8000 chips and I leave for my new table with just 900 chips and the right hump.

Although I battled away well and got in as the agressor with AQ v 77 for 5000 it just wasn’t to be.

I’ll have a few days break now before my quest continues with another NLH on Friday 7th.

Neil Channing is sponsored to lounge around poolside at Bellagio by BetUSA.com and BetUK.com.

One man against the world

One of the benefits of jetlag is that I had no problem being up and about at seven o’clock on Saturday morning to make my way to the Hard Rock Café to watch Ecuador beat England in the last sixteen of the soccer world cup. They didn’t. My taxi driver was a poker sickie. He knew everything . We were getting on fine until he told me he didn’t like the way I played the hand in which I got eliminated at the final table of the main event in 1999. I told him I didn’t think much of his driving either, which sort of slowed down the conversation a bit. I tipped him anyway !

I headed down to the Rio after the game to register for the first few events. Half a dozen people (four of them strangers) asked me if I was here to do something for TV, one guy asked me if I was here to write something. Only Nolan Dalla was polite enough to mention that maybe it was about time I won a bracelet. He’s a good judge that Nolan Dalla! I love the start of big tournaments. Everyone is in good humor. Two of the ladies at the registration sang happy birthday to me after examining my passport .They stopped pretty quickly when I joined in. !

It didn’t take me long to make my first final table. Unfortunately, I was there as a spectator sweating my friends Mike Sexton and Andy Black, who both made the final table of the two million dollar free roll Tournament of Champions. A strange name for a tournament where eight of the players qualified by losing (at the final table of last year’s WSOP) while genuine real world champions like Berry Johnson weren’t even invited. It was nonetheless a star-studded final table, with Mike and Andy joined by the likes of Chris Ferguson and Daniel Negreanu. Andy had a bid chip lead and Mike was pretty short stacked. The first big move of the day didn’t even involve the final table. It was an announcement by some excited guy in a suit that the 1500 No Limit Hold’em event would be played eleven handed, and involve over 400 alternates. He didn’t tell us when, if ever, the real poker was going to start. Andy came over to the rail to talk to me, and seemed in good spirits. I was delighted to see him doing well as I’m not the only one who thinks he was the best player at last year’s final table. Ten minutes later, I nearly threw up when Andy blew up and gifted three quarter of his chips to Daniel. If Andy ever stopped beating himself, we’d all have to watch out. Back in my hotel room, I emerged from a jetlagged sleep from which I emerged about every hour to check the chip-counts in the Rio. Mike against Daniel heads-up, you couldn’t make this stuff up! What TV! Great poker played in the true spirit of the game. It went on for hours, during which Daniel got the aces four times, but couldn’t find Mike with a hand. Finally, Mike emerged a winner and gave half the million he won to charity before Daniel could suggest doubles or quits on the golf course. It was a good day for poker. The last time I sweated Mike at a final table was when he finished second in the Seniors at the WSOP a few years ago. He needed the money and wanted the bracelet that day, and was absolutely gutted when he lost. Sometimes, you only find out how much a guy really cares when you see him lose. There’s a great line from a classic NBA final’s commentary, where the announcer remarks "Maybe you have to have your heart broken before you can become a real champion". It seemed more than appropriate here. Few of the enthusiastic crowd even knew that Mike had won a bracelet in the 80’s, had won a European Championship in exhibition style, or was regarded by his fellow pros as a truly world class player. Well, now they know.

I was with Mike the next day, when the Cardplayer guy, Mr. Belski, interviewed him. The interview began with Rick congratulating Mike on winning one of the most exciting heads-up he’d seen in many years. I missed the rest of what was said because I was so busy laughing because the interviewer looked to be about seventeen.

I wasn’t quite so successful myself. The end. I’m only joking. I played my first eleven handed WSOP event. Ten of us were seated with one empty seat beside me. Veteran John Bonnetti was the only one I recognized. The eleventh seat was taken by a guy who was probably one of the three biggest guys in the room. I asked him if he’d be staying long. "Probably longer than you buddy". Ouch. My cover got blown a bit when Robert Williamson III (I think he’s called the third because he’s only a third of the size he used to be) and Warren Karp dropped by to say hi. But it didn’t make any difference. Before the end of level one, I limped into a pot with the Qs 9s and a guy bet into me after a flop of Qd 8s 4s. I raised, hit the flush on the turn, and got the rest in after he checked. He had As 7s. I stood up to go. Of course the big guy was still there !

