We had a great time in Vegas once again playing
in the 2010 WSOP. We played in $1500 event #45.
Kabir Singh
(ID: Kabeezy) winner of TheSimoneTeam WSOP Promo #6 was there.
Francisco
Garcia (ID: JohnEMidnight) was also there as my
guest...he received the entry as our way of
saying
"Thanks"
for referring someone in our direction that needed help selling their
home.
[Side note: Referring someone in our direction continues
to be the easiest way to win yourself an entry!]
Also
joining us was Eoin O'Sullivan (ID: Meisce) who won his entry through a
year-long satellite that
some of us were playing in.
This
was the largest field that has ever been assembled for a $1500 WSOP
event. There were 3097
players going after a prize pool of
over $4,100,000! You can see the official WSOP website for details
First place was paying out an impressive
$721,373 and the coveted gold bracelet.
It was paying the top
325 finishers.
Kabir started out hot, building
his starting stack of $4500 up to ~$12000 within the first hour or so.
He
was playing very aggressively, stealing a lot, and running over his
table. There was only one other
guy at the table that had a
stack that was close in size to his. On one hand early in the second
round
Kabir looks down at KK. There's a bit of raising going on before the
flop and he ends up head's
up against the other big stack.
The flop came something like Q,x,x. Not a bad flop for Kabir. There's
some
raising and re-raising going on at this point. Kabir ends up getting
the other guy all-in.
Unfortunately, Kabir wasn't given
enough advance warning about the dreaded queens... His opponent
turned
over QQ for top set and it crippled Kabir. He ended up getting knocked
out shortly after. Tough
break for sure.
Francisco
had a great time. He ran into Chris Fergusen and they chatted for a
while. In the tourney,
he was doing well playing a fairly
conservative game. He had built up his $4500 stack to about $8300.
On
the final hand before the end of round 2 he limps into a pot with
pocket 2s. There were two other
callers. The flop came 2, 8,
10 rainbow. Just the kind of flop he was hoping for! There was a bet,
a
raise, a re-raise...and then the other person went
all-in. Francisco thought about it for a second, but
then
did what I think any of us would have done and made the call.
Unfortunately for him, one of the
other players had flopped a
set of 8s and Francisco was sent to the rail.
Eoin
had the first bad beat of the trip...when he got there the night before
the event started to
register he found out that his driver's
license had expired and they wouldn't let him register! Ugh! He
was
able to straighten things out the next morning with the tournament
director and was allowed to
play. Eoin watches/reads a LOT
about poker and was able to identify 4 pros at his table! These 4
pros
seemed to be playing in the tournament all by themselves because they
continued to raise, re-raise
each other and seemed to be more
interested in their egos than playing poker. Eoin managed to keep
out
of trouble and build his stack slightly, making some excellent
reads/laydowns that turned out to be
the correct play. He
managed to double up about 4 hours into the tourney when his all-in
preflop JJ
held up against an AK. Breathing room... He
managed to play very tight over the next 4 hours but
the
blinds/antes were starting to eat away at his stack. He spent the next
~hour looking for a
decent place to shove his stack all-in
and near the end of level 9 he found his opportunity with A7.
He
was called by another short stack holding an A3. Unfortunately, a 3
hit on the river and Eoin was
out at around 500th. Out of
~3100 players that was an excellent run!
For
me, I felt like I had been running pretty hot and playing well leading
up to this event. Maybe this
would be the year for a deep
run... My tournament experience this time felt 'different' for some
reason.
I had told myself that I was going to REALLY tighten
up and play conservative and that's exactly what
I did. On
top of that, I received a string of mostly horrific cards for the entire
tournament (...which made
it EASY for me to fold, fold, fold,
fold...)! It seemed like there would be an hour going by without
seeing
a card higher than a 10 and no suited connectors (...I
like to play those). Every ace that I did get seemed
to be
pair with an off-suit rag and I threw away EVERY single one of them
(...probably keeping me out
of trouble). I was spending a lot
of energy studying the players and paying attention to every piece of
action
so that I could get the best possible read on the table. My first move
came about 3 hours into
the event. I was probably at about
$3800 in chips and the blinds were $75-$150. There was a player
that
tried to re-raise all-in (bully) a very loose player. This all-in bet
was for about $3500 in chips after
the loose player had raised
to about $700. I really thought this all-in re-raiser was putting a
move on
the loose player and I put him on likely a small to
medium pocket pair. I looked down and had JJ. Had
I not
been taking in all the clues/etc during the last 3 hours I might have
thought long and hard and laid
down those jacks (it was for my
tourney life and I usually don't like to be the 'caller' in this
situation, I
want to be the 'raiser', and I am never
interested in calling if I think it's a coin flip). I made the call and
the
loose player folds. I'm head's up with the other player and we are
both all-in. He turns over AQo.
My read was a little off, but
I'm still about 50/50 in this spot. My Jacks held up and I doubled up
to
about $9000. For the next FOUR hours, I played extremely
tight and the horrific cards just kept coming.
I had drifted
down to about $5000 in chips in level 7 where the blinds were $200/$400
with a $50 ante.
In middle position I look down at 10,10. It
is folded to me and I go all-in for $5000. I would have been
happy
just stealing the blinds/antes but I did get one caller with an AJ
offsuit. Another coin flip....and
once again this one went
in my favor. Phew... At that point I was up to ~$12000. For the next
two
hours I tried to hold my own and build my stack but never managed to
get above ~$13k. By the
middle of level 9 (nine hours into
the tournament) where the blinds were $400/$800 with a $100 ante I
was
back down to about $6500 in chips. There were about 450 players left
in the tourney out of 3100
and I needed to make it to 325. I
was patiently looking for a place to get all my chips into the pot and
that
came at the very end of the 9th level. In early position I look down
at an A6 suited. I shove all-in
and get called by a monster
stack at my table who shows 10,10. This is where I really needed a
little
luck to come from behind, but it wasn't meant to be. I
was knocked out somewhere around 440-450
players left. I was
pleased to have lasted that long. Interesting note: The guy that
knocked me out
went on to win the entire event!
It
was a great trip all-in-all. I played in another tourney at the
Venetian with 670 players and after 9 hours
got knocked out in
~140th. I'm getting closer...!
I'm already
looking forward to the Lake Tahoe WSOP circuit events in November!
There's already
several people that are planning on making
that trip with us so it should be a great time. Whoever
wins
Promo#7 is in for a fantastic weekend! Don't forget to register now for
our upcoming promotion
that starts on July 13th. Here's the
SHORTCUT to the registration page.
