The Nick Binger Saga

For the past three days, I have been working Event #41: $1,500 Mixed Hold'em. This is a half-and-half event of limit and no-limit hold'em, and it was honestly a pretty boring event to cover. Surprisingly, the limit halves of the levels were playing much bigger than the no-limit halves, but we were still there until ungodly-o'clock on Day 2. Nick Binger was controlling the field late in the evening, much to the delight of his brother. Michael Binger was the runner-up in 2006 when Jamie Gold took down the Main Event. It's obvious that both Binger brothers are great players, but Michael told us that Nick is the blessed one. At one point late in the night, Nick was really beginning to flex his muscles and Michael came to us to find out his chip count. When we told him he had a massive 390,000, he told us, "I wish I were that good. He crushes peoples' souls."

Nick's dominance continued on into the final table, where he clearly came in with a game plan. Of the first 44 hands dealt, Nick Binger had raised preflop in 22 of them. He was also responsible for the first six eliminations of the final table, including knocking off Chris Rentes in 4th place with the monstrous [7][2] offsuit. At that point, Binger had 1.427 million in chips, while the remaining two opponents had 762K combined.

Binger had amassed quite a nice little cheering section in the final table area. His brother, Clonie Gowen, Layne Flack, Gavin Smith, and a number of other notable names were gathered together waiting for their guy to rack up the last two eliminations and claim the bracelet. I'm not sure if it was confidence or celebration, but with three players left, the Binger contingent ordered two nice bottles of champagne.

That's when the party ended.

By the time the bubbly was delivered a half hour later, Binger had fallen from massive chip leader all the way down to third place and a marginally short stack. What earned him his chips also cost him the lead: aggression. Any successful poker player will tell you that you have to be aggressive to win at poker. Taking it one step further, the most aggressive player at the table usually wins the most chips, the most pots, and the most tournaments. And Binger certainly had no shortage of aggression or chips in the early going. But you have to temper that aggression with a dose of common sense. At some point, one of your opponents is going to pick up a hand, and if you can't switch yourself out of aggro mode, you're going to give up a hunk of your stack.

Nick Binger learned that lesson the hard way, and before the fizz had worn off the open champagne bottles, he was eliminated in third place. In an ironic twist, it was quiet guy Frank Gary -- the tightest player at the final table -- who outlasted the field and captured the bracelet. Nice work, Frank!

You Won't Believe What I Have

Last night, I had my second stud final table in a row. This one was the $1,500 Stud, Event #36. The table was populated with virtual unknowns to me, except Al Barbieri, who took runner up. The guy with the funny laugh, Mike Rocco ended up taking it down. It was pretty boring, barely even worthy of the last three sentences of our time.

I finished up around 11:00pm and set out for the Venetian to play some cards with Dallas. He was sitting $2/5 NL, which is not my preference, but I sat down next to him. Glad I did. The table was actually relatively solid, and I met a good player from Raleigh who was on Dallas' left. There were two juicy idiots at the table though, and I managed to stack one of them on two back-to-back pots. Never did manage to get it in there with the biggest moron though, just never found a spot against him. I was playing quite on the tight side, partly because I hadn't played those limits yet on this trip. I had been playing only $1/2 or $1/3 NL, depending on the venue. No time like the present though. In the first few minutes, I had [Q][Q] twice and got no action either time. An hour or so in, I picked up pocket [T][T] and put in a raise to $30 with a couple limpers in front of me. Three callers, including one of the idiots from the blind, we'll call him Loosey. The flop came [9][5][4], and it was checked to me. I bet $75, and Loosey was the only caller. The turn was a [J], and he checked to me. I checked behind, still pretty sure I had the best hand, but I didn't want to get check-raised. The river paired the [4]. Loosey led out $150, which is exactly what I thought he'd do when I showed weakness on the turn. I was 80% sure I had the winner, and his body language added another couple of percent on top. After a minute, I stacked out the call, covered my eyes with one hand, and slid the chips in with the other. He turned over [A][Q], and I was up $250 just like that. I played a couple more hands pretty well, and made a few mistakes too, but I ended up +$750 in about five hours. I'll take that every time.