As I left the room, I stopped to say hello to Mark Sief. Mark is great. He loves a gamble and a smile is never far from his face. I like him extra well since he won the two bracelets last year. Every time I look at him, I can’t help thinking that I only play half as bad as he does, so one bracelet should be quite easy!

I’ve seen a great Brunson T-shirt. It says "Courage doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of fear". Or if you’re Irish, substitute "brains". God bless Ireland.

Looking back at where you came from might show you where you’re going

There’s a rumour that Germans don’t have a sense of humour. Some say it’s more than a rumour. But somebody forgot to tell this to the Germans who represented their country in the 888.com Poker Nations Cup last February. Apart from heading to the gym for a team talk when they were hopelessly adrift of the field rather than joining the other teams in the bar for the night (all of it), they were great fun. In this event, only three out of the six members of each team participated in the final, and the German team reported on the net that the Irish chose their representatives by lining the team up in the bar and selecting the three that could walk the straightest! This was of course a complete fabrication (Furlong was sober!). But you get the idea…

That was then, and this is now. A team event (especially involving the Danes) in February and the World Series in July are worlds apart, and I generally try to take the World Series as seriously as I take the silly season frivolously.

In the early nineties, I was broke, which explains why I spent several weeks watching world chess champion Kasparov defend his title against England’s Nigel Short live on TV. Live chess. Well, I did say I was broke. It proved to be an experience that changed my life. With all due respect to Nigel Short (I’m glad my parents didn’t call me Nigel), it was a complete mismatch. Even I knew that. What fascinated me was the way Kasparov prepared for the match anyway. Hours in the gym. Salads. Hours and hours of mental preparation. If it were me, I’d probably have turned up half asleep or half drunk, or both, and expected to win anyway. I got the thinking that if a genius like Kasparov prepared like this, that perhaps a less talented individual like myself should possibly consider minor adjustments to my life style, particularly in the four or five months leading up to an attempt to win the World Championship. Just in case you don’t know, it hasn’t brought me a world title, but it’s kept me alive and solvent, which wasn’t really the plan, but it’s not too bad.

This explains why I arrived in Vegas a couple of days ago 17 Lbs lighter than my Nation’s cup fighting weight, and ready to play as well as I can.

Having been lucky enough to attend every WSOP since 1996, 2005 was a bit of a blow to the system. Our annual convention had been taken over by the bean counters and stripped of its soul. Bean counters do what bean counters do. The romance of Binion’s Horseshoe had been replaced by the factory-like Rio. Everyone was just another number. It seemed like we had all been sucked back into a system we spent our lives escaping from. The scary bit was that it all happened so fast.

I’m not very proud at my performance at last year’s WSOP, I played a few of the earlier events, I managed just one dinner break. I didn’t play particularly badly, I suppose I could argue I was a little unlucky but that’s not really good enough. The truth is I didn’t play any way near my best and got fed up with the whole thing and went off and amused myself by joining Jessie May in taking an irreverent look at the poker world in The Poker Show. For a finale I played four or five levels of the main event before heading happily to the Bellagio bar.

Never again. For ten years, I’ve played my best poker at the World Series, and I know there’s no excuse for leaving this town knowing you gave it less than 100%. I swear if I ever let it happen again, I’ll never come back. To make sure this doesn’t happen, I headed downtown to the Golden Nugget as soon as I arrived in Vegas, I might have to play the World Series in an atmosphereless casino, but I don’t have to live there. Just being downtown, everything feels different.

There’s something about Binion’s that sets it apart. Maybe it’s the dark seediness of the place. Maybe it’s the comfortable acceptance of the dignity of old age. But for me, I think it’s the ghosts. You can feel the history of the place. The battles won and lost. The champions crowned. The hearts broken. I can’t walk by the wall of pictures of past champions without feeling a tingling in my spine. An excitement in the air. The certain knowledge that it’s way more than just a game.

That’s why I found myself at 5 am on my first morning in town, gazing at the photos of the greats, searching for inspiration. Of course it worked! I forgave myself for last year and can’t wait to be in the middle of the action.

