tilted behaviour

Day Six and Seven of the WSOP Main Event is one where we see 185 hopefuls cut down to a final 27 that will see their life change with a turn of the card.

The stories develop, the transition from hometown amateur to poker star begins and player’s dreams are crushed – this year it is no exception.

Previous champions Joe Hachem and Peter Eastgate eventually fell along with Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Tom Schneider and JC Tran. However it would be Dennis Phillips’ run ending in 45th that nearly saw the St Louis trucker make history since Dan Harrington’s back-to-back final tables in 2003 and 2004.

Apart from the bust outs, bad beats and amateur-to-star stories that I could talk about, I’d rather share with you the final instalment of a series of PokerNews videos that are based on the development of the history of the WSOP over the past 40 years.

They are easily the greatest poker videos ever produced and a worth the minutes they cut out of your life – I guarantee it!

After Marc, Mat and myself were the longest lasting PokerNews team in the Media Dream Team, the day finally came round to see us take to the felt in the $1,680 Dream Team Poker Main Event!

Playing on behalf of PokerNews, and for only 30% of ourselves, we were still more than willing to enjoy the day off work to battle it out with the 122 teams and 366 individuals that donned a Dream Team jersey.

I saw my starting 10,000-chip starting bank slip early over the first level until I managed a double holding K♣ Q♥ after I opened to 475 and was met with two callers in the 100-200 level. The flop fell down K♦ 8♥ 3♦ and I lead out for 800 and was met with one call before my 1,000-chip bet was called when the K♥ landed on the turn. The river fell 3♠ and I tried to feign weakness as best as possible before throwing out my remaining 5,000-chip. My opponent sat in the tank as I hit under my PokerNews cap, before he eventually called holding 8-7.

Now up to 14,000, I fluffed a few times after opening, but eventually clawed my way back to 20,900 after opening with Q♠ 10♥ to 750 at 150-300 and found two callers. I lead out for 1,100 on the 3♦ J♠ 8♠ board before my opponent made it 3,300 to go. I really felt that he had a Jack or at worse a pair of nines etc or even a flush draw – consequently I took my time before re-raising all in for a further 11,600 on top. He tanked and tanked before eventually folding A♥ J♥ face up . . . oh yeah, ship the gutter-ball!

I had this annoying player on my left that kept owning my soul and when she opened to 1,200 at 200-400 from under the gun, and I looked down at Aces in the big blind I knew it was a chance to send her packing. I flatted, and check-raised all in on the ten-high board to see her stack shipped towards mine as I moved to over 33,000.

I moved tables, and folded for three full orbits before calling a button all in shove with A♠ 3♠ to be ahead of Q♥ J♣. I flopped a flush draw, and my Ace-high held to climb back to 35,000 after slipping to 28,000 in chips. I then chipped up to 40,500 when my 7-4 in the small blind flopped trips and got two streets of value. As we were about to hit another break, I eliminated a PokerRoad intern (right) when he open-shoved 7-4 and I made the call from the small blind with Aces. I held, but doubled the small blind up next hand when my Nines were outdrawn by his Ace-10 as I headed to break with 38,500 in chips.

I then ran my Kings into Aces and was left crippled with 15,800 before moving tables as we hit the 1,000-2,000-200 level. I stole a few times before doubling with Sevens against Ace-King. With 69 left, and the top 36 individuals being paid, I headed to dinner with 27,000 in chips.

I devoured a sandwich before returning only to bust soon after when my A♠ K♦ was outflopped by the big stack’s A♥ 6♣ when the board ran out 6♠ 5♥ 2♠ 4♦ 10♦ to see me exit in 57th place.

Our team ended up finishing in 60th place, which wasn’t a bad result after Marc was bad-beat twice and Mat was card dead until elimination.

On a side note – congratulations to Pauly and his team Tao of Pokerati for capturing the team title, and to Kenna James for taking out the individual title!

Tao of Pokerati and Kenna James

My day off considered of some shopping at the Premium Factory Outlets with my two mates from Australia; Brendan and James.