I left there around 3:30am. I would have stayed a little longer, but I had to pick up Slippers from the Rio. He wasn't ready to go quite yet, so I went inside to find him, along with Tim, Garry, and Melissa drinking and playing in the player's lounge. It's a pretty sick little room, hidden away behind a partition in the Brasilia Room. They have a couple pinball machines, a putting green, a pool table, a Wii, a full-size virtual golf thingy, and an electronic heads-up WSOP arcade machine, which is pretty cool. We spent a couple hours making side bets on silly shit. I won Garry $60 when I hit a left-handed driver 185 yards to cover his bet with Tim. And Slippers won our little 6-person $10 heads-up tournament. Six because the security guard played too. Good times.

Today, I had another miraculous day off. Days off are the shit. I got up around 2:00pm, did some laundry, got a haircut, and went to Bellagio to sweat Dallas a little bit. He is a fantastic player in the middle of a god-awful run right now. Hopefully on the tail end of one, actually. He had been playing WSOP events for a couple days, but he decided to forgo the usual donkaments and play the $2,000 weekly tournament at Bellagio. When I got there, it was about four hours in, and he had just 3,500 of his original 20,000 chips left. He is Captain Shortstack though, and he doubled up a couple times to have 18,000 a short time later.

And then he ran into Roy Winston. There was a raise to 2,800 from a loose player in early position, and Winston, a full-time Full Tilt pro, called behind. Dallas was in late position and this was the perfect spot for a squeeze play. I wouldn't even look at my cards here, I'd just ship it all in. Dallas had [Q][5], but it really didn't matter what he held at that point. All in for around 16,000. The original raiser folded, and Winston went into the tank for a few minutes.

He asked Dallas, "Will you show me if I fold?"

Dallas said, "I'll definitely show you if you call."

Winston did the cash game thing and counted the pot, making a comment on the good odds he was getting to call. He had about 25,000 left in his stack. Finally, he did commit 2/3s of it and made the call. Dallas hated it. "You won't believe what I have."

Winston goes, "Aces?"

Dallas says, "Queen-five."

To everyone's surprise, Winston cringes and says, "You got me dead," as he tabled [2][5] suited. Dallas knew what was coming though, a [2] right on the flop paired the pro and sent Dallas to the rail. Roy said he's going to write about how badly he played the hand in his blog. But he'll no doubt try and justify it with a lecture on pot odds. I still can't figure out what he was doing calling the initial raise with that trash. It does provide further evidence that my friend is running terribly right now. GG Dallas.

Tomorrow, it's back to the grind for me. I forget which event I am covering, but I do know that I get a late start at 5:00pm. Brilliant!

Stud Hi/Lo Final Table

Tonight was the final table of Event #33 that I mentioned in the last post. First things first, we had to get through Day 2. Day 2 was yesterday... and today. We started at 3:00pm with 120 players and had to play down to the final eight before we could leave for the night. Morning, rather. Play very sleepily concluded just before 7:30am. To say it was a long day would be a gross understatement. That is the nature of the job though, particularly on day twos. Because of the rocky tight filming schedule for final tables, ESPN insists that we play all the way down to the final grouping by the end of the day, regardless of how many we start with. So far, I have pulled a couple of 6:30 mornings, and now one 7:30 morning. What a bitch. Howard Lederer was the final table bubble boy, more on him in a minute.

So today was the final eight players, being that it was a stud event. It truly was a great tournament to cover because of the pro factor, and we still had a few left at the start of today. Annie Duke is one of my favorites, and she was alive and playing fantastic poker. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson was there, as well as Marcel Luske, The Flying Dutchman. I have something of a pseudo-personal connection with each of those players. Ferguson was the very first pro I ever met in person, at the Turning Stone in upstate New York. I got to meet Annie Duke the last time I was in Vegas, at her and her brother's poker camp. Her brother is the aforementioned Howard Lederer, and I got to have lunch with him at said poker camp. It was disappointing to see him go out on the bubble; a Duke/Lederer final table would have been legendary. And Marcel Luske was there at that camp, and Dallas and I got to have an excellent poker conversation with him. I always hated Marcel until I got the chance to meet and talk to him in person. He is the kindest, friendliest man on the planet, and has one hell of a poker mind. The way he speaks about the game is way above board. So, I was rooting for all three of these players today.