Feeling a lot happier, I wandered through the card room and remembered some of the fun times. I remember standing on the rail watching, with great interest, Phil Hellmuth playing a holdem tournament. Scott Gray came by with comps for the buffet. I told him I’d rather watch Phil for a while than eat, to which he replied "Come and eat anyway. If he’s any good, he’ll still be there when we get back!" He wasn’t.

Another classic occurred when I was sitting at the bar with Scott in an almost deserted Binion’s at the end of the World Series in the nineties. The immaculate Mike Laing walked by, carrying a suit whilst dragging two enormous suitcases behind him. I asked Gray why anybody needed two suitcases to go to play poker. "One is for the hairdryers." was his immediate response.

Gray himself got nailed a few years later by a graveyard dealer "You’re a pro, aren’t you?", says the dealer to Scott as he played in a Omaha game. "Yes", replied Gray chuffed that the dealer had spotted his prowess at the game. "Figures" said the dealer, " you’ve got that poker room pallor!" You can’t win them all.

You can’t take the historic atmosphere of Binion’s to the Rio, but looking back at where you came from just might show you where you’re going. I hope.

Two Non-Event Events

Poker legend Johnny ChanI played yesterday’s 6-handed No Limit Holdem and today’s No Limit Holdem events, and both were pretty much non- events for me ~ despite reasonable starts, I only managed to make it for 5 hours or so in each tournament before being knocked out. I again got to play with some great players though (it really is a start-studded lineup here) which made the experience pretty interesting and more enjoyable than it otherwise would’ve been. In fact I somehow ended up with Johnny Chan’s phone number after chatting to him about playing poker in Australia, so it wasn’t a complete write-off 🙂

The 6-handed event was a day of bad beats, with just about every hand I saw shown down during the tournament ending up with the best hand being outdrawn. It began with Willie Tann, who started the day seated to my left. Willie was up a few hundred from the 2,500 starting stack quite quickly after kicking off his tournament with his usual aggressive game, but then had a clash with WSOP bracelet winner Meng La that saw him eliminated. Meng raised from the button, Willie re-raised from the big blind, and Meng called to see a flop of A-9-5. All the money went in and both players showed top pair, but Willie’s queen kicker dominated Meng’s ten….until a ten hit the turn, and Willie was out.

The player who replaced Willie was the next to get lucky, cracking pocket kings with his pocket queens when he hit a queen on the river. In poker’s version of karma, though, the two players’ fortunes were reversed not long afterwards when Mr Lucky’s top pair was cracked by the other guy’s runner-runner straight ~ and he was out. Meng had his own misfortunes, first when his flopped set lost to A-Q. He had bet his hand all the way to the river and was called by a player with only two overcards to the board ~ until he made a gutshot straight on
the final card. Then Meng limped with aces and fell victim to my 5-3 of clubs when I flopped a flush and the fourth club he needed to make a bigger flush didn’t come.

I then moved to a new table where 2006 WPT Championship runner-up David Matthew was next to inflict a bad beat, check-raising a player all in with only an underpair ~ but again running cards would give him a straight and the winning hand. It is indeed a cruel game.

And finally, I had my own bad beat (yes, you just knew it was coming): after raising with A-K and flopping top pair, I was check-raised all in by a player with only a straight draw ~ and this on a board with two diamonds! I think he’d decided my less-than-all-in bet looked weak (it was that kind of a table) and thought he could get me to lay down the hand. He was wrong, but of course he hit the straight and I was out. Ironically I’d had my best start to date in this tournament, tripling up in the first couple of levels ~ including taking a good number of

both Meng La and Johnny Chan’s chips. So despite getting nowhere in the tournament, at least I managed to beat a couple of poker greats out of a few pots…

Today’s tournament was basically more of the same, although this time I got very lucky before I got unlucky. I was all in a couple of hours into the tournament with pocket tens against both pocket aces and pocket jacks, and managed to hit a ten on the flop to triple up. But then I lost a race with pocket jacks against A-Q for another early exit. That’s how it goes.

Tomorrow I’ll play my first limit holdem event of the WSOP, which will be a change of pace after the wild action of no limit. It’s been quite a while since I played limit, so I might head down to the poker room to practice a little tonight, and see how Joe Hachem is going in making the 6-handed final table ~ down to just 9 players now so it will be close!

