tilted behaviour

Waking up well after midday, I sat around the PokerNews Mansion doing absolutely nothing before Heath and I decided to continue our table tennis battle from the other day.

Although he proved victorious 3-2 on the last occasion, I finally hit my straps on this one and crushed his soul fairly easy before both of us, along with Kirsty, decided to make our way to the Premium Factory Outlets for some retail therapy.

My plan was to buy a few pairs of shoes and a nice jacket, but failed miserably at the shoes while finding two half-decent jackets at Calvin Klein. I decided to hold off on the purchases until after the series as Heath was the only one to buy anything as we all returned home; and me to the Hard Rock.

With it being Chad’s last night in Las Vegas, we decided that we should go and hit the strip and do some gambling and drinking.

Our first stop was at Casino Royale to play some $3 Craps and drink some fruity margaritas. This was bad choice numero uno . . . not for the margaritas, but for the choice of playing Craps as we both lost; mine hitting the wallet a little heavier for three bills!

What!?! How could you lose $300 on $3 Craps you may be asking . . . well the reason is I was playing it more like $30 Craps than $3 and the fact that the luck of the dice wasn’t rolling our way didn’t help either. While Chad tried to run up his last few dollars, I found my way to a $1 Roulette table where I was betting at a minimum $60 a hand. Only buying in for $100, it lasted me a dozen spins or so before I punted it off and we made our way to O’Shaes to play the midnight $45 tournament.

It was a turbo structure with only a 2,000-starting bank, and after check-raising all in with top pair in the third level and getting snapped off with a flush draw, I was out before Chad when he spiked another club on the river. I dumped another $100 on Craps there, before Chad bite the dust and we made our way back to the Hard Rock.

Chad decided to call it a night as he had an early flight the next day, but I decided to kick on and play some $1-2 NLH in the poker room.

I chipped up quickly when a guy limp-shoved over my three-bet (raise to $7, then to $18) with deuces and I called off his $104 with Queens as the board blanked out.

A few orbits later I made it $7 to go with A♠ Q♠ and found three callers before firing out $16 on a A♦ 10♠ 2♥ flop. It was called round before the big blind led for $60 when the turn landed the 2♠ with only me calling before the 5♥ on the river went check, check. He tabled his Q♣ 10♦ and I collected the pot to move to $428 before chipping up to $486 after cracking Queens with King-Jack when I flopped two-pair.

The switch was then flicked as I proceeded to lose every hand thereafter. I was two-outered twice, and rivered three-times by the same guy in virtual back-to-back-to-back hands before losing my last $85 in a straddle pot with Queens against the straddler’s Aces to finish down a buy-in at the Hard Rock and $900 overall for the day!

I wish I had worked today!

Having a day off, I managed to get a nice sleep in before deciding to wake up and find a suitable lunch option.

Not wanting to head to far from the hotel room to eat, I decided to head across the road to grab a sandwich from Capriotti’s.

As the temperature lingered around the 110-degree mark I eventually made my way to the Capriotti’s door, and before I could even reach for the handle it slowly opened. I reached for it to hold it open for whoever was leaving the store, and to my amazement it was none other than Daisy Marie.

Daisy who? Well Daisy Marie is the first person that I have seen face-to-face in Las Vegas over the past few years to make me absolutely star-struck! For those of you playing at home and wondering if it actually was her or maybe a Latino of similar resemblance . . . well as she brushed past me to leave the store with my eyes fixed on hers, she broke the eye-to-eye contact and turned to walk away revealing her cherub-inspired back tattoo.

Not really hungry courtesy of the weakness in my knees, I looked up at the menu, before quickly doubling back to see if she was still there or just a mirage due to my sickness that I’ve encountered over the past week or so . . . no mirage but just Daisy as I ordered a rather now-boring sandwich.

With lunch taken care of and some TV watched, I caught up with Chad as we decided to head to the Strip to take a look around. Once there we wondered into a few shops and casinos before making a last-minute decision to see Predators.

There was no Arnie, but still plenty of carnage as Brett continuously bugged me with texts during the movie trying to organise a game back at the Hard Rock. Of course both me and Chad obliged as we grabbed a taxi immediately after the last extraterrestrial life was killed off by Royce and Isabelle (the main stars obviously).

Once back at the Hard Rock we organised a $50+10 sit-n-go with a 4,000-chip starting bank (it was going to be 1,500, but through my pure awesome negotiating powers, we convinced them otherwise). Greg, Mickey, Brett, Chad and I were joined by three randoms, but the sit-n-go was a bit of a blur – I still think due to Daisy Marie – and this is how Brett detailed my play:

“I three-bet you three times and you folded like a fucking nit!”

Brett was pretty much right as I opened A♣ 4♣ and he three-bet Ace-King before I three-bet him with Q♥ 8♥ and he four-bet jammed me. The final hand saw me call all in from the big blind with K♦ 3♦ to dominate Chad’s 10♠ 3♠ in the small blind. But since it was Chad – and he runs really really really good – I spike my King and he flushed me on the river to send me out the door and to the cash games as Greg bubbled in third and Brett proved victorious for a nice $260 payday.

