WSOP report part 3, The Devil in Miss Elizabeth, events 3 and 5
After a quick day 2 bust out in the 5k event (that was highly uneventful seeing as I won zero chips and had nothing even close to a debatable situation) I was looking forward to what promised to be a very soft field in the Sunday $1500 PL holdem event.

My first time was highly chatty and active, with lots of limping, raising, and people stacking each other by being TOTALLY incapable of folding big pairs no matter how god awful the board was for them. I went from 3000 to 4500ish in the following hand 8 handed:

UTG folds, utg+1 calls, I call for 50 with JTss, 1 more caller, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: As 9h Td
checks to me and I fire 175 seeing as 3 of 4 seemed very unlikely for an A having checked, and the other limpers range is huge. It folds around to the open limper, who calls.
Turn: 9s
He checks, I check back.
River: 7s, he bets 250, I raise to 800, he calls and shows AQo. Nice open limp/flop check sir.

I get moved to my 2nd table which is the same spaz fest and a round or two look down at AA. A very bad/spewy player limps for 100, I make it 400, folds to him and he calls.

Flop: Q 9 4 rainbow
he checks I fire 750, he deliberates and calls.

Turn:
He bets 2000, I jam 1200 more, he calls showing AQ and I double to 9k. Wow people love open limping AQ live. I get my stack close to 10k when the following hand comes up vs the same awful villain.
I am UTG+1 holding QQ and raise 75/150 blinds to 450. A average/badish player with also a largish stack of like 8 or 9k calls, and the bad player in the BB with about 3400 pots it, I re pot it, the other player folds (his AK) and the BB calls off the tiny amount that wasn’t in. He shows 66. Two players admit to having folded a 6. Awesome.
Board: 2 7 9 5………….8
Charming. Back to about 7ish. I play numerous small pots then find a way to get some of my chips back from the spewtard (who had obv already shipped back half to the rest of the table.
I hold 75dd at 75/150 with about 7500. UTG limps, I limp behind, 2 more limpers, SB completes, BB (spewer) checks. I don’t think this limp is feasible/profitable in most online tournaments, in this one considering nobody liked open raising, I’m pretty sure it is.
Flop: 7s 7h 8s
SB checks, BB bets out like 400, utg folds, I make it 1400, folds back to him, he jams, I call. He turns over 9T for a very much so draw, but blanks twice and I get back to 10k. Right about then I got moved tables.

I stroll over to my new table and lo and behold in seat 10 is the scourage of NVG, Shannon Elizabeth. She’s sitting with a fairly short stack, and obviously has numerous people coming over to update her stack. When she enters a pot almost assuredly some jackass with an annoying accent will say something when she bets/raises like “aww hell, yer to purty to knock out, u can have it.” She seemed nice/talkative enough though, and managed not to angle shoot anyone. This table again was extremely weak outside a solid internet player on my right, who’s online handle was something like ‘johnster’, he seemed like a cool guy. I play various small pots at this table, and lose a few chips with JJ to what I believe to be a big pair, which I will post in HSMTT. It’s been hard to find hands to post because they are often very straight forward or against total morons so very little thought process is involved. I was playing moderately loose though by no means raising every hand, and the player to my left had a huge stack and was super weak with open limps. He probably limped roughly 2/3 times a round. Unfortunately, he also reraised me pot 3 times when I opened, and showed AA twice. I know he was not bluffing the time he didn’t show. Phil Hellmuth was on the table to our left, and at one point leaped from his chair throwing it over screaming “GAAAAAAAAAHD!! HOW MANY BEATS ARE YOU GUYS GONNA PUT ON ME!??!! GAAAAAAHD!”