WSOP 2006 Event #3 ~ Pot Limit Holdem

Pot limit holdem is my favourite poker game. It combines the structure of limit with the bluffing opportunities of no limit ~ so you can be creative with your play, without going broke quite as quickly if you make a mistake. I learned to play PLH in London, where it is the main game played by holdem players there, and quickly came to prefer it to both limit and no limit poker. With the hours I’ve put in to PLH over the last couple of years it should, in theory, be my best game ~ or so I was hoping when I entered the first of four PLH tournaments to be held during this year’s WSOP.

The tournament kicked off yesterday at noon with a field of just over 1,100 players, less than half the previous day’s record number. “Only 1100?” joked John Juanda who was at my starting table. “Well I’ll definitely be winning this one then.” (As it happens, he is well on the way to doing just that, having made the final table with a healthy chip stack). He didn’t make much of a start before our table broke, however, and neither did I in what was an uneventful first few levels.

On moving to my new seat I found myself facing not one but a table full of serious pros: Allen Cunningham, Toto Leonidas, Rocky Enciso, and Mimi Tran were all seated together, and all had chip stacks that my modest pile would barely make a dent in. Against this competition, and with rising blinds, I needed to win a pot (or three) quickly or I would be out.

My first attempt came quickly, and was a classic race between my A-Q and a pair of fours which initially looked like doubling me up after I flopped a queen, but the board also brought a jack, ten, nine, and finally an eight to give us both the straight and split the pot. As if to make up for this bad fortune, when I pushed all in with A-J a few hands later and was called by both pocket eights and A-K, I was lucky enough to find two jacks on the flop and nearly triple up.

I then went on a bit of a rush which saw me go from just over 2,000 chips to almost 19,000 in less than two hours. Toto Leonidas was my main victim, doubling me up twice when playing weak aces for a reraise and finding himself dominated by my stronger holdings, and I busted him late in the 6th level. Then Allen Cunningham doubled me up with pocket threes against my tens, and finally I picked up pocket kings no less than three times in an hour ~ once taking out Brandon Adams, and once splitting a mammoth pot with another player’s pocket kings. By the time we broke for dinner I was elated to find myself well ahead of the chip average with around 200 players left.

While I was moving from weak to strong, both Mimi and Allen had shifted in the opposite direction, and both busted out in the same dramatic hand just before the money. Although Allen had some hands and was up and down (including one lucky escape where he called for all his chips with only two overcards but hit an ace on the river to double up), Mimi basically went card dead, folding virtually every hand for close to two hours. When she finally picked up pocket aces and reraised Allen all in, Rocky Enciso had enough chips to call them both with A-K, and hit a straight to take the pot and take them out.

The empty places at the table were quickly filled by a short stacked Erick Lindgren and chip leader Randy Jensen, neither of whom would fare well in what became an action-filled final stage to the day’s play. Erick’s few chips were soon snapped up by Rocky in another three-way all in pot, and Randy made some horrible plays and then went on tilt to throw away half his 60,000 stack. Can Kim Hua, who had also joined the table, was among the players who benefited, quietly adding to his monster stack.

I steered clear of much of this late action and managed to finish up the day with 20,000 in chips, just under the average and sitting around the middle of the 71 players left in the field ~ OK, but hardly comfortable with blinds starting at 1,000-2,000 the next day. Returning on day 2, I found that the table draw had me sitting just to the left of the relentlessly aggressive Victor Ramdin, who proceeded to raise almost every pot. Despite showing down some fairly marginal hands he eliminated three players in quick succession (including Erica Schoenberg, the only other woman left in the tournament), and I knew I would be next if I didn’t do something. So when I found K- Q on the button after a raise from Victor in the cutoff, I decided to push all in. Unfortunately for me, the big blind woke up with pocket queens to send me to the rail.

44th place and the highest finishing woman isn’t bad, and it’s great to have another cash in the WSOP ~ though of course it would have been nice to go further. Perhaps tomorrow’s 6-handed no limit tournament will be the one.

Straight Into Action – Event #2 $1500 NLH

Euphemia, our excellent 70 something West Indian cleaning lady, was distraught when I told her I was off to Vegas for six weeks. I thought she was just sharing the common view that the World Series is getting too long until she hugged and kissed me telling me she was going to miss me. She also told me I should try and get myself a bird to look after me in the States.

