WSOP 2009 - I feel like Alice in Wonderland

Hey folks,


What can I say, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what is going to come your way..


First of all I was so stoked just to win the freeroll tourney and get a chance to go to WSOP. Thanks to Pfaff for setting up such an amazing set of tourneys. I never would have dreamed that I would be sitting at a table with Nam Le on Day 2, (he's so hot!) and later watching all my chips magically go over to his stack without ever getting into a hand with him. He's THAT good lol. Actually he wasn't at our table for long. He played two tournaments that day. The other, I think, was a HORSE tourney, so he'd leave for a while and come back. Who knew you could do such things..


Ironically I had planned to go to Vegas independently of WSOP. Scott Blashek happened to throw out an e-mail asking if anyone wanted to go to Vegas June 21st-25th. I got a cheaper airline ticket by booking a day early, so there it was, I was going to Vegas to play small tourneys downtown and be a spectator at WSOP. Then came the whirlwind Poker in the Rear freeroll tournament and I picked a WSOP event occurring at the time I had originally planned to go...Event #39.


When the tourney started, my table, #7, was short 6 players, so for the first half an hour or so we were four handed, which allowed me to play heads up with one other player. I was able to build my stack by immediately taking small pot after small pot, slowly chipping away at him. This is probably why he wasn't too friendly later on when I took a good 3/4 of his stack in one hand.


Slowly the rest of the players at our table filtered in and one was particularly late. Before he showed up, the table had speculated that maybe he flew in that day and that was the reason he was so late, but as he was getting settled in and after he announced that he was now going to take us down one by one, I casually asked if he had flown in that day, but he said he had already been in town. Maybe he had had too much of the Girls of Glitter Gultch the night before...? Not sure of the reason for his tardiness, but the early bird gets the worm and this was bad luck for our latecomer...he ordered a cappuccino, and unfortunately wouldn't get a chance to let it cool down to drink it..


My hand was A 7. Two 7s come out on the flop. I think I'm in good shape, so I check to slowplay a little and feel out the table. Mr. Johnny come lately to my immediate left checks as well. This hand gets tricky as I didn't realize I was about to get into trouble from the 6 that comes on the turn. Later I found out that my opponent was sitting on 6, 7. I can't remember what sort of betting happened after that but he didn't come out very strong, guess that was good for me because I caught an A on the river to fill out my boat with 7s over As . My opponent raised but it was too late. After committing all of his chips with his smaller boat of 7s over 6s, I called and he read the sick news and picked up to leave before his cappuccino even came to the table. I felt for him, but had to be tough.



Back to the single player I had been taking small pots from initially. I flopped a straight and bet heavily, but my opponent was stubborn. He called, again I bet out, but couldn't push him off his hand and convince him that he was beat. He was like Cool Hand Luke, just kept getting up for a beating. I was beginning to get a little nervous though as now the board was paired up with 9s. I eased up a bit to feel him out, but still sensed weakness. As a third 9 came on the river I just checked it and so did he. Turns out he was chasing a flush and "never got there" as he put it. Later a player who came to replace a player to my immediate right finished off the rest of my opponent's stack. There had been a few tense words between my opponent and I when I had asked later about his hand, so I didn't congratulate the player to my right who knocked him out out of respect until my opponent left the table ..

Later I knocked out a player who must have been a pro who I have not heard of. Here is the excerpt from Pokernews.com. I am listed as "a player two seats to his left".

4 days 16 hours ago Posted by F-TrainAlexandre Gomes - BustoAlexandre Gomes
Eliminated

'Just as we spotted Alexandre Gomes' new table in the Blue Section of the Amazon Room, he moved all in for his last 6,000 chips. A player two seats to his left called with J J ; Gomes showed A Q and the race was on. There was no help for anyone on a flop of 10 5 9 . The turn 8 took away Gomes' outs to a queen, and it was a good thing for his opponent; the Q hit on the river to give Gomes top pair and to make a queen-high straight for his opponent. With that, Gomes said a few words to a friend at a nearby table and left.'

I called with jacks because earlier I had seen Gomes go all in with Q 4 suited, I figured my jacks were good.

Another memorable hand was when I woke up with pocket aces! I raised pre-flop to $4k, bb was $1K, and got one caller. The flop came with a K high. I checked to see if he had a set of kings and he bet out with another $4k, I figured that since he didn't go all in at that point or bet out stronger that he didn't have it. I re-raised all in and he called with AK, top pair, top kicker. His hand didn't improve and I doubled up.

The day was long, and I guess I was on a high and didn't really feel it. I spent the final two hours just folding to make it to the money, but realized that I needed to keep accumulating pots, so I gambled a bit on the very last hand of the day which could have been the death of me, but I guess I was a little loopy by then and was thinking, "if I bust out now, it's been a great run.."but fate would have other plans for me..(is that corny enough for y'all?) (dramatic music..)

At the end of day one I got incredibly lucky and sucked out with the worst hand in a three way all in. I wasn't planning it that way, but sometimes you get drawn in..

The player to my right, who incidentally after dinner break had his eyeglass lens sitting on his cards as a card protector..come to find out, as I look up and see one lens in his frames and ask laughingly what happened to him, that at dinner he had picked up his daughter and had his glasses in his pocket and smashed them. Luckily his wife had a similar prescription and he called her to bring in her backup pair..


Back to the last hand of day 1: The player to my right announces several times that he doesn't want to come back tomorrow with 4K in chips, so he is basically begging for a caller. I had just counted my stack of $22K not too long ago and I figure he doesn't have much of a hand. For $4k it was worth it to call. After I make the call ( incidentally his short stack of $4K turned out to be $6K so always ask for a chip count I learned) to my surprise the player to my left suddenly announces, "well now I have to go all in". I know now that my A J is probably running against A K, but I already have 6K in the pot and it turns out that I only have 9K left. (I thought I had $22K but my stack had shrunk a little and I actually had about $15K), so I think, “It's time to gamble and see what happens”. I call. Lucky for me and also sorry for me cause now I’ve got two guys pissed off... because...I end up flopping a J and another comes on the turn or river, can't remember. All I know is that I got lucky as hell with trips with the worst hand of the three of us, A Q to my right (the short stack) and A K to my left. I end day one with $37,400 in chips..