At this point I decided to recant what is one of the most popular stories amongst Madison poker players, perhaps Badgerpro has heard this one if he’s played some of the older guy bar games. Back in the 80’s at a cash game Phil was acting like his usual sense and one regular who’d just had enough lept up and hit him square in the face, laying Phil out over a pool table. This story comes up at least once a game, the guy who hit him is in his 40’s now and I’m pretty sure it’s the proudest moment of his life.
I continue to play and lose small pots, with no real significant or interesting spots. With no antes it really wasn’t that appropriate to play excessively loose, though I still stole blinds from a couple of the weakest players on my left. A bit later with about 9k, I raised the 1/3 blinds to 800 with KQo in MP2 or 3, and the young short stack from the JJ hand I’ll post jammed for like 1800 total a couple spots behind. Folds to me, I call, and he flips up JTss quoting “well, I can’t wait forever” He turns a flush and I’m knocked close to 7k. A couple hands later at 1/3 blinds utg limps. It folds to me in MP with AdTd and I had to deliberate. UTG has limped a couple times before, but never utg, and he seemed to be kinda considering raising then settling on limping. My stack felt awkward for raising, but folding seemed nity, so I limped back. The guy behind me limps, then the short stack with 600 behind him goes all in. Shannon calls, the SB calls, folds, UTG calls and its back to me. At this point I’m now sure UTG doesn’t have it as he woulda iso’d so I pot it. Everyone folds out (obv) and I have the short stack all in, unfortunately he has JJ. Then two guys admit to folding A’s. Awesome. The table looks at me like I’m crazy. Tony Ma in seat one goes “what are you doing!??” I roll my eyes and say “indeed, what am I doing?”
“What ARE you doing?” he repeats. I laugh at him, he laughs at me, and the J’s hold. Tony Ma apparently has a reputation for giving dealers a hard time, and his shot at me would not be forgotten.
A round or two later a hand is dealt out and there is action in progress. As they are close to going to the flop, the dealer drops a card in the muck and fails to realize it, then it gets mixed in. Tony Ma remarks “wait, there’s an extra card in the muck!!” The dealer asks if anyone saw the card, they did not. He asks if anyone knows which it is, they don’t. Since little can be done, there’s already been action, and nobody has seen the card, the dealer is about to deal the flop but Tony Ma insists on stopping the action and getting a floor ruling. As a guy who normally 8 tables online with zero stoppage, having some [censored] halt the game so he can get a ruling that is a 1 billion % foregone conclusion is incredibly annoying. The floor comes over, asks the obvious questions, then says “well guys, sorry, but given that theirs action we’re just gonna have to deal it, hope that’s not a huge deal.”
I look up at him and with a half smile say “Sir, I am outraged” the table laughs but he takes me serious “You are?” I break into laughter, “no I’m not serious man. If I’m outraged at anything it’s that some jerk off can call you over for a totally foregone conclusion when you very likely have better things to do.” The table laughs, the dealer laughs, the floorman laughs, but Tony Ma is unamused.

A bit after this “Devil Fish” David Ulliot came over to the table and began blatantly hitting on Shannon Elizabeth and asking her to come to dinner. She at first begins with some excuse about perhaps still being in the tournament, not sure when we’re getting done, even though they had already told us. He continues to spit his game, telling her about the various places he’ll take her. She seems to reluctantly agree, and says “why don’t you give me your number, and I’ll call you when I’m all set here.” He gives it to her and she punches it in to her phone. Hmm, I seem to recall this trick from my single days. Well done Devil Fish, I certainly hope at your age I still have the stamina to be tournament poker player, and a guy who harasses C movie stars half my age for what will be an incredibly awkward and platonic evening.

After the Devilfish leaves, I witnessed what was the two most retarded folds I’ve ever seen in my life IN THE SAME [censored] HAND. The action goes as follows. A short stack on the CO raises to 800, Shannon calls on the button, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: Jh 9c 3h
BB checks, short stack bets pot leaving himself 300 chips. Shannon then calls, then looks over at his stack and goes “oh, oops, if I’d known you only had 300 left I would have just put you in, sorry.” The BB also calls.
Turn: 5h
The BB leads 2000. The shortstack deliberates THEN FOLDS. “Might be a bad play” he says “but I’m still in the tournament.” 4 to 1 this guy wins a bracelet before me. Now on to Shannon, who thinks things over and shoves for 3000 more. The BB looks saddened, then lifts his cards up to look at them. The guy on his left catches a look and his eyes nearly explode. The BB reluctantly folds, and Shannon drags a nice pot. The guy on his left FREAKS, “he just folded a queen high flush!!” The table looks at him and he shrugs, mumbling something about probably being beat. Shannon thinks he’s lying until we tell her the guy on the left actually saw it. She finds this quite enjoyable.
A round or two later the blinds go up to 200/400 and I have around 5500. It folds to the hijack, captain fold Q high flush, who raises to 1200. It folds to me in the BB with AKo, and I repot for most of my stack. He goes all in and flips up AKhh.
Flop: 8d Th Qh
turn: 6h
Awesome. GG ladies and gents, at least I was busted by a true expert who completely outplayed me.
I get to sleep at a good hour that night after a cigar and drinks with friends, and wake up fairly refreshed for today’s 1500 limit event.