Before that I had to worry about topping up the Vegas tank though. The Vic had been criticised for putting on a festival just before the WSOP with the summer weather and football to also distract. It did stop a few people playing and only 45 showed up for the 5k Main Event. I guess Jeff should consult with FIFA over the positioning of their next major tournament lest it clashes with his Grosvenor Masters. After the last festival he had to put up with everyone moaning about the structures. No wonder he looks miserable.

In the three tournaments I played the structures were excellent. I was particularly glad as I’d suggested to him how he could change them. If there was one criticism I could have it was that more people should have entered the monkey comp on the Sunday night. If a few more lazy bastards had made the effort to turn up I could have won a little more than the £9500 I managed.

I was very pleased to get a win at HQ though and it was nice to see several of the staff looking very pleased for me. I was actually quite proud when I carried away the trophy and a little touched. It was also good that the structure meant we didn’t finish until 5am when most of the nippers had left for the night.

I’m even thinking now that some of the £100 game regulars were not simply just pleased to see the money stay in the room.

After all that hard work I only had a couple of hours to pack and get to the airport. The flight was absolutely stuffed full of poker players and you couldn’t move for copies of Harrington on Hold-em. I must have seen a dozen friendly faces. One wag from the Vic had commented that if this plane went down he might as well take August off as there wouldn’t be a game.

Within two hours of landing I was seated in the Rio’s daily $500 freeze-out.

These get about 150 players and have quite a nice structure. I sat next to Martin Green from Brighton who is a very friendly guy who seems to do well in tournaments. He demonstrated this by winning a huge pot with a pair of queens. Just as I was beginning to enjoy the company my QQs ran into KKs.

Luckily I wasn’t the only one in loser’s corner and Willie, John Dwyer and John Duthie (Poker’s Mr Big) and I had our first visit of the year to Buzios. The Rio does have other restaurants, but this fish one is probably the best and I now know the menu by heart which saves time.

Mr Big and I went back via the High Limit Slot area at The Bellagio. It is slightly odd that all the staff there greet John by name like a long-lost pal. However, he is soon having the last laugh when he wins $7500 on his first spin and quits for the night.

Tuesday is the $1500 NLH with a ridiculous 2700 runners (including 500 who only join when someone vacates their seat as alternates) playing for a 1st prize of $750k.

I’m not fancying my chances of collecting the prize as the taxi driver who takes me back from my dinner break is busy giving me a tour of the Rio car lot.

With only 2400 and the big blind of 400 looming I really didn’t need him stubbornly insisting that we could get in through the staff car-park when I knew we couldn’t.

Eventually I get back to see my cards being mucked and my blind disappearing into the pot. I’m only slightly cheered to be moved to another table well away from the blinds. Desperately looking for a chance to stick my meagre stack in I finally bung it in from the big blind in a 5 way coup (2 all-ins) with 9,9. I know I’m going to have to hit a set (something I’m really not very good at usually) and I do. A couple of minutes later I’m up to 12k and I can’t believe I was worrying. All that success goes to my head though and I start to think about stepping up a gear. I re-raise Jennifer Harman’s under the gun raise going all in with AQ. She seems pretty happy to call for half my chips with KK and from there cruises to 11th place. I’m back to struggling away and four hours later am out in 230th.

My knockout hand was an easy one to take as I couldn’t do much about it. I am in the big blind with 2,3 and four people limp. The flop comes 2,2,9 and if one of them hadn’t had 9,9 I could have won a nice pot.

My $2274 takes a while to collect as Harrah’s hadn’t quite worked out, while collecting all the money in, that some people were going to get some back and they might need some staff to deal with that. I was in quite a good mood though so I didn’t mind. As someone much wiser than me has mentioned lately: Being in a glamorous city, playing a game, and having fun while being paid to do it is something most people would love to do and I should enjoy it. So far I am.

Neil Channing is Sponsored to Play Poker by BetUSA.com and BetUK.com.

The World Series Begins

Sarah Bilney“With nearly 3000 runners ~ you can forget about skill, baby. Gonna need a lotta luck to get through today.”

So said Scotty Nguyen as he took his seat next to me at the first open event of the 2006 World Series of Poker, the $1,500 No Limit Holdem freezeout. In a sign of just how much the World Series has continued to grow, the event was officially sold out by mid-afternoon the day before, and had taken more than 400 alternates by the time things kicked off at noon today. And this was despite the addition of even more tables to the cavernous tournament room than the 200 they fitted in last year, and the tournament being played 11-handed for the early levels! So the event easily broke the record of 2305 set for this tournament in 2005, and the more than 2700 players who participated were all hoping that some much-needed luck would be on their side today.

