tilted behaviour

For most of the series I have been under the weather with what I’ve dubbed an ‘air-conditioning cold’, but over the last few days it has increasing getting worse.

Cough medicine, throat lozenges, mouth wash . . . I’ve tried about everything, but yet my health still slides downhill . . . but I’m a trooper, and work isn’t getting in the way of the World Series!

2,314 players took to the felt for Day 1c of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event which was a considerable 618 player increase from last year. 1,645 players managed to survive with Johnny Chan sitting second in chips as I was let go early to try and recover from whatever the hell I had.

Day 1d of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event was one that fell short of last years numbers by only managing to get 2,391 entrants in comparison to the 2,809 that registered for the 2009 sell out.

Starting the day in the blue section like normal, I was coughing up a storm mixed with blood and other disgusting things, and on several occasions left the Amazon Room and opened one of the doors leading to the outside car park to cough and unleash whatever was in my throat.

About a minute before play started, I quickly bolted from my chair, pushed through the Amazon Room doors and then swung one of the outside-leading doors open in readiness to hurl.

Unfortunately this was the exact time Phil Ivey had decided to enter the arena, and slowly walked up the stairs before detouring to the door I was still holding open.

“Thank you” he stated as I just nodded my head in acceptance before shutting the door and letting my many coughs and spits out.

It was purely Phil Ivey Watch 2010 for me and fellow Amazon Blue blogging partner Donnie Peters, but one of the best hands – well it wasn’t really a hand at all – didn’t involve Ivey.

Where Is My Seat?
Currently there is a player walking round the blue section of the Amazon room.

Unfortunately for the lost player – or as we discovered Stanley Quinn – he is a little confused at the difference between the one and six seats, as well as his proximity to Mr. Phil Ivey (since he is on the opposite end of the blue section to him).

1,713 players managed to bag and tag their chips, and still be in the running to take home part of the whooping $68,798,600 prizepool; well if you’re one of the lucky 747 anyway.

The goal however for the remaining 5,143 players heading into day two is the $8,944,138 first prize on offer!

The chips are being riffled, the cameras are rolling and the prop bets have began . . . and so has the 2010 WSOP!

The first day of the Summer saw me on the floor covering Event 2: $50,000 Poker Players Championship (8 Game Mixed). Obviously the field was stacked with the likes of Ivey, Negreanu, Hellmuth and Brunson, but it was the unlikely starters that pondered us to ask how many of these players actually had a $5million bankroll – which would be the expected amount needed to play this event – to sit down and battle with some of the best in the world?

During the two days I spent on the floor I enjoyed some great banter between the players including this gem from Mike Matusow as players were discussing breaking things while playing online.

“Yeah I’ve thrown about five mouses [mice] though my wall . . . they don’t really count though as it was during the whole Ultimate Bet scandal when I was getting cheated out of millions”

Another interesting thing that I witnessed was a play made by Phil Ivey during a 2-7 Triple Draw (a game in which the low poker hand wins – straights and flushes count against your hand unlike in Razz and Aces are high) hand. Abe Mosseri raised in early position and Ivey made the call from the button holding 3-2-2-2-x. Mosseri drew two and Ivey drew one before standing pat after Mosseri called his bet. Mosseri again drew two but instantly folded to Ivey’s next bet.

The one thing that nearly every one of the 116 players were talking about was a Fantasy Poker draft that they had started where several players drafted and bought players for their team and insane prop betting followed. This follows closely to the PokerNews WSOP Fantasy competition that I have put into place amongst fellow workers and friends.

It’s a $100 buy-in and is split amongst two prizepools – one for most cashes and the other for most winnings – with each team being made up of ten players under ten different categories. Here is my team.

Female: Annette Obrestad
Previous WSOP ME Winner: Phil Hellmuth
USA nationality: JC Tran
Canadian nationality: Sorel Mizzi
European nationality: Bertrand Grospellier
Other nationality: Jeff Lisandro
Online: Andrew Lichtenberger
Full Tilt Poker sponsored: Phil Ivey
PokerStars sponsored: Daniel Negreanu
Other sponsored: Brandon Cantu

I really wanted to squeeze Alexander Kostritsyn, Andy Bloch, Chris Ferguson and Nam Le in the team, but simply there wasn’t enough room!

One however I would gladly drop two players for is Kirk Morrison.

Kirk who? you may be asking, but he is the first friend that I made when I arrived in Las Vegas back in 2007. Having spent time in New Zealand with one of my mates that I was in Las Vegas with – who was also playing the Main Event – we soon got to know each other. He is an Aussie/Kiwi at heart with a love for a good beer and fondness for the word mate, and after a hot few months that included a second in the WPT Championship to Carlos Mortensen, five WSOP cashes including a final table and a deep run in the Main Event he just disappeared off the radar.

He turned down a PokerStars contract and probably has played no more than a dozen poker tournaments since his hot WSOP run of 2007 . . . but after the previous two days, I’m glad to say that he is back!

Spending some time with him yesterday as he slowly crept up the leaderboard to eventually sit on top, Kirk detailed that he is planning on playing a decent schedule of around twenty events.

Everyone out there reading Tilted Behaviour today, tomorrow or in seven weeks time when the WSOP is over . . . Kirk Morrison is going to have the hottest WSOP of anybody . . . and is going to kick it off with victory in the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.

As you can see by the (unconfirmed) advert placed in the local paper the other day . . . Phil Ivey is looking for love!

Well he might not be looking, but he is available after both he and his wife Luciaetta successfully filed for divorce just a few days before Christmas. Both were high-school sweethearts who tied the knot back in May of 2002 and have no children together.

For Ivey, his divorce puts a dent in his spectacular year on the felt having won two WSOP bracelets along with being a ‘November Niner’ and winning copious amounts both online and live.

He might not be lucky in love, but he sure is lucky on the tables!

A little over two weeks ago I wrote a blog about Phil Ivey’s spare hat that he had left idle on the poker table during a tournament.

Well . . . I got it!!!

Basically one of my friends Joy (who works for ESPN and Full Tilt) was walking past my blogging desk wearing a black Full Tilt hat backwards.

”You look stupid”
“Yeah I know, but it’s not mine . . . it’s Phil Ivey’s”
(jaw drops)
“How did you get that?”
“Well I had a gray one on, and he wanted to switch it up, so he took this one off and put the gray one on . . . do you want it?”
(jaw drops further)
“Yes please!”

Joy handed it to me as she continued to stroll through the tournament area. Unlike what I expected, it was slightly worn out on the inside with the brim bent in an irregular shape.

I now have a genuine memorabilia piece of Phil Ivey and am going to treasure it!

His . . . Now Mine . . . His New One

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!