Vegas Recap (Part 2)

After playing from Noon until 1:30am Merlot, myself, Pinkie and Nannuck go to the IBar for a nightcap. There won't be much good sleep tonight. The adrenaline high from playing all day fades slowly. I sleep restlessly, and get up early. I read the WSOP recap and blog a bit. Room Service and hanging out until we restart at 2pm.

I begin the day with a very comfortable stack of 48K. My plan is to stay out of trouble until we fade the 57 players we need to, to get in the money. Once we get close to the bubble we play hand for hand. When a hand is finished at a table the dealer has to stand up. When all the dealers are standing, and we haven't lost anyone...they sit and deal the next hand. We only played hand for hand for a few hands. Once the bubble broke everyone cheered, and people started dropping right and left. When it burst, there was a player at the table next to me with 400 in chips. With 200 ante's he could only survive 2 more hands. He hung on to cash. We all congratulated him.

By now we were all in the Amazon Room. Merlotgirl and Nannuck were able to pull up chairs right outside the ropes where my table was. I was in seat 5, directly in front of the dealer, and Merlot and Nannuck were about 10 feet to my right.

The 1 (Norwegian Kid), 2 (Mats Gavatin)and 3 seats at my table were involved in an awful lot of pots. I survived by playing tight and picking my spots. Slowly my stack continued to grow. After a while Marco "Crazy Marco" Johnson gets moved to my table in seat 8 (at this point he is one of the chip leaders). Immediately to my left is Team Ultimatebet Pro Liv Boeree, and the eventual bracelet winner Mike Eise is in seat 7.

My three most memorable hands occur at this table. The first one requires a little back story. After Marco Johnson got to our table with a big stack he was using his stack liberally. One time in particular he reraised a player. When the player in seat 3 woke up with AA he pushed all in and Marco was forced to call. He tabled 6h 8h. Flopped an open ended str8 flush draw. Hit the flush on the turn...and the str8 flush on the river. This was the first hand we had seen him showdown. Several times before that I had called a standard raise with a pocket pair, hoping to see a flop, only to have Marco re-raise overbet significantly. We're down to 80 players or so and I call a standard raise with 88. Marco makes it significantly more than that on a overbet re-raise, and I decide I'll go with 88. He insta calls with KK...and I'm all but out of the Event. As the dealer places the burn card and stacks the flop before laying it out...Merlot can see before anyone else that the window card is an 8...and she almost passes out with a gasp. Marco doesn't improve and I dodge a huge bullet and suck out for the first and only time of the tournament.

After that hand I'm comfortably sitting on about 190K. And this hand happens. I have As Qs in middle position. Seat 1 raises...as he did about every third hand. I flat as does Mike Eise. Flop comes with 2 spades ...seat 1 checks...we both check behind. K of spades on the turn. Seat 1 bets. I raise 2 and a half times his bet. Mike Eise reraises me another 25K. I reraise all in and he tanks for a bit...and then folds. This hand gets me to around 270K.

Over several hours a couple hands had folded to me in the SB to find me holding 55 and 66. With Liv Boeree in the BB, I raised each time. The first time she pushed all in over the top...and I folded. The second time she did the same thing over my c-bet on the flop...and I folded even though I thougth I may have had her beat. I thought I would use her aggression against her in a better spot. I only had to wait about a half hour longer. I was in MP and looked at the red Aces. I raised 3x. Liv Boeree pushed allin over the top, everyone folded...and I insta call. She sees my AA and mutters "shit" as her AQ is way behind. With an A on the flop and no Q she's drawing dead. Third times the charm. That's the first pro I've ever knocked out that I'm aware of. Here's what Poker News, Bluff and the WSOP site had to say about that hand:

Boeree Busto

We quickly ran over to find Liv Boeree packing up her belongings. The outcome . . . she was all in preflop holding Ac Qc against Ad Ah and the board of As 9d 7h 5d Js would see her vacate the tournament floor for a nice $7,237 payday.

Adding Liv's stack to mine put me at about 370K. We played until 3Am and I survived the day with 345K. When we got down to the final 27 players we redrew for seats to play out the remaining 5 minutes of blind level 20. I once again drew the 5 seat. Mike Eise in the 6 Seat. Marco Johnson in the 4 Seat. The 2 chip leaders of the tournament Jason "JP OSU" Potter in the 9 seat and Joe Simmons in the 1 seat. Each with about 1 million. We played two hands in that 5 minutes. Both hands pitted Potter agaisnt Simmons. The first hand Simmons bluffed Potter on the turn and showed it. The next hand he bet Potter out of the hand on the turn as well. As we were bagging and tagging our chips Jason said "Hard to imagine being on tilt with almost a million chips, but i think I am".

For I don't know how long Nannuck, Pinkie, Counting Girl, Buck, Cupcake and Yogi with appearances from Kim and Gary, and Glenda, helped Dori sweat me until 3 AM. Even a couple I used to play with at The Abbey came by to lend support. It's pretty cool, and shows what an amazing group of friends we hang out with. I can't thank them enough. While I definitely want to be going deep again next year, if not, I sure want to be sweating several of them.

Which brings me to Merlotgirl. I don't think it's enough for me to say she's perfect for me in every way. Physically, emotionally, intellectually, competitively, and any other words you can think of that end in ly. She's also made my poker game a whole lot better. You're the best Pook.