I had made sure to arrive in Las Vegas a few days early to give me a chance to get over the jetlag, and having had a quiet (and relatively poker-free) weekend, I felt ready to go the distance in today’s huge field ~ all I needed was a bit of luck. Cracking open the fortune cookie that came with last night’s dinner, I hoped for a sign that the poker gods would be with me when I took my seat today: something like ‘You will overcome many obstacles and reach your goal’ would have been nice. But instead the message told me that ‘You have a deep interest in all that is artistic’ ~ hardly a helpful prediction for this occasion.

And as it turned out, the cards would not fall my way today, and I only lasted a couple of levels before I lost my meagre chip stack to a three-outer. In a battle of the blinds, I called a re-raise with A-8 and found myself up against A-3, and my fortunate opponent hit not one but two threes to knock me out. It just wasn’t my day.

It didn’t seem to be Joe Hachem’s day either ~ I bumped into him during the first break, right after he’d had his set of queens cracked by A-J. In a huge three-way pot where all the chips went in pre-flop, Joe’s pocket queens were up against A-J as well as A-K. Having flopped top set though, he lost to a runner-runner straight for the weakest hand of the three and was left short-stacked. He had both players covered so managed to survive his bad beat, though he wouldn’t make it to the end of the day. Other early casualties included defending champion for this event, Allen Cunningham, who lost a race with A-K against queens, and Australian tournament veteran Gary Benson, who got extremely unlucky with pocket aces in the very first hand of the tournament.

I’m not sure how Scotty ended up doing, although he didn’t have too many chips when I left him. He didn’t seem to mind too much though, and when I think about how I react to early exits and bad beats, his philosophical attitude to tournament play is one which I should probably try harder to emulate. Of course, being a big overall winner helps ~ and sitting elbow to elbow with Scotty it was hard not to notice the newest addition to his sizable collection of poker bracelets, for the 2006 Tunica Gold Strike World Poker Open, worth nearly $1 million. If I can manage to take home one of those this WSOP I’m sure it will make up for a lifetime of bad beats.

Only 43 more tournaments left to give it a go.

A Proposal for the World Series of Poker

A proposal to resolve an ongoing debate

There has been a lot of talk within the poker community about the future of the World Series of Poker. The central debate has focused on whether or not the main event is too big in terms of the number of entrants. Some people have argued that the buy-in should be increased in an effort to reduce the number of entrants, while others like the $10,000 buy-in. Let’s look at some of the arguments for both sides.

The buy-in should be increased

  • The main event of the World Series back in 1971 started with a buy-in of $10,000, and remains the same today. In today’s money, that $10,000 is more like $50,000.
  • With more than 5,000 entrants, winning the main event is more like winning the lottery than a poker tournament.
  • The main-event champion in today’s environment can weave his way to the final table without having to battle the top players in the game.
  • The final table lacks luster, as most of the players are amateurs or players with very little name recognition.

These arguments all boil down to increasing the buy-in in order to reduce the number of entrants. The thinking is that this will give every top player a better chance of winning the tournament and will result in a more prestigious final table.

Let’s keep the main event as it is

  • Poker’s popularity is at an all-time high, so there is no need to change things.
  • The $10,000 buy-in is small enough that amateurs can play along with the pros, making poker unique when compared to sports events.
  • The public loves to see an underdog win the big money.
  • Although the chances of winning decrease with more entrants, the pros get great positive value out of their buy-in with so many entrants in the field who are effectively dead money.

When looking at the two arguments, it is important to note the different parties that would be impacted by any change.

Harrah’s owns the WSOP, and its main focus is on generating more profits. ESPN currently owns the broadcasting rights, so its main interest is being able to broadcast interesting tournaments to the public in order to increase market share, which results in more ad revenues. Poker players, of course, have an interest in how their poker champion is crowned and what kind of value they receive from playing in the tournament.

The two arguments focus on things being either one way or the other — but how about both? How about starting off the entire WSOP with a $100,000 buy-in tournament? This tournament could be called something like the WSOP Professional Championship. The $10,000 main event would remain as is, to be played at the end of the Series. This tournament still would remain the dream for the everyday player.

