Avi's Poker Page
Oct 11, 2004: Ultimate Poker Challenge $1000 No Limit Hold'em
The UPC is an interesting structure - a series of $1k events where 40%
of the pool from each event goes to the semi-final event and to point
leaders. You earn points for making it further in each of the 2-day
tournaments. I had played in 3, getting points each day, but I needed
to get at least 20-30 more points to be assured of getting into the
semi-finals.
I wound up coming in 2nd in the tournament. It went from 3pm to about
9pm. People had to re-schedule their dinner plans more than once :)
2nd place paid $3k and 1st paid $6k; 7th through 3rd paid $1000, $1100,
$1200, $1300, $1400. And it was a $1k buy-in event.
Anyway, in the first two hours I didn't play that well, was fairly
passive, and wound up dwindling down to one round of blinds/antes.
Then I started getting cards and managed to become the chip leader,
and was playing better. We played 5-handed for quite some time,
with the chip lead actually moving around to each person at some point.
I was still pretty aggressive, since coming in 1st was the only way
to make any real profit.
I did wind up having a chip lead heads-up, but Chris survived when I
put him in with Jack-high when I had Ace-rag. Then I got him in when
I had pairs and he survived twice with overcards. At the end, I could
have waited, though it was getting late. I had maybe 1/5th or 1/6th the
chips and raised with A-7 and he reraised and I called with A-8. I read
him for a King-high or so, but in any case with a weak hand. No miracles
so it ended.
The show will air Christmas at 11pm, but it will be hard for them to
put many of the interesting hands in. Phil Hellmuth will be the commentator,
so I'm sure he'll be as caustic as usual. I didn't play great poker, but
I didn't play poorly.
At least the Akamai hat should be fairly visible :)
And I got what I needed - 4 of the 2-day events, points each time, and
now a total high enough to ensure I enter the semi-finals.
Jun 16, 2004: Commerce Casino $2500 No Limit Hold'em
I was out after 7 hours of play when a benignly drunk Frank Mariani,
who I am told owns half of the Lakers, raised a $1200 pot all-in
from the small blind with 78o. I had AA for the first time all day
and called. The board came 4-10-10-7-7 so I was out. I got a bit,
but not extraordinarily, lucky beforehand, but it was still a sick
hand. There were 4 tables left. 15th paid $3100 and 1st paid $99k
or so.
Jun 15, 2004: Commerce Casino $1500 Pot Limit Omaha Rebuy
I entered the 1500 rebuy PLO tournament which was cancelled - or at
least replaced as the main event for today with a $500 rebuy NL Hold'em
tournament. We had 11 players and 8 rebuys, for a $28,500 pool.
I chopped for 2nd with Hassan Habib, who took first.
Notables at the table were Richard ("Quiet Lion") Brodie, Charlie
("Scotty Warbucks") Shoten, Lee Watkinson, who came in 2nd in the 5k
PLO at the WSOP, and Jonathan ("Doodle") Gallin, a 22-year-old player
who's quite sharp and who won the $1k PL Hold'em tournament last week
at the Commerce. I hit a 5-outer once to stay in in the later stages,
and in the early middle stages doubled up when I filled up on Lee.
May 23, 2004: WSOP $10k Event
Brief summary: I was out about 40 minutes before the end of the 6th and
final round of the day. 1270 people or so were playing Sunday and about
the same played Saturday. Then on Monday, the 1200 or so people left would
play together.
I was able to get up to about 30k chips by the end of the 3rd level. I only
had one monster hand. I limped with AA and extracted an entire $10k stack
on it, though my opponent wound up having an open-ended straight draw and
a flush draw, but she didn't hit.
After dinner, a new player who I knew to be fairly aggressive sat down
and in his first hand he had AA and I had QQ. I put him on something
like AK or AQ. We got it all in pre-flop and I lost, doubling him up
from 20k. I didn't play it correctly, and it was a good learning experience.
I built back to 18k chips and wound up going out with AQ when my opponent
had 88. I did play it well, reraising the 2500 raise to 8000, and moved in
on the flop of 922. My opponent called with 88 and I didn't hit, but that
was a tough call to make...
Noam is still in it, so that's great.
Hopefully I'll watch him at the final table on Friday.
Richard is out on Monday,
unfortunately - but he made a great comback from 1300 chips to
over 16000 chips!
May 20, 2004: Pot Limit Omaha
(results: http://www2.pokerpages.com/tournament/result8742.htm)
This was a 2-day event with a $5000 buyin and optional $5000 re-buys
the first two levels, and an optional $5000 add-on at the end of the
first two hours.
This was the last large event before the 6-day "big event". Omaha
is a game like Hold'em but very different. You get 4 cards instead of 2
and have to use 2 of the 4 cards and 3 of the board cards to make a hand.
I've been playing pot-limit Omaha (high) since the 2003 Aruba event,
and mainly have been playing around the tournaments I've gone to at
the Commerce and in Reno, and then a few multi-day sessions at the
World Series this year.
I flew in from DC the night before and wound up not sleeping (playing
PLO cash games). Hooked up with my wife and friends in the AM, then
went into the tournament. During the dinner break the first day I
went down to the cash game. The Unabomber said "Freedman, you're
hardcore, playing during the dinner break".
On the first day, I ended the rebuy period with about 6000 in chips,
from 5000 starting. I never got very low, and didn't feel the need
to add-on at the end. It just didn't seem that having another 5000 in
chips then would greatly enhance my chance of making the top 5. I could
be wrong on that, as many pros I talked to disagree(d) with me.
