I just got back from the Bahamas yesterday and already have to start packing for Melbourne tomorrow. Ah, the life of a poker player, it’s tough! :DMy week in the Bahamas was pretty damn awesome. We arrived pretty late on the 4th and just had enough time to get down to the Royal Deck and catch the end of the PokerStars welcome party. Despite being given underage wristbands by mistake and having to spend 10 minutes convincing the bartenders that we were indeed over 18, we managed to have a pretty good time and Antony got the thrill of his life when he got to have his picture taken with Humberto.
Afterwards we headed down to Coral Lobby to have a drink and to see whether online players, despite being in one of the sickest resorts in the world, really did while away their time playing online poker instead. We weren’t disappointed, and to top it off we found Daniel Negreanu sitting there by himself too! Despite my detailed explanations as to why it made no sense, Antony went up to him and offered him a beer. He duly got rejected.
We then headed down to Atlas Bar and Grill (an American style diner) and got our first taste of American food and portion sizes (do you see what I did there?). We ordered some Nachos and Chilli Fries and the latter were a massive hit, though I don’t think they’d quite get the Heart Foundation’s tick of approval down here in Australia. 
To finish off the night we headed down to the poker room to see how everything worked. I saw Tom Dwan and Andrew Robl in a three-handed 100/200 game and felt pretty sympathetic for the third guy who seemed like he was getting seriously sharked. He had durrrr to his left and his girlfriend/wife sitting behind him watching. I don’t know if he realised how bad a spot it was for him, but I later saw him with Ivan Demidov so maybe he is some sick Russian player that I haven’t heard of.
The next day (the 5th) we went down to the poker room again to see day 1A of the main event in action. I was pretty surprised to see so many pros, especially non-PokerStars ones, and was especially happy to catch glimpses of Negreanu, Chris Ferguson and Phil Galfond among others.
The rest of the day we acquainted ourselves with the lazy river and the various rapids and slides that branched off from it. It was loads of fun and I couldn’t wait to bust from the tournament the next day so that I could return as soon as possible. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get what I mean!
I went to bed at about midnight and watched some CardRunners MTT videos. I was pretty jetlagged and tired by this point though and continually drifted off while watching TravestyFund explain some basic point. After rewinding it about 10 times to understand what he was saying, at about 1AM I simply gave up and said to myself “You know what you know Joey, just rest and see how you go”.
Day 1B
I woke up pretty early the next day and headed straight down to the poker room to pick up my receipt with my table number and my seat number. I paced around, scanned the room and slowly took everything in. Soon, a realisation came upon me.
I had made it.
Three years ago I watched awestruck as players paid $10,000 to have their chance at winning millions on the WPT. Three years ago I bought a chipset on a whim and learnt how to play with my friends. We played pub tournaments every week, bet top pair like top set, and spouted Sklansky like gospel. We had no clue what we were doing, but had so much fun doing it.
And now, three years later, I was doing it all for real.
I turned on Forever Young by Youth Group on my iPod, my song of choice in early-2006, and took my seat.
Whatever happened, I had made it.
* * *
My first table was pretty tough, with four aggressive young online players filling seats 3 to 6. I was in the 10 seat, and pretty fortunate to be away from all the 3-betting and squeezing. I was also fortunate to have two very tight players to my left and a weaker player two to my right who showed some pretty basic leaks (open limped a lot, defended his blind way too light, check-raise-tanked a lot with value hands, etc.). This meant that (in theory anyway) I could steal light and isolate a lot. Directly to my right was a tight young online player and three to my right was an older Mexican dude who busted literally 10 minutes into the tournament. He was soon replaced with none other than Gus Hansen.
We were given 20,000 chip starting stacks with 75 minute levels, starting at 50/100. We were to play 8 levels on day 1, finishing at around 1AM.
The first six levels of the day proved extremely uneventful for me and I hovered between 16000 chips to 28000 chips throughout this time. I was pretty card dead throughout and found it hard to do those small but pivotal steals with stuff like JTo from the hijack because so often it was already raised or re-raised by the time it got to me. Thus I never really got to build up my stack as the pots I won merely counteracted the numerous blinds that I had to give up.