Unfortunately, none of them were able to take it down. Annie was the first to go, in 5th place. Marcel was right behind her in 4th. Chris made it to heads up, with a big chip lead no less. A couple hours before the finish, he had his opponent, Sebastian Ruthenberg, down to just 150,000 chips, while he was sitting on over 2.4 million. At one point, Ruthenberg was all in, but leading with two pair. Ferguson had one card to come, and he had a flush draw and a higher two pair draw for the win, plus a low draw to chop the pot. He blanked off though, when a raggy [9d] hit him on seventh street. One card away from the bracelet, and he missed it. Ruthenberg never quit though, and in the end he was able to best the pro and take home the bracelet. It was disappointing for me (much moreso for him, no doubt), but still a fantastic spectacle to watch.

Tomorrow, I have another stud final table to cover, this one not populated by any big names. One redeeming feature about this one is that it's not Hi/Lo, so the endless string of split pots won't be an issue. It's going to be lame, but at least it will mean a short day -- *fingers crossed. If all goes well, I should be out of there well before midnight. And Dallas is in town, so I should have something fun to do afterwards.

That's all... it's getting light again, and I need to catch up on some sleepage.

The Mandalay Session

Yesterday was my second day off in a row, perish the thought. First things first, I watched Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate duke it out for an extra 19 holes on top of the 72 they played over the weekend. Tiger came out on top in what was truly a nerve-wracking, exciting, inspiring spectacle of sports. He battled his newly-repaired left knee for five days and Rocco pushed him right to the brink like few players have been able to. Tiger did what Tiger does though, presenting some gorgeous iron shots and making the clutch putts in the 11th hour to put himself in the record books one more time. Something to behold for sure. When that was over, at the respectable western hour of 2:00pm, I went to Green Valley Ranch to play a little bit. Their poker room is the most homey and comfortable I have been to here. The crowd is a little older and more shoot-the-breez-y, and it feels more like a game at your neighbor's house than a flop and drop casino money maker. Comfy chairs, friendly cocktail waitresses, and subtle decor. Nice place. I headed to the Strip after that, stopping by the house to grab Don first. We played all night at Mandalay Bay. When we were waiting to get seated, we bumped into fellow-PokerNews-er Joe Schepis playing $1/2 NL. There were two open seats at his table, so Don and I sat down.

I donked off money all night and was down about $500 within a couple hours. I couldn't get anything going, and I wasn't really playing well to boot. I had just about given up, ready to cut my losses when our game broke and we decided to move to the other table for just a little while. It was the drunk table. And it was awesome. At least two of the players had been cut off by the floor staff, and a couple more of them were drinking enough to be complete morons, both on and off the table. I got a little bit of my money back, but was still down a good bit.

And then I got tangled up with Joe. Joe had been talking shit all night, and he'd been in just about every pot I played. He's really not a great NLHE player because he plays it too much like a limit game. He plays far too wide a range of hands, and he checks and calls an awful lot. Not the right way to play no-limit. Also, he is a complete douche rocket at the table (and in life, for that matter). He insists on educating the table, he is constantly talking down to one of his opponents during and after hands, and he takes forever to make a decision every time.