Could I write up a whole bunch of fairly pointless and straight forward hands from the limit tournament? Sure, but it wouldn’t be very interesting. I faced almost zero real decisions outside one hand where I made a thin turn value bet on a scary board and checked back on the river deciding it was very unlikely a worse hand called 2 bets and there was a [censored] ton that beat me, and my hand was good. I managed to fairly quickly 3X my stack again trough finding some good hands (AA for good pot, two pair) and playing tight. In limit tournaments, your ability to be creative is almost zero, and in ones where people play bad and hand you chips by constantly flat calling out of position or open limping you just can’t get that out of line. My descent started when I raised AA in EP, and the BB was only caller.
Flop: K 8 2, with two hearts and I had Ah
Check/bet/raise/3 bet/call.
Turn: 5h
he donk bets, I call.
River: Td
He bets, I call he shows 79hh.

Later I raised AKo utg+2, and MP2 3 bet me (“Sooners” online, a very nice and fun guy at the table) and it folded around, I 4 bet he called.
Flop: 8 7 6 two clubs, I have none
I bet he raises I call
Turn: 5c
I check he bets I fold.

After that nothing interesting happened in the least. As Sooner’s can tell you if he replies I basically lost my chips a little at a time, raising pre and perhaps being 3 bet and whiffing completely, paying blinds, etc.
I went bust by raising AQ at 1400 to 600 at 150/300 in MP1 and an aggro player on my left made it 3 bets. It folded back to me and its obv going in so I make it 4 bets, he calls, and I bet the rest in the dark. He calls with 99 and it holds and that’s another GG no cash thanks and GL guys.

So I’m 3 events and 8k in and so far zero cashes in what has been very weak fields, so it’s a little frustrating considering how easy it is to go deep once a day online. Tomorrow is the 1k holdem rebuys which had 450 entrants when I went to the booth tonight so should be huge/weak field. Hopefully I get to some monsterous spew monkey like Negreanu’s table and am the benefactor of his 48 rebuys or whatever sick amount he does. So that’s all in this major TL DR trip report, I’ll write the next in a couple days after various interesting [censored] has happened.

5k mixed holdem - Day 1
When I headed down to the Rio poker room I knew things would be busy, but what I was not expecting was the absolute pandamonium that broke loose. I did this for 6 weeks last year, and never at any time EVER did things get so totally out of hand. The line stretched half way down the Rio hallway which is ENORMOUS. It was totally absurd. None of the staff had any idea what was going on, and everyone was confused. Finally someone told me if you were going to play today’s 5k you got to cut way in front, which still took 20 min (some people literally waited in line 4-6 hours today) and I got to the table 1 hand late.

My table line up, of known players, was as follows: Chris Moneymaker, Pearljammer, Jon Rober Belande, a tight asian guy who was wearing WPO bracelet but name escapes me, and on my direct right, Humberto Brenes. The table played extremely tight aggressive with basically nobody limping/spewing, except Belande. Humberto of course spent hours singing Spanish in my right ear, and about 8 gajillion people came over pointing and shouting “Its Humberto!!!” then begging for pics. He’d stick out his tongue, wave, pull one of TWO shark toys out and chant HUUUUMBERTO!! a bit but he didn’t really let it get out of hand. Still, I constantly felt like recanting my 2006 WSOP ME story, but decided not to be confrontational just for the sake of [censored] with people. I played zero hands with Brenes during several hours of play.

In one hand early it went limp/raise/I call/belande calls/limper calls.

Flop 4 5 6 two diamonds and belande bets 1000, limper calls, raiser/I fold. Turn A Belande bets 4000. Guy calls. River diamond. Belande bets 3000 leaving himself 1000, the guy puts him in, he swears a [censored] load and angrily folds. Lol, invest90%ofstackandfoldaments. Also, I witnessed moneymaker mega spew his stack into pearljammer when he could not get away from his AA whatsoever. So many times today I saw guys talk about a hand for 20 minutes during/after it, but had they THOUGHT about the hand for 20 seconds during it they would have realized the obvious. The important thing to understand when reading some of the hands I’ll share is that my villains can NEVER tell what’s obvious, have minimal sense of what my/their stack size is, and that I am 100% unknown.

