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Pacific Poker Revamps First-Time Deposit Bonus
Just in time for the $3,000,000 World Poker Crown, Pacific Poker releases 100% up to $400 first-time deposit bonus.
Ozone 2008-04-14

PokerKings Rakeback Now Available
Players can receive 30% of their rakeback at PokerKings, a Boss Media room.
Ozone 2008-02-22

Adios
Tomorrow, TwoGun and I catch a plane home, so this will be the last Live from the WSOP entry for this year. Thanks to everyone who followed along, I hope it was enjoyable.

I'll close with a funny story from a $1/$3 ($500 max buy-in) game I played at Treasure Island tonight: A European player bought in for the full $500. Most people only bought in for around $200, so I figured he was probably pretty good. After playing extremely loose and aggressive for the first half-hour, he made a live straddle from under-the-gun.

Now, the coolest part about straddling at Treasure Island is that you can straddle as much as you want, including all-in, which is exactly what he did without looking at his cards! His total straddle bet was $290. It folded to me on the button. I told him my range to call was enormous. I looked down at one card, an ace, and said, "call, I only looked at one card."

A drunk kid in the small blind thought for a little bit and called off his remaining $250 as well. I turned over my Ace and left the second card mysteriously face-down. The European left both of his cards down too. The kid showed King-Queen.

The flop came Ace-Ace-Jack! The turn was a Five, and the river a Three. We decided I'd show my second card first. It was a seven, so the European still had a little bit of hope. He turned his first card over, a Three. To win this $750 pot, I needed to dodge three outs on his second card (two Threes and one Ace). With much suspense, the European peered as his second card, giggled (which scared me a bit) and turned over a Five. Ship it! I left the table after that. It seemed fitting to end the trip on that hand, one of the most entertaining I've ever played.
Ozone 2007-07-11

My Bustout Story
Like Ozone, I busted out of the Main Event on my day one. It was a fairly unglamorous day. At its peak, my stack was about 25k during the 200-400 with a 50 ante round.

A few notable things happened at my table. First, I was fortunate (or should I say unfortunate) to have Chau Giang at my table. Despite his three WSOP bracelets, Giang is most famous for being a regular at the $4,000-$8,000 mixed game at the Bellagio, so the Main Event is almost low-stakes for this guy.

I played one big hand against Giang. During 200-400, I raised the pot to 1500 with queens in early position. Giang went all-in for about 4k more. I promptly called and he flipped over jacks.

The flop came 8-9-T rainbow. A jack came on the turn, giving Giang a set though me a straight. A horrible, horrible nine came on the river, filling up Giang and greatly reducing my stack.

During 300-600 + 75 ante round, my stack had dwindled down to about 9k. In the small blind, I got dealt 7-8 of clubs. The UTG player (a mediocre player) limped, the UTG+1 limped, and the button limped. I decided to go all-in, attempting to steal the blinds. If they folded, my stack would increase by about 35%. Even if someone called, I was most likely a 2-1 at worst. The big blind and UTG player folded, so things looked good for me. The UTG+1 player then called, and the button folded.

The UTG+1 player flipped over jacks (why he limped with jacks, I will never know, but this guy was also raising with A6 offsuit in early position, so who knows). The board came a horrible AQT on the flop, and I wasn't able to hit runner-runner to keep myself in the tournament.

Mostly, I found the competition to be fairly soft given it was a $10k buy-in, though more difficult than year's past. In this week's Weekly Shuffle, Ozone and I will provide more observations about the Main Event.
TwoGun 2007-07-11

WSOP Main Event Day 1-D
I'll spare you the dramatics and start off by saying: I just busted out of the Main Event shortly after dinner break.

With 20,000 starting chips, I had built as high as 42,000 in the second level (most of which I got by flopping top set against a bad, maniacal player who gave me all of his chips with an overpair that was clearly no good). By the time dinner rolled around, I had dropped all the way down to 23,000. Most of that I lost to a loose (like, extremely loose) Asian guy who was playing pretty crazy, but admittedly not that terrible. Long story short, I had Ace-King and put a lot of chips in on the turn (the board was Ace-Nine-Four-Six, two spades). Unfortunately he called my big re-raise on the turn (by not shoving, I immediately put him on something like Ace-Jack of spades - I think he knew he was beat but knew that he had a flush draw and top pair in case I was on a stone bluff). The river was a spade. I didn't put him on a spade draw just to pay him off when a spade hit, so I check folded to his bet (which, by the size of it, screamed "I just hit my flush and want you to pay me off").

A few hands after dinner, I raised under-the-gun to 1,500 (this was during 200/400/50 - I started the hand with 22,000). James "Krazykanuck" Worth called my raise, leaving himself with just about 7,000 behind. The crazy Asian guy from before, who, at this point, had built up to over 90,000 and was raising about 50% of the pots, re-raised to 5,000. I figured his range to do this was pretty huge, possibly even any two cards (that's how loose he had been playing), so I shoved all-in for 17,000 more.