During this time I played maybe four or five relatively significant medium sized pots. In one I raised UTG to 300 with JJ and got called in four spots. The flop came 975r and I led for 900 and got called by the button and the big blind. The turn paired the 7 and brought a flush draw. We checked to the button who bet just over half the pot and the big blind and I both pretty quickly mucked. It felt a bit weak but I didn’t see him betting TT or a nine here and I didn’t think I could stand a river bet no matter what card came (unless it was a Jack obviously) so check/calling the turn only to check/fold every river seemed pretty gross.
In another hand I had 89o (no spade) from the small blind in a near family pot. The 6TKss flop was checked through and on the turn the Qs fell, giving me a double gutshot. I decided to lead out and the button called. This was probably my only ‘live’ misdemeanor of the whole tournament as I didn’t actually notice that there were three spades on board. I don’t think it would’ve changed my action much though as there’s very little chance someone has a flush after the flop checks through as most people would stab a flush draw on the flop. It does however mean that I will probably have to double barrel most rivers as I could easily get peeled by random middle pairs with a flush draw type hands. The river brought the 2s and after recovering from the shock of seeing four spades on board I bet out about 1900 into 3300 and got raised and obviously folded. I still think it’s a pretty decent spot to bluff though as only the As really feels comfortable here and he can’t have A6o or AKo too often here so his calling/raising range is limited to like AQ or AT with the As only. I’m also pretty much the only person on the table who can actually represent the nut flush fairly well too as from the small blind it’s not unreasonable that I wouldn’t lead a flush draw into five or six people on the flop. Anyway, that pot took me down to my lowest point of the day, about 16000.
I got back to 20000 after I 3-bet Gus with QQ to about 1900 and the tight German player to my left shipped all-in for 5000 total with JJ. I had 3-bet three times up till then and all of them had been as a bluff (A9o, K7s and 89o) so it was nice that when I finally had to showdown a 3-bet hand I was able to table the goods and maintain my image.
Gus got involved in a pretty cool hand soon after which I thought I’d recount here. A player with 9600 chips limped for 600 in EP and Gus isolated to about 2000. It was folded back to the limper who shoved and Gus thought for about five minutes before saying “I really feel like you have two fours there and my hand does pretty well against two fours”. He eventually made the call with J9o and sure enough the limper flips over 44. It reminded me of his call against Antonio Esfandiari’s 77 with T8s and demonstrates a real method to his madness. To anyone else it’s a completely sick and crazy call, but to him it’s as standard as calling an all-in with AK against someone else’s QQ. (That said, I’ve seen him fold AKs versus 77 too so I’m not sure what conclusion I should actually be drawing!)
Anyway, in another hand I opened the button with K9o to 2000 and was called by the big blind. The flop came AK2 with two hearts (I had none) and the big blind check/called my half pot bet. We checked through an offsuit jack turn and my opponent led for 4000 into 11000 on the offsuit 2 river. I thought for quite a bit before deciding to make the call. With the two pairing on the river I didn’t see him betting an ace which was splitting with any other ace (Aces and Twos with a King kicker). This left only AJ as a real possibility (AK 3-bets preflop, A2 check-raises the flop). However, his bet size was so small that I had difficulty believing he was bluffing and thus had trouble making the call. When I did eventually call, he actually turned over the same hand, K9o, so we split the pot. I don’t know what his thought process was at all to be honest.
In the last hand before dinner I won a pretty nice pot to hit my pre-Level 7 peak of 28000. I flatted an EP raise in the cutoff with AQo, called a bet on an A88r flop, checked back a K turn which brought a flush draw, and called a 1/2 pot river bet on an offsuit 5 river. My opponent showed QJo.
For dinner I had a spinach salad from Atlas Bar (my first meal of the day) and returned ready and raring to go.