To start things off I was fairly card dead, then with about 9k I found KK in MP. UTG raised to 200, I made it 600, and Belande who had worked his stack back to 5k flat called on the button, and the OR folded.
Flop: 2 T 2 and I fire 900 into 1500, belande tanks, tanks, then shoves his 88 and good day sir.
At that point I was around 14,000 and slowly lost chips in small but not damaging pots.

A while later I was moved tables to a pretty soft table, including a rich guy I’d seen play quite badly on TV (Ted Lawsen I think?). One thing I had trouble adjusting with today was the need for patience, going from 8-10 tabling online to 1 tabling live where people waste time constantly. The pace is agonizing sometimes, and Ted Lawson was the slowest of them all.

A half hour into my time at this table, at blinds 75/150 lawson makes it 500 in MP2 and I look down at 8s6s on the button(he had 25k, myself about 9). I’d seen him spew pretty bad on TV and I was sick bored so I decided to call in position and play him post flop. The blinds folded.
Flop 3s 5d 9c
Ted checks, I check.

Turn: 7s
Ted checks, I bet 600, he makes it 1600, I reraise half my stack (so [censored] obv) and he puts me in. He shows 99 for top set and I fade his boat on the river and for the rest of the evening ( a very long one) every time I play a hand with him he’ll ask me if I have 86 totally befuddled by my pre flop call.

For quite a while things were pretty quiet and I was card dead. I played some small pots, did some small bluffing/bullying, and was not overly involved.

I came into the session after the dinner break with about 16k and told stevepa how bad I needed to get chips at this 4/800 NL level. The next hour would be total insanity. The table lineup at this point included: Ted Lawson, Barry Greenstein, Jason Gray, Chad Brown, Toto Leonidas. Toto is WAY to LAG and really doesn’t know how to play the style at all, Jason Gray is solid, Barry seems good when he wants to be (he played one hand quite bad PF that I’ll get into later, otherwise strong) Chat Brown actually played pretty well, Ted Lawson was a disaster.

So heres how things started off:
I have 16k, toto 20k. Toto raises to CO to 2400, folds to me in BB with JTo, I jam, he folds.

One round later, a somewhat aggressive lady raises the hijack with 23k stack to 2400, folds to me in BB with about 19k, I have TT and jam, she folds.
Very next hand Greenstein raises in EP to 2400, folds to button who thinks things over and flat calls, I look down at KK and decide with the last two rounds to just jam it. Barry folds and the button tanks ,then calls with TT and I hold.

At this point I have like 44k, definitely a high point for me. Then we switch to limit. Max pescatori gets moved to the table super short. At limit 800/1500 max jams, Greenstein raises the most allowed over his all in, and 4 or 5 people call to me in the SB. I look down at 3s6s and its 1700 more for me to call, which I do, and BB calls. 7 people to the flop for 2500 each.
Flop: 4s 5h 9s
sweeeeet, I check, checks to barry who bets 1500, 2 callers to me, I raise to 3000, barry 3 bets, callers fold, I decide at this point to 3 bet me on this board barry must be VERY strong (set strong) and just call.
Turn: Th
I check call 3000 (the pot is redic huge at this point.)
River: 3h
FUUUUUUUCK!! I check fold for 3000, and barry shows 99 for top set. I dropped about 1/4th my stack there. Same round it folds to chad brown whos aggro on 2 on my right who raises to 3000, I have AJdd and 3 bet him, blinds fold, he calls. Flop Q 2 4 he check calls 1500. Turn A he checks I fire 3000 he CR’s and I give up seeing as I’m crushed by his range and I’ve got tight image. Back down to like mid-high 20 some k.
A round or two later back to NL at 500/1000.
Folds to Chad Brown on button who raises to 2500, SB calls (the guy who had the TT o my KK) and with about 26k in BB I make it 8000 with 97o. Chad insta folds, and the SB says something like “I’ve seen this one before” and quickly folds. Sweet. I am really beating up on this SB’s good time.
A few hands later folds to that same SB who’s now in MP and he makes it 3k, I look down at AA. I know its obvious, but I think he’s sick of me popping him and I make it 8k. Folds back to him and he calls leaving himself 13k.
Flop: A J T with a flush draw
He checks I shove he snap calls with KQ and I miss twice. NH sir, expert pre flop call on the reraise for 25% of ur remaining stack. I am now down to 10800.