James Worth folded. The Crazian thought for over a minute. At this point, I figured if he called, I was racing, but chances are, he was going to fold. After enough thinking, he said "call", I flipped over my Ace-King fairly quickly knowing there was a strong chance I had him dominated or was racing him. He turned over King-King! It must have really looked like I had Aces, because he took forever to make that call.

Needless to say, the board brought me no help and I was gone. I'm going to go get hammered now so I don't feel so bummed. Yay drinking to cope!!
Ozone 2007-07-10

Eve of the Main Event
Tomorrow I play Day 1-D of the Main Event (table 18, seat 4 for anyone who cares to stop by). Days ago I was nervous at the thought of it, but now I'm mostly sick of waiting for my turn to play.

It's a surreal (yet all too common) feeling that since my infancy in the poker world, I have dreamed of playing this tournament, and now that such an opportunity has arrived, I am strangely apathetic.

Shane Schleger just summarized it to me perfectly online, "it's just one stupid event." Although it seems counterintuitive, keeping that thought at the front of my mind might be a big key to success.
Ozone 2007-07-09

Random Merchants And Random Shootings
Today is the first day one of the WSOP. I don't begin playing until Sunday, so I have some time off. Ozone and I went to the Rio to watch some of the WSOP action as well as check out the WSOP Expo.

For those of you unfamiliar with the WSOP Expo, it's basically a small convention where poker merchants show off their products. Typical stands include poker magazines, online poker sites, poker paraphernalia, and misc. poker products (chips, tables, video games, etc.)

This year's expo was notably different from the past. First, there was an absence of online poker rooms (most likely the result of the UIGEA). Last year, quite a few poker rooms had stands for their ".net" sites. Merchants that sold products of interest to poker players generally replaced these stands. There were golf stands, energy drink stands, and a lot of strip clubs had stands too.

My personal favorite was the "World Series of Craps" stand, where some guy was trying to explain how a craps tournament involved skill. Apparently, if you have a better "feel" for the game and just know that snake eyes are coming, you can beat out the other players in a race for the most chips. This town is full of stupid people.

At the expo, Activision was showing off their WSOP 2008 video game. The graphics of the game look phenomenal. If you are into play money poker (I'm not, but there has to be some people in the world that are), this will probably be a great game to check out.

Another difference about this year's WSOP is the lack of hospitality booths. In the past, online poker sites that sent players the Main Event generally had a hospitality booth right outside the Amazon room (even if it was technically for their ".net" site). At these places, their players could get drinks and just have a quiet place to sit. This year, only a few poker sites had booths; I noticed ones for Party Poker and Ladbrokes Poker. Notably missing were any booths for US-facing poker sites, since Harrah's doesn't want to have any connection with them.

In other Vegas news, there was a random shooting at the New York New York casino. From what I understand, a Vegas local just went up to the balcony and started firing his handgun at random people. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, though at least three people were shot. Several off-duty cops that happened to be in the area were able to wrestle the man to the floor quickly.

I'm sure the gun rights movement will be all over this story, since this obviously proves that everyone in America needs a handgun. After all, if everyone had a gun, then someone could have shot the shooter to prevent this disaster form happening. That would be a lot more effective than increased gun control since if we didn't have handguns, the King of England would enslave us all.
TwoGun 2007-07-06

Chop At The Venetian
I played the Venetian's $1,000 tournament today. Their tournaments have absolutely impeccable structure. At one point, with about a dozen players left, my stack was 150 big blinds. A stack that huge is almost unheard of in live tournament poker.

Anyway, just 68 players showed up for the event. When we got down to 6, someone suggested we make a chop. First was scheduled at $21k, sixth at $4k. At this point, I was the shortstack in the tournament (but still had 15 big blinds, so I wasn't entirely desperate).

Two of the other five players said they were registered to play the Main Event tomorrow. At this point, it was almost 2:00 am, so they clearly didn't want to be awake for much longer. Some of the others were kinda nitty and just wanted to chop to get a guaranteed $10,000 or whatever. Realizing that I had a huge position of leverage against these guys, I basically negotiated a chop-deal that got me $9,000, which was the same as two other guys both of whom had twice as many chips as me!

After the tournament director ran the numbers for the chip-count payouts, everyone was like "agree, agree, agree, agree, agree," then it got to me. I had been sitting there in complete silence the whole time the director was calculating the numbers. When it was my turn to speak, I said "I need $10,000 to stop playing." By the chip counts, I was only entitled to $7,500. The other players were clearly miffed at me since, in their minds, the deal was all but done.

After some bantering, I interrupted and said, "okay, listen, basement offer, I'm not going any lower, I'll chop if I can get $9,000, otherwise we play." They talked amongst themselves and worked out an arrangement to meet my request. The six of us got $12,000 (chipleader who had over three times as many chips as I did!!), $9,300, $9,300, $9,300, $9,000, and $9,000.