Finally I got in a pot with him heads-up. I had a hand, I can't remember what, but it was bad. [J][Q] offsuit I want to say. I floated bets from him on the flop and turn both, and hit my card on the river, taking down a decent pot. He was all pissed at me, in a half-joking, half-serious way. He proceeded to berate me for five or ten minutes while and I just sat there and bit my tongue. The very next hand, I come in raising in early position with [K][J] off-suit. We're just about to leave for the night, and I am feeling tilty to begin with. Joe says something about how I was raising a lot, and mentioned, "I'm going to lead out at you with nothing next time." He and a few other players call. The flop comes [T][9][7], no hit but I have a double gutshot straight draw and two overcards. Sure enough, Joe fires out with a bet of $35. One other player and I call. The turn pairs the [7], and he leads out $75. The other opponent folds, and I drop in the call. I have no idea what to put him on, but I am in position, and I still feel I can outplay him. The river pairs the [T], and he checks over to me. I know he wouldn't do that with a ten, so now I put him on either an overpair or a missed draw. Maybe a nine, which he would probably fold to a bet. So I seize the opportunity and bet out all in for close to $300. He tanks for the longest time. Now I begin to get a bit worried, as I can sense his strength clearly. He furrows his eyebrows and shoots me the evil eye. He asks me if I'll show him if he folds, and I tell him I probably will. I should have just shut my mouth. That makes him want to call even more, and I start to get a little nervous. I had to do something, so I looked him in the eye and said, "Save your chips," as if he was my bro and I didn't want to bust him. After several long minutes of Hollywood-ing, he folds [Q][Q] face-up. I honor my word and slide my bluff of a [K][J] across the table. Joe got really pissed off at me, asking me how I could call two bets and once again berating his fellow player. It was awesome. I love it when guys like him get crushed. Don and I stood up a few minutes after that; I had managed to claw back to being just -$100 thanks to Joe. We were supposed to give him a ride home, but he was fuming mad and decided to just stay there. After we left, he stacked off the rest of his money... what a shock. Love it.

Moral: Don't be an ass at the table unless you are willing to call a big bluff.

Seven Streets are Better than Five

Event #33 started today at 5:00pm local time, and I was there to cover it. The game was Stud Hi/Lo, and it was the $5,000 World Championship. Our field today saw 261 runners, the overwhelming majority of them being big-name pros. At least one out of every two people in sight was someone you'd know by name if you follow poker. Quite a rarity, I would imagine, although much more likely in a stud event than in hold'em.

First of all, I suck at stud. Or rather, I don't play stud. I have dabbled here and there for those little hold'em-tilt-reversing sessions, but admittedly I have never taken the time to delve into the nuances and the format-specific math of the game. And I don't really have a concept of the starting hand requirements for the hi/lo split version. That being said, poker is poker, and I think I did a good job of jumping in and reporting on it. It really is much easier to generate material when the room is so loaded with pros. Hands are much more noteworthy and the conversation far more bloggable, generally speaking. And when you have Mike Matusow and Shawn Sheikan sitting directly in your left ear, you'll quickly learn all you ever wanted to know and much, much more about stud.

It seems like a pretty good time covering that event, and I'll be at it for tomorrow and Thursday as well -- all the way to the end. Odds are there will still be a household name or 8 left by the time we hit the final table, which again makes it drastically more enjoyable. Rooting for Marcel Luske and Allen Cunningham. The aforementioned Matusow would certainly make for some excitement as well, and all three men are near the top of the chip counts.

If you're at all interested, check out the live event blog for this event. And feel free to tell me what you think about my writing; I can always handle criticism. You can find out which event I am covering by checking my status on AIM or Skype, or by browsing the live reports for the running events for posts by FerricRamsium.

That's all for now, it's bed time. Remind me to tell you about my cash sessions from yesterday when I get a chance.

The Italian Pirate and Clubbing Under the Stars

Once again, the trend of posting only on my day off continues. I will try to do better with that, but it's really the only slice of free time I have lately. On work days, I usually wake up about two hours before I have to start work, whether it's noon or 3:00pm. Get up, get dressed, drive to the Rio. The days go on forever, and I usually get off sometime between 2:00am and 6:00am. It's not always the extremes, but a noon to 6:00am day leaves little time for blogging. My roommate finds time to update his blog regularly though... somehow.

Speaking of the roommate, he and I covered the final table of Event #24 yesterday. It was Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha half and half. I was on that event for all three days, and Don just joined up to cover the last day. It was a great tournament, thankfully stacked with pros. By day three, we still had Allen Cunningham, Minh Ly, and Max Pescatori left standing to fight for the bracelet. In the end, it was the Italian Pirate, Max Pescatori who plundered the title, winning almost $300,000 and his second gold bracelet. I was pulling for Allen Cunningham, and it was sweet to watch him run a final table. Pescatori played like a beast though, and he seems like a great guy to boot. Starting sometime last week, I became his go-to source for those quick midday iPhone charging sessions. He's a nice guy.