I purchased a few items including both an Armani and Tommy Hilfiger shirt, as well as a flat-brimmed Boston hat and a set of BOSE earphones to go in conjunction with the headphones that I already have.

The day was short, and we wrapped it up by getting some t-shirts made up for the PokerNews freeroll in a few days.

Like I mentioned in my last post, Day 1d of the Main Event was locked out due to full capacity, and if all that arrived to take to the felt had a chance to play there could have potentially been a further $10,000,000 added to the prizepool!

Either way, here is an interview with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack by Gloria Balding about the issues and concerns that arose on Monday.

Day 1d saw a mammoth 2,809 players take to the felt; but a few hundred (or possibly 1,000) more were also turned down due full occupancy.

Apart from the major bust outs, bad beats and interesting stories that developed today, here are a few of my last level posts that you may (should) find interesting.

care of PokerNews
Durrrr Degeneracy
As most people know Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan loves getting involved in any action he can find – whether it be while playing or away from the table.

Currently in the second hour of a massage, Dwan started ordering drinks once returning from the break . . . and hasn’t stopped.

Recently he challenged fellow high stakes online player Matthew Marafioti to a drinking prop bet that revolved around Marafioti putting down ten shots of Patron in 15 minutes without throwing up.

If he succeeds then Dwan will pay him $5,000, but if he doesn’t then he owes Dwan the same amount.

The shots have been ordered, delivered and are now waiting patiently on an adjacent table.

Stay tuned for the result . . .

Worried Tournament Director?
Matthew Marafioti has accepted the aforementioned prop bet from Tom Dwan and has since begun throwing back shots of Patron.

One Tournament Director came over and expressed his concern at the potential of Marafioti being sick on the floor and resulting in a table move and a very substantial disturbance to play in the Miranda Room.

Tom Dwan however comforted the Tournament Director a little when he confirmed that he would donate $5,000 to the charity of the Tournament Director’s choice, and in his name, if Marafioti happens to be . . . sick.

The score board at the moment . . . 7 shots down, 3 to go, and all done in just 4 minutes so far!

Game . . . Set . . . Match?
It took 11 minutes and 41 seconds for Matthew Marafioti to finish all ten shots, but the real question is whether or not he can keep them down.

With just under an hour remaining in the day, you would expect Marafioti to quiet down and try and keep fairly reserved so as to win the bet.

However Marafioti has sparked up even more, chatting more and more to the table and especially Tom Dwan . . . even calling him a fish at one point.

“Fish, fish, fish, nit, fish, fish” he stated as he pointed from seat one (Dwan) around the table back to him.

Marafioti is handling himself in the poker department fairly well at the moment with 61,500 in chips in comparison to Dwan’s 21,600 – hopefully he can hold onto them . . . and the Patron as we wind up play for the night.

Up $5,000 But on the Move!
Matthew Marafioti didn’t need to last the remainder of the level, but only 15 minutes after taking the last shot.

With Tom Dwan just confirming that he succeeded in completing the prop bet, and now $5,000 richer, Marafioti, Dwan and the rest of the table were presented with some bad news.

Their table is about to be broken, and consequently Marafioti will have to depart the table of fun and drinking to relocate somewhere in the Miranda Room.

Hopefully now Dwan won’t have to pay up the Tournament Director charity freeroll that he gave, as most know that motion and lots of alcohol don’t fair too well!

Escort For Marafioti
We are (kind of) unsure why Matthew Marafioti has been escorted out of the Miranda Room and down the halls of the Rio.

Marafioti has been a little loud and rowdy of late, due to his prop bet with Tom Dwan, but we’re unclear as to why he’s been escorted out of the room.

Marafioti Going Home
The story is that Matthew Marafioti was awarded a penalty for using the F-Bomb and after coming to the conclusion that he was not in the best state he decided to go home.

Tom Dwan gave the Tournament Director a couple of $100 bills to make sure that Marafioti was ‘delivered’ home safely after being on the intoxicated side.