Our table broke up soon after and I got moved to the 9 seat at a nine-handed table with a huge tallstack to my direct right. The first notable hand I played there a player opened UTG to about 3K and I shipped 28K from the button with AKo. He called and tabled KK and I was halfway to the door when the flop bricked massively (not even a backdoor straight available!). The turn bricked as well but fortunately the poker gods heard my prayers and the dealer turned over the most beautiful ace of diamonds I’ve ever seen. Easy game.
The next notable hand I played was actually pretty mundane but could’ve been absolutely sick and I still wonder to this day what may have been. The tallstack opened from the hijack and I decided to flat with AQh in the cutoff. I’m obviously way ahead of his range and can take down the pot a huge proportion of the time if I 3-bet here, but I felt that I would hate getting 4-bet 40 big blinds deep and this hand played pretty well postflop anyway so it was worth seeing a flop and saving 3-betting for bluffs since his most likely reaction to a 3-bet is to fold anyway.
The big blind whose KK I had just cracked called the rest of his stack off so we had a sidepot of 800 between the tallstack and myself. The flop came pretty disgusting, 358 with two clubs and one spade. The cutoff checked and I thought about stabbing since the preflop raiser is often check/folding if he checks this type of flop. I decided however that I probably had him beat anyway with AQ high and with the big blind still in the pot it wasn’t worth stabbing half the main pot if I only really stood to win the 800 sidepot since the big blind probably had Ace high beat.
The turn brought a 9 or T (not sure) and a third club and the cutoff led for about half the pot and this is where it got interesting. I really felt that he would c-bet any flush draw so it was extraordinarily unlikely that he had a flush here. At best, he had a weak one pair hand, though I really thought he would check/call most of them on this scary a board and play a bit of pot control. To me it really seemed like he had the ace of clubs and if this was the case in all likelihood I had a better kicker and had him beat. I didn’t really like just calling though as if he does have a weak one pair hand I’m going to look ridiculous when I check back the river and he wins with a pair of fives or something and moreover if he does have the nut flush draw I don’t want him to get a free card. So I thought about putting in a raise.
Herein lay a problem though. I didn’t know how he’d react to a raise. Would he shove? Would he fold? Would he just call? I really had no idea. If he shoved, I couldn’t see myself raise/calling off a 40bb stack. I was confident in my read, but not THAT confident. If he called, I’d be happier, but still not that happy, since he still had 12 outs to beat me. In the end, I really was just praying that he’d fold.
And this is actually a common problem in poker. A lot of people think poker is all about hand reading. Daniel Negreanu is sick because he can read hands like they’re face up right? Well, not really. What is arguably more important is knowing what your opponent will do with his hand, how he’ll react to your bets and raises. This idea most commonly arises when you’re deciding whether to fire a bluff. You know he has a weak hand, but is he good enough to fold it?
In the end, I decided to take the easy route out and fold. The big blind’s presence and probable hold on the main pot definitely swayed my decision though, and I really wonder what I would’ve done had it been a normal heads-up pot. Anyway, the cutoff did show Ac4x and ended up bricking so the big blind tripled up with T3d for a pair of threes.
Soon after I got moved to a new table (with Humberto!) for the last level of the day and went on a little bit of a rush. I picked up some hands and managed to win more pots uncontested preflop than I had all day till then. I also won a small pot with a set when the raiser check/folded the flop, and zoomed up to about 85K when I won a race with AK v QQ for a 65,000 pot. The action went something like UTG opened, I 3-bet with AK to 9000, and someone else behind shoved for about 30000 total. UTG folded JJ and I binked two aces on the flop. Awesome game.
With 13 seconds to go in the day and a hand having just finished the players on my table breathed a sigh of relief as they had made it through day 1. But I was having none of it! I had just paid both blinds and was desperate to get my button before tables were redrawn for day 2. I asked the dealer for one last hand and he obliged. Everyone turbo-folded to me on the button and I gleefully got ready to steal. I took a peek at my cards and was pleasantly surprised by the sight of two kings. I opened to 3000, the small blind 3-bet to 9000 with 35000 more behind, and I shipped. He quickly folded AJ and I smiled. Things were beginning to look up. I finished the day with 96,600 in the chips, safely above the average of about 75,000.
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