Final tables are the best, because we were out of there before 11:00pm, and headed out for the night to celebrate Slippers' birthday. After a quick shower and shave, Don and I hit the Palms and began the process of trying to get into Moon, the club on the top floor of the Fantasy Tower at the Palms. Slippers was inside, but he came back out to help the process along. Being the god that he is, he smooth talked us past the velvet ropes, and into the party.

I'm not much of a club guy, but Moon is sick. I should have brought my camera, but that wasn't really what I was interested in at the time. Being that it's on the top floor, it is open-air over the dance floor. And when you step out to the two-tier balcony, you get to take in a hypnotizing view of the strip and the whole valley. Kickass club, for sure. Too bad the shots of Patron are $13, and Coronas are a whopping $8. Within no time flat, all in attendance were T-rashed though, and the night went off like a house on fire.

I'm paying for it today though. I got up around 3:00pm, got dressed, and headed sleepily to Chris' to chill and play a little online. We watched Tiger pull off a sick comeback on the 72nd hole of the US Open at Torrey Pines. Tiger got in trouble in the middle of his round today, his knee clearly bothering him. But he rescued two balls from big trouble on the last hole, and sunk a 15-foot birdie putt to force the 18-hole playoff tomorrow, which I will be glued to. When that was over, we went to Goldfinger's to have a couple brewskis and watch the Celtics game. Good place, cold beer, and surprisingly good food.

That's it for me though, it's all I can do. Now it's off to bed for as long as humanly possible, trying to repay last night's debts.

Even God Took a Day Off

Holy hell, I just had a day off. It's over now, but that kicked ass! It was my second day off so far, excluding the half day I took Monday when I was sick. Like the type of sick you go to the hospital for. But I'm better now, and I actually got to enjoy my Sabbath.

I tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour last night to ensure maximum enjoyment today. I had been covering the Event #16 - $2,000 Omaha Hi/Lo event final table, and we finished up around 2:00am, I guess. Incidentally, (brief diversion coming:) that final table was an absolute poker clinic by young gun Andrew Brown. He sat more or less patiently for the first six hours or so before turning up the heat and charging his way to the top. He finally got heads up with Ted Forrest for the bracelet at about midnight.

If you had to make a list of the top three poker players you would not want to face heads up for a bracelet in any given game, Ted Forrest would probably have to be at the very top, closely trailed by Barry Greenstein and Phil Ivey (in my book, anyways). He has racked up five bracelets in four different games: Seven-Card Stud (2), No-Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi/Lo, and Razz. Forrest is simply a master all-around player. And not only that, but he's from Syracuse too.

But this kid, Andrew Brown, made all the right moves. He was oddly enough, the more confident-looking player at the table, and he played quite convincingly as well. He bet and raised liberally and with determination, and was in control of the entire two-hour duel. Forrest, meanwhile, was slouched back in his chair, triple-checking his hole cards, cringing at the board, and reacting to every lost pot with shrugs and sighs. Finally, Brown was able to topple the pro, sending Forrest off looking awfully disappointed, and earning himself over $200,000 and something money can't buy: a WSOP gold bracelet. It was really something to behold. I can only imagine the feeling of sitting across the table from Ted Forrest, playing heads up for a bracelet.

So yes, that wasn't my day off though. Today was my day off. Back on track here. I was planning on playing the $225 Mega Stack at Caesars Palace, but I found out this morning that those are two-day events, and I have to work tomorrow. So no dice on that. Instead, I went and grinded some 1/2 at another hotel/casino I had yet to visit, The Venetian. I know "grinded" isn't a word, but "ground" doesn't work either. Anyways, that place is nuts on the decor front. And the cocktail waitresses have ginormous jugs. I'll try and snap some pics next time back. Of the decor.