Dwan may be feeling bad, but Marafioti will be returning on Wednesday with over 56,000 in chips.

After 56 gruelling events and many hours running round the floors of the Rio, we have finally reached the home stretch with Day 1a of the Main Event upon us!

With an increased starting stack to 30,000 you would expect play to be a little slower then previous years, but just like always someone of course was all in and out in the first few hands.

1,116 players took to the felt, but easily the most interesting were Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond, and rapstar Nelly.

At the end of the day it would be Redmond Lee leading the charge with 134,275 in chips along with notables Jason Riesenberg (93,650), Jason Alexander (89,575), Lex Veldhuis (84,000), and Eli Elezra (83,375).

However, there is something Tilted Behaviour would rather discuss that doesn’t revolve around the normal topic of poker!

Just over a week ago, Michael Jackson passed away, and I know most news services and fellow blogger’s have already touched on his death, but for some reason it’s taken me a little longer.

I have been a fan of Jackson since I was able to walk into a music store and buy his albums on tape decks . . . and my love for his music has never once slipped.

I know every word to every song (even including his days as part of Jackson Five) and still to this day can’t really find a song I love the most. Basically it is a coin toss between I Want You Back, Billie Jean, Rock With You, Thriller and Heal The World.

The one thing you can’t deny is that the kid can dance!

Following a nice degen gambling session last night and a terrible ending to a potentially life-changing tournament, I was back at work covering Event 48 – $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8-or-better (sigh to the split game aspect, but yeah to the pot limit part).

The field was fairly stacked and included Matthew Burgoine; one of the Tournament Director’s from back home and also one of the faces behind Australia’s first free poker training sites called Insane Poker Crew.

Day One was expected to be fairly slow, but I seemed to fill the blog with a fair few hands and few small colour pieces – and having some notables like Phil Hellmuth, Brandon Cantu, Perry Friedman, Noah Boeken, Lee Watkinson and Lee Markholt go through, it made it all a lot easier.

Day Two flew fairly quickly as it ended before the 3am cutoff, with Brandon Cantu a whopping chip leader with nearly a third of the chips in play (which he held since there were 25 remaining or so)!

F-Train joined me for the final table, and after two quick bustouts in the first 15 minutes we were thinking this could be a repeat of the APT Manila Final Table. However a few doubles here and quarters there and it was an hour later.

We lost another before Cantu’s stranglehold on the chip lead and his second bracelet was chopped up in a three-way all in pot. Watkinson, arguably one of the best tournament Omaha players in the world, started to use his years of experience to take the chip lead before we lost another.

No five-handed deal could be settled on, and just like that we lost another, and then another to leave the Frenchman in an intense battle between Cantu and Watkinson. Cantu took the chip lead back before Watkinson said Au Revoir to the Frenchy and we were heads up!

Watkinson held a near three-to-one advantage on Cantu, and once that had slipped out to a six-to-one it seemed like déjà vu for Cantu after falling in second to Ray Foley in Event 39. However Cantu made a spirited comeback first doubling with a flopped set and then quartering Watkinson to snatch the chip lead and a two-to-one advantage.

Cantu would then end Watkinson’s tournament with trip fours to Watkinson’s mega-straight wrap to see the Cantu Can Do and walk away with his second bracelet and $228,867 in prizemoney.

Brandon Cantu with his second WSOP Bracelet, friends, railbirds and Grandfather that stood by his side for the whole final table (photo courtesy of http://www.pokerroad.com)

For the first time I was scheduled on with Marc Convey and his onslaught of British humour as we battled back on forth like the old guard and convict relationship of yesteryear.

Covering Event 41 – $5,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout we were thinking it would be a relatively light day with blogging duties mainly consisting of colour stories and the occasional hand.

280 players started the shootout and thirty would sneak through after defeating their table in a sit-n-go format; Barney Boatman, David ‘The Dragon’ Pham, Jennifer Harman, Mark Teltscher, Neil Channing and Phil Ivey all made it through to day two to see us end the night fairly early.