At one point during the discussion, one of the players said to me "what makes you think you should get as much of a prize as us? You don't even have that many chips." The chipleader intervened on my behalf and said, "uhh, because he's better than you at poker." That made me giggle.

Finally, although clearly unhappy with the situation, everyone agreed on the chop and I walked out with basically the same payout as three players that all had me dominated in the chip count. It was a really sweet feeling.

An even sweeter feeling is that not once in the entire tournament did I have to survive an all-in. I was basically able to build up a stack by winning a lot of small pots and calling all-ins from shortstacks with premium starting hands that held up. It was one of the best tournaments I've played in my life. Having the desire to end on a high note, I'm going to take the next three days off and go into the Main Event on Monday with the confidence today's tournament instilled.
Ozone 2007-07-06

The Heat, My God The Heat!
Apparently some record temperatures are being set in the Southwestern part of the US. Vegas got up to like 117 degrees today or something ridiculous. I know it seems counterintuitive, but I'll take 117 in the desert over 85 and disgustingly humid.

Anyway, yesterday TwoGun, myself, and my friend Dave played the $500 tournament Binion's. We made an interesting prop bet where the first one of us to bust out will have the word "Owned" stamped on their forehead by whichever one of the remaining two has the most chips. We're able to do this thanks to a custom "Owned" rubber stamp I bought online a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, although the structure was great and the field was reasonably soft, I was having a horrible time at the table. Every time I raised, someone would re-raise me. Normally that's not a bad thing, but in this instance, I was card-dead and had to keep folding.

Finally, during 600/1,200, I picked up Jack-Jack and moved all-in for about 11,000. A lady in the big blind called all-in with Ten-Ten and hit a ten on the flop. That left me with a paltry 1,400 chips. On the next hand, I looked down at Jack-Nine. Just as I was about to splash the rest of my chips into the pot, I became aware of the fact that Dave called himself all-in at a table two away from mine. Giddy at the possibility that I wouldn't be the first one eliminated, I told the table "I'm going to wait to see what happens to my friend before making a decision, anyone is welcome to call the clock, I'd call the clock on me too." At this point, everyone at the table knew what was going on and was cool with me waiting. I was using the "Owned" stamp as my card protector, so it (as well as the prop-bet) had been a topic of interest to everyone.

Anyway, as fate would have it, Dave took a bad beat and busted out. TwoGun promptly stamped him on the face. I pushed all-in, had four callers, lost, and stamped myself on the face too. Fifteen minutes later, TwoGun busted out of the tournament. Feeling dejected and looking at his two friends with the word "Owned" written on their face, TwoGun decided to join the club. The three of us merrily headed off for a nice dinner with the word "Owned" stamped on our faces.

Today, I took a break from poker. I went to the Rio for a few minutes to register for the Main Event. There will be four "Day 1s". I'm playing the last of them, Day 1-D, on Monday. TwoGun is playing on Sunday. In the meantime, I'm going to take it easy with the gambling to stay in a good frame of mind for the Main Event. That will be easy to do since a few random (non-poker) friends are in town this weekend to hang out. However, it's possible I'll play the Venetian's $1,000 tournament tomorrow if I'm not hungover. This was supposed to be a short entry. Sorry about that, and thanks for reading.
Ozone 2007-07-04

No Wonder T.J. Loves It
Last night TwoGun and I went to the Casino Royale to play the variance game craps-style. It was a memorable night thanks to a run-in with a "craps professional".

I had been drinking and was kinda all over the place, but TwoGun kinda nudged me and motioned to the guy who walked up next to us. He kinda giggled and said, "I can have some fun with this," referring to the pen and pad of paper the guy was holding. You see, TwoGun knew exactly what was going on: we had a professional craps player next to us.

TwoGun: What's the pen and pad of paper for?

Professional: I'm a professional craps player, I come here to make money.

TwoGun: Orly? That's great! Can you show me some craps moves?

Professional: I charge $1,000 for two hours, I take your money and increase it 30% nightly.

After glancing at his stack of 30 one-dollar white chips, TwoGun asked for some credencials. And boy, were we delivered credentials. The man pulled out a business card that said "Pedro Perez: Change Your Fun Into Huge Cash Following The Only Master Of The Craps Table" (this was also translated into Spanish - Pedro's a man of the people like that).

Mr. Perez explained to us that his method of playing craps is just like professional horse betting. He said that the other players at the table are his horses (even his "employees") and that we're his method of making money. While TwoGun was foolishly fooling around with his black chips, the professional was destined to increase his stack by 30% thanks to his mastery of the craps table.

He kinda disappeared without us realizing it, probably because some beautiful girls were mystified by his secret system of how to beat the craps.

Anyway, Mr. Perez wasn't the sole reason for the load of fun at the table last night. Two other things: alcohol and an eight-grand upswing had me feeling pretty elated at bedtime. I'm going to play the Main Event now. Yay variance!

For now, we're headed off to magical downtown Las Vegas for a $500 tournament at Binion's Horseshoe. More on that later.
Ozone 2007-07-03

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