I was pretty pushy for most of the session, on and off at least. The table was awfully tight, and nobody really wanted to splash around, so I just beefed it up a little and skimmed some freebie pots off the top. I ended up +170 in about eight hours. So how do I come back home tonight down $30? Pai Gow poker at Binion's. Don't want to talk about it. I hate that damn game.

It was a blast though. Don and Slippers, the roommates, are good fun, and Aussie Tim was there as well. All-in-all, it was good entertainment, even if it did scratch my profit from earlier in the day. It was also the first time I had made it down to Freemont Street, which is just a ludicrous ordeal entirely. I didn't explore too much, but it's a bunch of casinos joined together in the middle with an outside-inside sort of walkway/common area. Kind of like an open-air mall, I guess, but with casinos instead of department stores. That part of town definitely has a different feel to it, more like old-school, golden glittering mobby Vegas than the much more snobbish new sleek southern mega-resort complexes. They each have their unique charms, but I definitely was glad to find that part of the city.

Now, I'm back in my bed, ready to call it a night. I begin the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha half-and-half tournament tomorrow, Event #24. It's one of only two events that begin tomorrow, and I was lucky enough to draw the late one, and don't have to start until 5:00pm. So, it's still early relative to that, but I'm out of things to say, and would rather be sleeping under the covers than staring at the screen, obv.

Oh yeah! One more thing. I learned an Aussie expression tonight that baffled me. I have heard more than one of my Australian workmates use it now. When you hit it off with someone you've just met, then the two of you "get on like a house on fire." You figure it out, I've tried.

That is all. Buonanotte.

Positive Reinforcement

Got time for a quick story?

So, just generally speaking, I have sort of begun to feel that my poker play has plateaued of late. I haven't had a significant, sizable cash in a long time. I'm too lazy to check right now, but off the top of my head, I bet it's been a year or more since I won a meaningful amount of money. I have been playing my cards well enough, but seem to have lost a little bit of the edge, the top 10% of skill that makes all the difference in getting acceptable results. Basically, I have been a break even player for the last year, treading water with the other fish.

With my waning abilities close in mind, I got to Vegas with aspirations of proving to myself that I still posses the skills that would justify me to continuing to play poker seriously. I haven't had many opportunities to play live, so I was also looking forward to flexing my neglected brick-and-mortar muscles as well.

Enter Christopher Jackson. The aforementioned "Chris" who picked me up from the airport who is the only friend I have in this bright city. Chris is an astoundingly good poker player, a great decision-maker with a knack for that well-timed aggression that is the mantra of poker players everywhere. He hasn't been playing much in the last year though -- just too much on his plate to spend all his free time grinding the low limits. But we're here, in the same town, and we decide to run some games for old time's sake. Littly dinky stuff on UltimateBet; I ship him $20 to start working up. In the first night, he pushes it up to around $75, and is thrilled just to be back in the game, asserting his dominance.

Well, we get up the following morning and find that UB has locked his account out of the blue. They e-mail him and tell him that he needs to provide an "original copy" (oxymoron, much?) of his license, utility bill, banking information, and front and back of a credit card. This is an account that he has had for at least four years, but has been laying dormant for a while prior to our little session. UB support is notoriously slow and incompetent in their handling of trivial little issues like this, and it takes a full day before they get back to him and restore access to his account. This is boring, I realize, but is a fundamental piece of the puzzle that was about to unfold.

Meanwhile...

I let him play some on my PokerStars account, because I have around $200 in there that is seldom used. It's just sitting there. I'm not sure why he went for them, but he found himself playing in their WSOP Step Satellites. This is a unique series of tournaments in which you can work your way up from a $7.50 Step 1 single-table satellite all the way to Step 6, a $2,100 sit-n-go with double chips and a chance to win a WSOP package. The intriguing thing about this format revolves around the payout structure. In a typical cash SnG, the top three spots receive money, in something like a 50-30-20% breakdown of the total prize pool. In these steps however, typically spots 1-2 pay a ticket to the next step, and several other places payout a ticket to retry the same level or the level below. So you can spend a good deal of time working your way through the system.