The following day saw us come back with five tables of six with the winner progressing through to the five-handed final table.

One table sparked particular interest as it included Barny Boatman, Phil Ivey and Jennifer Harman but it was obvious who everyone was cheering for.

During one level Ivey took off his hat and put it on the table. As players went to break he headed out to the back parking lot to rest up, and on return he was wearing an identical black Full Tilt hat . . . I wanted the idle one!

I talked to Amanda Leatherman about stealing it from me, but after Ivey lost a race to be left with only 7,500 in chips (blinds at 1,500-3,000) he put both hats on in preparation to go – the end result . . . he was sitting on 200,000 about three orbits later.

Phil Ivey and my hat

So I waved goodbye the idea of having in my possession Ivey’s (spare and one of many) hat, but was able to share a 45-second conversation with him.

(in reference to Barny Boatman returning late from a 20-minute break)
”You know he could have gone to dinner”
“What do you mean?”
“Well it was a scheduled dinner break, and he may not have realised that we were just taking 20-minutes”
“Oh . . . well we’ll wait for him for another 5-minutes and then start playing”

Yep . . . that is all . . . and that’s enough!

As we hit 9pm I was sent to cover the Event 44 – Seven Card Razz while Change had to pick up Pauly from the airport.

I only blogged several hands as it was mostly timed with dinner break and once done there I was straight over to help Eric on the final table of Event 39 – $1,500 No Limit Hold’em.

I was on the floor running hands for him, so that it was easier for him (and to of course by brownie points off him if I need to be driven anyway). We firstly saw Alex Jacob donk off a chip lead followed by Brandon Cantu before Ray Foley took home the gold and the $657,969 first prize.

With no notables at the Event 41 final table apart from Danny Wong, it was always going to be a boring final table apart from the fact that it may finish relatively early as it was only five-handed.

As I started to set up my laptop etc Marc strolled in to take a seat beside me. Then out of the blue, GG comes walking in with a little pace behind him.

”Hey, I need a favour”
“I need someone to work day two of the Seniors event and this shootout doesn’t really need the both of you”
“I’ll pay you double for the day, and buy you dinner”
“Please . . . “

Since this was Marc’s last shift for the series I decided to take the fall and stuck my hand up to put myself through the pain and torture of watching 50-plus year old’s limp-fold, min-raise and nit their way through a guaranteed 13-hour day!

‘Minneapolis’ Jim Meehan, Berry Johnston and Barbara Enright all cashed, but in the end it was one event I’d rather not recap and bore you all with!

Ship the day off tomorrow!

After working only one day of the Stud Hi/Lo World Championship I was thrown over to day two of Event 36 – $2,000 No Limit Hold’em.

213 players returned for day two action, but when the chips were bagged and tagged at the end of the day we would still have seventeen; including two woman (not having a go at how woman suck at poker or anything – but this was the first chance of the series to see a woman make the final table).

The day pretty much ran out like a regular donkament with no real notables making it through. I sweated David ‘Chino’ Rheem for a while, and was able to see him play a few interesting hands before being eliminated in 80th place.

Day Three followed the normal pattern of returning with more then one table before battling it down to the final nine before moving to one of the feature tables.

It took just over three hours to reach the final nine with it being one of the most evenly stacked final tables of all time as seven of the players held between a 40-50 big blind stack. Two women also snuck through making it the first WSOP final table of 2009 (ignoring the Ladies Championship) to have a female representative in both Laurence Grondin and Almira Skripchenko holding their head high.

Laurence Grondin and Almira Skripchenko chalk one up for the girls!

Skripchenko would fall in seventh, but Grondin would capture the chip lead and play great poker to eventually exit in third place. Jordan Smith would battle for two hours with Ken Lennaard before his 9♦ 7♦ would flop a flush and hold as he took home a new gold bracelet and $586,212 in prizemoney.

Tomorrow it’s shootout time!