On my first I squeezed to $17 with 10♣ 9♣ in the cutoff over a straddle and a couple of calls as four of us saw a 8♣ 5♠ 3♦ flop. The straddler led out for $10 and I made it $47 to force him and the others to fold as I kicked off my start to the $1-2 NLH table.

An orbit later I Hard Rock straddled the button to $4 as the straddler from the previous hand made it $10 to go with both me and the big blind calling. The flop fell down A♠ 2♦ 3♠ and the raiser led out for $20 as I made it $48 to go with 4♠ 5♥. The big blind folded as we went heads up to the turn of the 7♥ with my opponent donking out for $60. I put him all in for his last $100 and he painfully mucked after about a minute of deliberating as I climbed to $393.

I then lost Queens to 9♥ 5♥ on a 9♦ 8♥ 7♥ 6♦ 8♣ board to slip to $278 before playing one of the worst hands of my life!

After a straddle to $4 and two calls, I made it $22 to go holding K♠ 10♠. The blinds, straddler and the callers all called to see a Q♥ J♦ 3♠ flop fall. One of the callers fired out $65 and I called as the 8♣ landed on the turn and he fired out $70. I made another bad call as the K♦ landed on the river and I called $75 to see him reveal A♦ Q♦ as I scooped the pot to move to $556 before ending the night up $341 in the cash game and $281 overall.

Looking at the schedule at the start of the series, one event that I was blogging caught my eye.

The $5,000 Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Poker Tournament!

Covering the event with F-Train, we were all about the colour in this event since the play (mainly due to the structure) was never going to be amazing.

Headlining the celebrities included Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Montel Williams and Evander Holyfield while some of the pros in the field included Phil Ivey, Joe Hachem, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson as 84 players turned out to participate in this charity tournament.

One of the players that reached the final table – Alex Filatov – was asked by Phil Gordon when play was three-handed how much he was going to donate since it is expected that the full prizepool is donated back to the Ante Up for Africa charity.

Filatov replied with just 10% to get an awkward reaction from both Gordon and Shannon Elizabeth as well as many members of the media. The MC for the latter part of the event; Ali Nejad, then spiked a subtle sucker punch towards Filatov by announcing who the previous winners were and how much (100% for the record) they donated.

Luckily however, Filatov exited next as Gordon bested Elizabeth heads up to claim the $130,641 first prize, which thankfully went all back to the Ante Up for Africa charity just before we ticked into hour five of the tournament.

Although we had a slight delay in leaving the Rio courtesy of a false start to the Tournament of Champions, me and Greg eventually found our way back to the Hard Rock before stopping into Mr. Lucky’s for some dinner.

We caught up with Chad before Greg convinced us to head to Terrible’s Casino across the road so that we could degen it up.

Hitting the Blackjack table first, the dealer forced me into a Phil Hellmuth-esque explosion when she thought my waving of a hand for a stand was a hit, and busted me. The dealer rolled a 20 anyway, so hitting didn’t change anything, but that wasn’t the point as I was now officially tilted.

I quickly lost my last $50 – for the record I lost all ten hands I played – before heading over to the Craps table and plonking $200 down on the table.

I had never seen it before, but there was this fire bet where if you could hit five points in a row you would receive 150-1 on your bet, and six in a row meant 300-1. Either way it made the game so much more exciting as we sat on four (30-1) for ages as we just kept missing the point by a dimple here and there.

Randomly upping my bets, both Chad and another shooter started hitting some points and my numbers as I finally managed to hit some Craps run good and eventually turned my initial $200 into $850 as Chad also made a little money on the same table while Greg was playing bingo somewhere before we ventured home for the night.

After covering day three of Event 13: $1,000 No Limit Holdem yesterday I managed to somehow sneak another day off into my schedule.

With GG out of down and Donnie at work, I wasn’t able to head to their house to do my washing so consequently ventured across the road to the laundromat around lunchtime and put through two loads of washing. It only cost me $1.50 for each machine and $1.25 to use the dryers for just under half an hour, which – although I’ve never paid to do washing – seemed fairly cheap.

Jane swung by in the late afternoon and we headed to Fashion Show Mall to both get a haircut before going on an adventure to find her some sparkly silver shoes to match her blue dress. Let me tell you . . . shopping with Jane is a long and tiring adventure (punishment?) that took nearly three hours until we hit that pot of gold and found those shoes!

Since she was heading to some club opening (the reason behind the shoes of course), I got dropped off back at the Hard Rock to join the PokerNews Cash Game for some degenerate limit holdem action!

Kristy, Parvis and a bunch of the Deuces Cracked guys were there along with a few randoms as we decided to reduce the game to just $2-4 Limit Holdem. Kristy and the Deuces Cracked guys had to leave early, but Chad and Ben soon joined us along with some noobs to juice the action up further.

Sitting with $400, we all began juicing the game up as I announced that I would cap it wherever possible if Parvis – ie my boss – raised or bet. The chips flew back and forth between everyone, but cracking his set of Aces with a gutshot straight made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside while he slumped back with a what the fuck do I have to do to catch a break look on his face as he was down something ridiculous like $300.