Well, they seemed pretty easy, and I was running bad on UB, so I figured I'd jump on Stars and give them a shot. Let me just preface this by saying that I never play on Stars. That's why the money is just sitting there. I occasionally grind a little razz just for shits and grins, but I have a very hard time adjusting to the play on that site. Since he is using my account, I log on to Chris' account to try my hand.

Steps 1-3 are all turbo structures, which is not my preference. Within two hours though, I am sitting pretty at Step 4, which has a buyin of $215. I take that one down with relative ease also, and now it's starting to get late. I take a little stretch break, assess my state of awake-ness, and enter Step 5, a $700 entry. With one eye open, and severely lacking in brain function, I plow through it and take one of the top two spots and a ticket to the final table, Step 6.

Even when you're on a roll, you have to know when to fold 'em, and I am cashed for the night. I didn't get a chance to play the big satellite for a couple days, but it was looming noticeably in the back of my mind. So tonight, I finally get the right combination of motivation and confidence and dig into Step 6.

Chris was quite excited by this time, having watched me steam through the field in the first five steps. Starting around Step 3, he had been very interested in my progress. By the middle of Step 4, he was paying as much attention to the game as I was. He would watch me and offer his input when I was faced with a decision. Several times, he almost certainly saved me from extinction with some direct reminders to be patient and play solid. It has become a joint effort. Despite the fact that I was physically playing the games, Chris' contribution was huge.

So, Step 6 is a battle. We start with 3,000 chips, but the blinds move fast on Stars, and there are some fantastic players at my table. Fairly early on, I double up when I flop a set of 8's against A-K on a K-high flop. All the money goes in, and at the first break, I have about 4,500 chips. The second hour was simply brutal. At that stage, with so much on the line, it became absolutely critical that I make every decision correctly. The slightest slip-up really could really cost me the win. Before I really know it though, I am heads-up against a very skilled player. We trade blows back and forth. Fairly early on, I have a 2-1 chip lead, and feel like it might actually happen. He begins to get a feel for my play though, and he won some well-timed pots to take a 2-1 chip lead of his own. At this point, I had around 8,000 chips, and the blinds are 500-1,000. I had to kick it up into aggressive mode, and I dragged in a few pots to stay afloat for the time being. I start to catch a few hands and am playing most hands in the dreaded all-in-or-fold mindset. He rolls over a little, and within just a few hands, I have a 2-1 lead again, and feel like I have complete control over the match. I get K-K on the button and put in a normal raise to 3,000. He has to move soon, and picks this as his spot to push his last 9,000 chips in, which I call faster than you can say "ship it". I am dreadfully scared that he will show me A-8 or something, and I will get bit by something nasty on the board. To mine (and Chris') complete delight, his cards flip over K-6, and he is in awful shape to stay alive. He picks up a gutshot straight draw on the turn, but I dodge his four outs and watch as all 30,000 chips slide into my stack in what feels like super slow-mo.

I just won a 2008 WSOP package.

After I take a quick moment to jump around the room, Chris and I sit on his couch in utter disbelief. We have already decided that we want the money, but never made any formal arrangements as to how we'd split it. If I'm honest, I believe I deserve about 75% of it. But Chris seems to have already decided that it was (obviously) going to be 50-50. I feel just the tiniest bit slighted, but I certainly am thrilled to pocket $6,500 on my $7.50 investment. And I am also thrilled to help Chris out; I know the money means a lot to him in his current situation as well.


When all is said and done, I have earned my largest cash to date, $12,500, and have a renewed faith in my abilities and zeal for playing top-notch poker 100% of the time.

Back at the Rio

So... yeah these posts are likely going to get shorter as my spare time diminishes and my cumulative level of sleep deprivation increases. I did have the day off yesterday, but Event #2 cut into that heavily and forced me to be at work until just before 6:00am. On my day off.

With the ginormous field, it just wasn't possible to play down from 445 to 9 in one day. It got to be 4am and we still had three full tables left. The culprit in the whole operation is actually ESPN. They have a great deal of influence on the decisions made about play. Their filming schedule is so tight, and they want to film every final table this year to avoid missing something historic (see: Phil Hellmuth's 11th bracelet last year). The staff did try to work with the players, eventually. A vote was taken at one point whether to play on or quit, and it pushed 6-6. A revote was cast, and it came up 8-8. So we played on to 18 before they finally called it quits.

