2010 WSOP Event 46 $5000 PLO-8 Day One
04:30p 5k PLO 8. Pinnacle won't give me 100-1 on winning it. Looking for the smart money to step in.
07:05p First break. Even. Happy.
08:00p Bad beat: half my table are regular opps in the 75 Omaha on Stars
08:15p Ivey is out. I'm probably the favorite now.
09:25p Dinner break . Start stack = 15000. I have 15800. I am winning.
12:30a No hands 12800
03:00a End of day. 32700
I headed over to the tournament with much energy and optimism, and was happy not to recognize anyone at my starting table. Team Germany pro George Danzer was on my right, and we struck up a conversation. For not the first time at this WSOP was I not the best chessplayer at my table. It turned out that despite the unfamiliarity at my table, everyone was good. NO ONE put their money in in a bad spot, which is usually the way lots of chips are acquired. I never strayed much from starting stack early, and right at the end of the sixth hour had a big hand. TommyBoy83 opens, seat nine calls, I call in seat 2 and seat 5 defends. Flop is K43 rainbow. TommyBoy bets 1200, and I wait for seat nine to act. And wait. Finally it dawns on me that he has folded when I glanced away for a millisecond. I then take 1200 off my stack and ask the dealer to confirm the bet, at which point I am told that seat nine is still thinking. D'oh!! I even checked three times to make sure he didn't have cards, but they were occluded from my view. At this, he decides to go almost all in for 4000 something. My hand is KKQJ with a backdoor flush draw. Whereas I didn't want to raise when the bet was 1200 and have a gross decision when half the deck hits the turn, I figured at this point, it's a complete no-brainer. Unfortunately, I've basically turned my hand face up. I reraise all in. Seat five thinks and thinks, and releases, as does TommyBoy. I'm up against A288. Woohoo!! An ace comes on the turn and we chop when no 5 comes on the river. I wouldn't have minded having a massive all-in there, because I figured their hands were canceling each other out, but as it was I took a small profit. In the seventh level, the same seat five who was obviously an experienced (Brit) PLO hi player and I had a pot. He was always doing post-mortems trying to figure out how he could've gotten people off the hand or extracted more, or whatever, and was always proud of his reads. So we have a hand where the flop is 973 rainbow. I have A23T double-suited and both my suits are on the flop. Lots of times I'm gonna get out before calling three pot-sized bets with a naked A2, but I called his bet on the flop because if either of my flush draws come on the turn I can really press the action. Turn comes, and I'm looking at him, not the card, and he says pot, a call of which almost puts me all in. I look down and see an off-suit ten, and instantly go all in. He had something like A47Q, and was making his big move based on the fact that he didn't put me on the straight. I double, and win a few more chips along the way to end the day at 32700, good for 56th out of 130 (from an original 284(!)). I'm heading back to the Rio shortly for day 2, and am excited about playing. And should I bust before 7:20pm, I'll play the 8-game mixed which is one of my favored forms of online poker these days.
07:05p First break. Even. Happy.
08:00p Bad beat: half my table are regular opps in the 75 Omaha on Stars
08:15p Ivey is out. I'm probably the favorite now.
09:25p Dinner break . Start stack = 15000. I have 15800. I am winning.
12:30a No hands 12800
03:00a End of day. 32700
I headed over to the tournament with much energy and optimism, and was happy not to recognize anyone at my starting table. Team Germany pro George Danzer was on my right, and we struck up a conversation. For not the first time at this WSOP was I not the best chessplayer at my table. It turned out that despite the unfamiliarity at my table, everyone was good. NO ONE put their money in in a bad spot, which is usually the way lots of chips are acquired. I never strayed much from starting stack early, and right at the end of the sixth hour had a big hand. TommyBoy83 opens, seat nine calls, I call in seat 2 and seat 5 defends. Flop is K43 rainbow. TommyBoy bets 1200, and I wait for seat nine to act. And wait. Finally it dawns on me that he has folded when I glanced away for a millisecond. I then take 1200 off my stack and ask the dealer to confirm the bet, at which point I am told that seat nine is still thinking. D'oh!! I even checked three times to make sure he didn't have cards, but they were occluded from my view. At this, he decides to go almost all in for 4000 something. My hand is KKQJ with a backdoor flush draw. Whereas I didn't want to raise when the bet was 1200 and have a gross decision when half the deck hits the turn, I figured at this point, it's a complete no-brainer. Unfortunately, I've basically turned my hand face up. I reraise all in. Seat five thinks and thinks, and releases, as does TommyBoy. I'm up against A288. Woohoo!! An ace comes on the turn and we chop when no 5 comes on the river. I wouldn't have minded having a massive all-in there, because I figured their hands were canceling each other out, but as it was I took a small profit. In the seventh level, the same seat five who was obviously an experienced (Brit) PLO hi player and I had a pot. He was always doing post-mortems trying to figure out how he could've gotten people off the hand or extracted more, or whatever, and was always proud of his reads. So we have a hand where the flop is 973 rainbow. I have A23T double-suited and both my suits are on the flop. Lots of times I'm gonna get out before calling three pot-sized bets with a naked A2, but I called his bet on the flop because if either of my flush draws come on the turn I can really press the action. Turn comes, and I'm looking at him, not the card, and he says pot, a call of which almost puts me all in. I look down and see an off-suit ten, and instantly go all in. He had something like A47Q, and was making his big move based on the fact that he didn't put me on the straight. I double, and win a few more chips along the way to end the day at 32700, good for 56th out of 130 (from an original 284(!)). I'm heading back to the Rio shortly for day 2, and am excited about playing. And should I bust before 7:20pm, I'll play the 8-game mixed which is one of my favored forms of online poker these days.