A few hands later I look down at QQ EPish and jam for 10.8 BB’s. Folds to Ted Lawson who calls with AQ and I dodge. Back in the low 20’s. A few hands later I am BB again and look down at KK with about 23k in my stack. Folds to chad brown on button who makes it 2500, SB folds, I make it 7500, he jams I call he shows AQhh and I hold. Back to like 46,000.

Things more or less settled down after that, my high point was the low 50’s but I lost a medium sized limit pot to ted Lawson after that plus going card dead and paying the blinds and ended the day with 34,500, with ave in the 40-50k range.

This update wasn’t to colorful as I’m very tired and hungry, but I wanted to put the hands on paper while I remembered. Stevepa is also still in, so GL to him tomorrow. Until then, g’night all.

So I guess I’ll keep a WSOP log in this manner throughout the series to catalog interesting events and play throughout the events. I’ll be playing an event every day with no break, plus side events, so hopefully things get intense at some point. This ‘episode’ will have no poker, so if that kind of thing doesn’t interest you it will be a major tl;dr. After today though, every episode will catalog an event.

More or less, yesterday kinda sucked. Not in that everything goes horribly wrong at every possible moment way, but just in the general being sleep deprived and spending 20 hours In airports/planes which is fun for absolutely nobody. It’s the first time I’ve been in the U.S. in about 6 months and I am experiencing what you would call ‘reverse culture shock’ which is basically when you spend enough time away from your home country, come back, and find certain things weird. Like what you ask?
For one I’ve forgot what its like to be around white people/English speakers. The people in Malaysia speak English but it’s a totally different blend and the accent is quite thick. They also have a certain twist to the language that, if your not expecting it, can make conversation quite confusing. Either way, all these white people are weirding me out. Coming back I can see why people think we’re fat, man I definitely never realized it before. One special little “WTF?!” American moment came when the baggage handler at LAX casually asked me “any guns today sir?” as if he was asking whether I wanted regular coffee or decaf. Like seriously, it’s become pretty sick to me that the answer could be “why yes, of course. Allow me to remove my arsenal from my person for you” and everything would be cool.
So I got to Vegas, stumbled into my room exhausted, smelling worse than a retirement home. I discovered I had torn a hole in the ass of my favorite $1500 Zegna suit, which really really sucks if it can’t be fixed. Not because of the price, but because it was that special kind of suit that just looks so smart and professional that you can do anything in it. I’m 95% certain that, if done while wearing that suit, I could shoot a man in front of a police officer and get off with a warning. If it is permanently [censored] I will definitely be spending most of the WSOP in my room crying.

I met up with some 2p2’ers for a late night Korean dinner which was awesome both in company and in food quality. It was very good to finally put faces to names, and we reached a consensus that it is 10X easier to call people by 2p2 names instead of getting on first name basis then switching back and forth depending on who knows who and whether on the forums or etc, so if/when you meet me take it as a given I will likely forget your first name if you tell me it and call you by 2p2 handle. I then also got a call from the elder part of backing super duo Timepa (or shall it be Stevix?) that they were pwned by their condo combination and needed a place to crash. No worries then, slumber party at Bond’s. It was good fun as we rented ‘Bring it on’, played ouija board, and discussed who’d been getting fat and how hot Colin Farrel is. They got up about 9 to sort their various issues out, and unfortunately since my body seems to think its midnight, I woke up after 5 hours sleep and can’t fall back despite it being 3 hours before an event, which is basically why you’re all getting a rambling and pointless trip report entry.

So I’ve got the NL/limit 5k championship event, and I feel pretty good for the amount of jet lag I’m on going into it. I’ve also been playing almost zero tournament poker for about 2 weeks leading up this after 5 months of nothing but, so I feel pretty sharp and patient. Hopefully things go very well, and when I write a far more interesting trip report tomorrow it will be full of hands. Also, I plan to either charm or bribe my way into getting my name on the poker news update reports, which shouldn’t be to hard cause I know the pokernews people pretty well from last year. So for those who have an interest in that sort of thing, my updates will be under either “Tony Dunst” or “George Dunst” depending on how legal they want to be.

That’s about it for now, hope to meet the guys who are arriving as they come and best of luck to everyone at 2007 WSOP.