Today I was back at it, covering Event #7 - $2,000 NLHE. It was quite the shit show. Most of the pros decided to sleep in and come play Event #8 - $10,000 World Championship Mixed Game at 5:00pm instead. As a result, my field was full of no-names and wannabes. There were a few notables though: Men "The Master" Nguyen, Antonio Esfandiari, Joe Sebok, Bill Edler, Jonathan Little, Kathy Liebert, Huuuuumberto Brenes, and a trio of Trans -- Theo, Jimmy, and J.C.

Somehow, we got all the way from 1,592 players to 152 by the end of the day. Hopefully that will make for quick work tomorrow as we play down to nine. I get to cover this event all the way down to the final table. That should kick ass, regardless of who's left.

--

Last night, I played the 11:00pm $65 tourney at the Sahara. The blind structure was actually very decent for a small-buy-in tournament, but it did get awful quick in the third and fourth hours. There were 98 players and I finished 8th for a paltry $150, less the $20 for the dealers.

Which reminds me... I still need to scratch together a post about my big win last week... but it would be 5:00am, and the sky gets light early here in the west -- about a half hour ago, in fact. More on that win tomorrow, perhaps!

Day One, Event Two

I'm a blogger. I blog.

How gay does that sound?

Seriously though, I have approximately the sweetest job in the universe. Today I officially began my tour of duty covering the 2008 World Series of Poker. I missed the opening of the Series yesterday, but I headed to the Rio just before noon today to begin covering Event #2, the donkparty that is the $1,500 NLHE tournament.

Immediately upon entering the corridors surrounding the WSOP area, the scale and spectacle of the event become instantly clear. The space is enormous, but it's practically shoulder-to-shoulder as you make your way towards the doors. The hallways are just packed with players making final preparations for a day of gambling. A quick cup of coffee. Last minute phone call to the wife. Stop by the massage booth for a quick demo. Where is the damn bathroom? Put out your cigarette, wish your buddies good luck, and head out into the sea of players flooding the Amazon Room.

Today's field size presented a bit of a logistical challenge for us and the tournament staff. By the time all was said and done, 2,048 players came out for Day 1a (with another ~1,700 expected on Day 1b tomorrow). With Event #1 -- the $10,000 PLO World Championship -- still running in the same room, there simply wasn't enough space for all the tables, despite the cavernous nature of the Amazon. As a result, the field was split into four areas. Besides the main stage in the big room, 23 tables of players were seated in the adjacent (and much smaller) Tropical Room, as well as in the Rio's poker room on the casino floor, and even right in front of Buzio's Seafood Restaurant in the hotel. We sort of had to set up on the fly and get situated quickly to attack the reporting cohesively. Divide and conquer.

I ended up starting out in the Tropical Room all by myself. It wasn't ideal, but it ended up working out very nicely. From my vantage point in the corner, I was able to survey the entire room in one pass. Some of the notable players that I was covering were Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Lisandro, Dutch Boyd, John Murphy, and the legendary Johnny Chan. Lisandro and Dutch Boyd were sitting directly in front of me, and Johnny Chan was one table over with John Murphy.


If I'm honest, there wasn't really much going on in the room, which made for a rather paltry number of blog entries for me. I had to go off-topic and dig a little bit for material, but did find some noteworthy hands to discuss every now and then. I had the chance to talk to Johnny Chan briefly as well. He seems like a real down-to-earth normal guy, easy to get along with him. Regardless, if I were playing next to him, my stomach would be doing backflips.

After about five hours of play, all of the tables in the Tropical Room had been broken and combined back into the rest of the field playing next door. I packed up my gear and headed over there with them. Players were dropping left and right, so my boss told me that he'd let me leave at the dinner break. Fortunately, we were overstaffed early in the day, as it allowed us to spread out to the various tournament scenes around the hotel without being spread too thin. But once the players combined into a single location, there were just too many of us to stick around. So I gladly headed out.