Parvis left around midnight while we decided to switch the game to Dealers Choice spreading Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, Pot Limit Omaha and 2-7 Draw Lowball.

I inherited Parvis’ run bad and saw my $400 stack slide all the way down to just $160, but at least I managed to enjoy a $100 massage with one of the Rio massage girls named Stef – which coincidently is one of the ones I think is the cutest over the past few years.

We ended the night around 3am and made our way to Mr. Lucky’s 24-7 to have a late-night snack before Ben and I dragged Chad along to the Craps table.

I went on a pretty good roll to be up around $80 and once I hit the point I upped all my bets . . . of course I instantly set another point and then crapped out before running out a $200 loss for the night on top of my poker loses and massage expenses!

Two days off felt great, but it’s also enjoyable to be back behind the computer for PokerNews after starting the WSOP on the floor as a reporter.

Unfortunately it also means that I will be enduring a seven-day stretch of work that includes four different events, two final tables and three different games!

Tuesday saw me work with Rich covering the Event 6: $5,000 No Limit Holdem Shootout. The 358-player field formed easily one of the toughest collection of starting tables that the World Series will witness this year, and consequently it was no surprise that the thirty six players that made it through to round two were of the highest calibre in the shootout format.

Just try and pick a winner out of James Akenhead, Dario Minieri, John Duthie, Chad Brown, Tom Dwan, Joseph Elpayaa, Christian Harder, Blair Hinkle, Eugene Katchalov, Faraz Jaka, Justin ‘Boosted J’ Smith, Chino Rheem, Max Pescatori and Chris Ferguson!

Another day and another event saw me tackle all the day one action of Event 8: $1,500 No Limit Holdem with one of our new bloggers Chad.

It was just the standard [i]donkament[/i] with over 2,000 players being eliminated from the starting 2,341, and if you read the coverage – which you should – you will realise that it has a very Jean-Robert Bellande and Phil Hellmuth feel to it.

How could it not really as these two guys are some of the most entertaining poker players to ever walk the hallways of the Rio. Hellmuth obviously sits in a class of his own with eleven bracelets and the ability to run his mouth in a way that attracts droves of people to sweat his every action three rows deep on the rail. Bellande – via his twitter account BrokeLivingJRB – details his crazy swings in poker and in life as he attempts to live the dream running up a million-dollar bankroll from nothing.

Late in the day Hellmuth got moved to Bellande’s table and that’s when fireworks between the two sparked continuously. They did both manage to survive the day to be placed in the top twenty, with this hand being one of the highlights.

courtesy of PokerNews
Bellande Playing Perfect, JRB Training School Soon To Open!
Jean-Robert Bellande opened to 3,000 from middle position and Phil Hellmuth made the call.

On a flop of 9♦ Q♥ 9♣ Bellande fired out 5,000 and Hellmuth quickly made the call to see the 7♣ land on the turn and a check follow from Bellande.

“How much you have left?” asked Hellmuth.

Bellande sat there looking blankly at the board before parting his hands so that Hellmuth could view in full sight his chip stack.

“What’s the total?” Hellmuth asked the dealer as the dealer cut down Bellande’s stack to total 25,400.

“Small bets mean nothing” stated Hellmuth as he tossed in a 3,800-chip bet which Bellande called before both players checked the 2♦ on the river.

Bellande tabled his 8♠ 8♣ and Hellmuth asked, “what he have?”

Hellmuth nodded his head and flashed his 4♥ 4♠ before folding to slip to 54,000 as Bellande began to rake in the pot to climb back to 48,000.

“Your small bets mean nothing Phil” Bellande added.

“All those guys that watch poker VT are wasting their time. If they want to play perfect poker they should just put a camera behind me. I couldn’t of played that hand any better,” Bellande finished off much to the amusement of the rail and fellow table combatants.

My first final table of the series saw me return to Event 6: $5,000 No Limit Holdem Shootout with Rich.

The six remaining players – Joshua Tieman, Stuart Rutter, Brent Hanks, Neil Channing and Joseph Elpayaa – were all starting seventy-five big blinds deep with 1,500,000 in chips, but the final table amazingly lasted only four hours as Tieman crushed souls to be crowned the Event 6 Champion and $441,692 richer.

Since me and Rich were out early – for probably the only time this series – we wondered aimlessly round the room checking out some of the other events before heading to dinner with the PokerNews head honcho Matt.

We headed to McFadden’s and enjoyed a burger before I made my way back to the Hard Rock. I showered and watched some TV before deciding that it would be a good idea to go gamble and play some Craps.

Bad idea.

I quickly was up $200 or so on my roll as I kept rolling sixes and eights while hitting the occasional point. I eventually did crap out, and that started a bad roll from the whole table as that $200 profit was wiped and then the $300 I had in my wallet was wiped too.

The final result for the night . . . I have just five bucks in my wallet and an assortment of nickels, dimes and quarters on my bedside table . . . I love Vegas!