The top players would be happy, as they now would have a prestigious tournament to play that would crown their champion. This tournament would match the best in the world against each other. Harrah’s would be happy, as this would require little additional resources but would add a lot of recognition to the WSOP brand. ESPN would be happy, as the final table of the $100,000 event surely would be a “Who’s Who” in the poker world. With 100-200 entrants, first-place prize money would be somewhere between $3 million and $6 million, making this a lucrative tournament for everyone involved. And the public certainly would be fascinated by watching this event unfold.

The main event still would be the biggest tournament in the world, attracting thousands and thousands of players who dream of competing against the best in the world. Rather than focus on either this or that, let’s do something that would be a win-win for everyone.

Swimming with the Devilfish: Excerpt 3/5

Des Wilson on the poker pro’s… ”they’re ruthless but that’s the jungle they’re in.”

Hendon Mob readers can get 20% off Swimming with the Devil Fish until 30 June (standard price: £7.99, discount price: £6.39). Click here to buy the book, and enter the code ‘MOB’ in the discount code box when you get to the shopping basket. If you have any questions about this offer, please email [email protected].

(Extract from Des Wilson’s “Swimming with the Devilfish” – now on sale)

“I like the poker pro’s… I’ve found them friendly and fun, helpful and trusting. The best of them have courage, determination, discipline, and skill. They’re clever. They’re resilient. They fight back from appalling setbacks…who knows what lonely and painful hours they endure after suffering crushing blows to bank balance or ego in the early hours of countless mornings. Poker players have to be able to live with defeat and disaster, trials and setback, as an everyday experience, and put it in some kind of context, and draw on extraordinary self-belief. They’re free spirits who pay a price for freedom – namely, in uncertainties and insecurity and loneliness. And boredom – because sometimes they have to spend hours, sitting on poor cards, hanging on in there, waiting for the one break that will make the day profitable.

I like their eccentricities. They’re night people. ..even after spending six weeks in Las Vegas for the World Series they’re all deadly pale. No-one sees the sun. While most have a taste for good food and wine, their diet is appalling, because apart from breakfast-lunch in the early afternoon the food has to be snatched during the brief breaks of play. On the other hand, few of them have a drink problem. No serious poker player drinks before play, or at the table, and that doesn’t leave a lot of drinking time… outside of the card room, they tend to be innocents abroad. If you compare them with professional golfers – and there are parallels – in the sense that they lead a nomadic life, plying their trade, or practicing their skills, wherever the latest tournament is – they have no management, no long term plan. They book their own hotels, buy into tournaments themselves, and take life as it comes, confronting “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” with the occasional whinge but otherwise world-weary acceptance. The hours they lead and their lifestyle means that they can travel the world, day by day, with little awareness of what’s actually happening in it… despite the fact that a considerable number left school at 15 or 16, and have no educational qualifications, they have, generally speaking, an extraordinary facility for figures – mathematical skills that enable them to instantaneously work out the odds as each card is dealt – the remaining “outs” (cards in the pack that can help their particular hand) and the odds of winning with a particular hand, and the value of the hand compared with the money in the pot. And they have an extraordinary memory for hands they’ve played – sometimes going back years. Hang around in the bar and you’ll hear it scores of times: “I had ace queen, off suit, and he had a pair of sevens. I raise, he calls. Flop comes down ace, queen, and ten. I raise, he calls. Turn card is a three. I raise, he calls. River card is a seven. I figure the aces and queens will stand up, so I go all in. He calls. He calls, and turns over a seven…what can you say?” Another bad beat…. the players love to describe their bad beats, but they hate to listen to anyone else’s. They will listen, but with a glazed look in the eyes. It’s never said, but the basic rule is “don’t bother me with your bad luck stories, I’ve enough of my own.” For them there really is “no such things as society”; they don’t pay taxes, taking the view that if they pay taxes on their winnings, then they should be compensated for their losses. Paradoxically, they’re non conformists who play by the rules. They pride themselves on their independence but at the tournaments they’re like lambs – they queue to register, do what they’re told by the card room manager, keep to the laws of the game, and, on the whole, are courteous and friendly to others. They simply don’t think about money the way anyone else does. .. they’ve found a safe way of living dangerously, war without gunfire and where few of the injuries involve actual blood.”

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