A few interesting hands from the first day:
- I limped with Aces, which I had been doing, as there was more than
enough raising at the table. Slim flopped top boat and I had pretty
much nothing. He made a small bet. The turn came an Ace, giving
me now the top boat. Unless Amarillo had quads, I was good. On
the river he bet 2500 and I raised 2500. He had about 5000 chips
left. He called, saying he knew I had him beat...
- Jim McManus, who had re-bought a few times and added on even with a good
number of chips, and I were each up to about 25k in chips. I had
KQJ9, with QJ of clubs. The flop was K99, with K9 of clubs.
I checked it to Jim, who bet the pot (7k). I re-raised all-in. He
called with A9. I had a straight flush draw also in case he hit
his A, which was good, but he didn't hit an A and I doubled up.
- Had a few hands with Phil Hellmuth, Jr. He was in a bad mood and
was folding pretty easily post-flop. He wasn't in his scary mode.
Lederer seemed on his game and quite formidable the whole tournment.
I was lucky to have him generally to my right when we were at the
same table. I would say his play degraded at the final table, but
it's also possible his cards were no good, or that there were other
factors at play I was not aware of.
Those hands were before the dinner break. After the dinner break,
I gradually built up but had no dramatic hands (a good way to build).
I was the chip leader at my table towards the end, and could have even
potentially been more aggressive but I was getting enough respect to
gradually grow my stack a few $k at a time, so I was happy.
The first day finished at 2:30am.
The morning of the 2nd day I had a 2-hour conference call at 7am local
time, and spent a few hours repairing my main machine, which had crashed
due to unfortunate issues with Linux and NFS.
The tournament started at 2. By about 4 we were into the final table
(final 10 people). I came in with 85k chips (down from 180k peak).
I had some promising hands (pre-flop) and was down to 55k chips when
Chris Moneymaker and Daniel Negreanu had a hand which busted Moneymaker.
I was in the hand but folded on the flop.
Moneymaker had flopped a straight, bet the pot, and got a call from
Daniel. On the turn, the board paired Queens, and Moneymaker moved in
(he had about the pot in chips, another 100k or so). Daniel had made
quad Queens and Moneymaker was out one from the TV table of 9.
Once we got down to 9 they gave out interview times and had us come
back at 6:15 for the start of the final table. The interview was
mildly interesting, pretty standard questions on background, style,
and had me do some chip-shuffling, which I can just barely do.
The final table had hole-card cams and a "bunnycam" for showing
the cards that would have come on the turn and/or river if the
hand had played out. This info should make the TV show quite
interesting (especially for me).
The final table had Freddy Deeb to my left, not great, and Howard
Lederer and Daniel to my immediate right, the best place to have
them. Those three players were my main concerns.
Going into the final table I had 55k chips, by far the short-stack.
There were a few people (including Lederer and Negreanu) with 250k
chips or so and the rest had 100-150k or so chips. I wasn't depressed,
but I was clear that I was going to need to get some good hands or I'd
just have a television appearance, chance to wear an Akamai hat, and
gain legitimacy for my poker hobby.
I actually borrowed a copy of Poker for Dummies to read at the table,
but I didn't get a chance, because there were very few pots at the
table where serious decisions weren't being made.
A brief summary of the final table hands hands:
Pretty quickly, I got Aces, got in heads-up. It wasn't as "premium"
a hand as Aces in Hold'em but it was pretty good for a short-stack, and
luckily it held up and I doubled up.
A little while later, the perfect hand came for me. It was raised to
38k or so pre-flop with a number of callers. I flopped the nut
heart flush, pushed in for another 53k or so, and it folded around
to Daniel. Daniel thought for a bit, we made some faces at each other,
and he eventually decided to call. At the end of the hand, I had 292k,
was seriously in the game, and a little while later when Howard lost
a large pot, I was actually chip leader at the table for a few hands.
Daniel and Howard then lost some big hands. Daniel lost some big ones,
50k-100k+ at a time, which brought him to a short-stacked position.
Amazingly, and due to no fault/skill of my own, both of them were out
before me.
On my final hand it was raised by the current chip-leader (who went
on to win) pre-flop and called. I had about 250k chips at that point,
and was uninterested in "hanging on" to get another 30 or 60k extra
over the 90k I was guaranteed. The flop gave me a huge straight draw
and a middle flush draw.
I had QJ97 and the board was Kd 10s 6d. I had Q or J of diamonds,
so I had to worry about one or two higher diamonds, but I didn't
put him on that - I put him on 2 pair or a set already.
Notice the difference between Hold'em and Omaha. In Hold'em I just had
an open-ended straight draw with QJ on tht board. With Omaha:
An A gives me a straight (A K 10 board, Q J hand)
A Q gives me a straight (K Q 10 board, J 9 hand)
A J gives me a straight (K J 10 board, Q 9 hand)
A 9 gives me a straight (K 10 9 board, Q J hand)
A 8 gives me a straight (10 8 6 board, 7 9 hand)
So that looked good to me, 5 cards to get me a straight from 3 or
4 suits, plus maybe cards from the 4th suit to make a flush draw.
A good chance to trade $30k or $60k of safe money vs. a much
better chnce at $410k.
I bet the flop, Ted re-raised the pot, and I re-raised all-in. He had a
pair of 10s and the nut flush draw. I didn't hit the straight, so I was
out. I still think I took a reasonable chance, as if I got to 2nd place
there would likely have been a deal, guaranteeing at least $300k - and I
would have had a shot at the bracelet. Also, I knew that I would need
chips to deal with Freddy Deeb in any case.
Overall, I was pretty happy with how I played, and with the experience
overall.
The event should air on August 31st.