WSOP Trip Report Day 2
DAY TWO – Friday
After a great breakfast in the basement restaurant at Binion’s, I took my seat at my first ever WSOP event. They had a record 850 or so entrants, so they had to literally build tables out of felt, plywood, foam and padding the day before. These tables were oddly rectangular in shape, and they were located about a mile away from where the ‘real’ action was taking place upstairs in Benny’s Bullpen. I was at one of these rectangular tables. I looked around and recognized none of the faces, which was good. However, one seat was still empty, and five minutes into the tournament it was occupied by none other than Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott. Two to my left. Shit.
My thoughts on the Devilfish: very nice guy. Tighter than I expected, likely due to how early it was in the tournament. Great accent. There was a guy at the table who knew him really well, a quiet Southern man with a razor-sharp wit. This guy’s verbal jabs at Dave were fielded with ease by the Devilfish’s wry, dry, sardonic, English sense of humour. Some of the topics discussed were the Devilfish’s preference for fat little boys, his tendencies to come from behind, and his latest escapades with the Southern man’s wife. There were no women at the table, and there were no punches pulled. I was really enjoying myself, and I was playing well.
Before I talk about my tourney experience, I’ll share two of the more popular stories involving poker celebrities that happened over the course of this 2-day event. First of all, at some point, T.J. Cloutier decided to move all-in with a pretty healthy stack on the flop after his opponent checked it to him. The flop was A Q 3 rainbow. T.J. had 8 9. His opponent had pocket aces. Oops. Bad timing, and T.J. was gone. This may have happened at the WPT Championship Event and not the 2K NL WSOP event… I’ve heard a lot of stories and some of the details are fuzzy.
The other story involves Annie Duke on the very first hand of the tournament. This happened upstairs, so I didn’t see it. But I heard about it a couple of times, told the same way, once from someone who was at the very next table. Apparently Annie was dealt K K on her first hand. She made a standard preflop raise, and was re-raised by an unknown player. Annie popped him once more, but she still had chips in front of her. The guy then moved in on her, and she called. The guy had 88. Annie’s kings were looking good, but the flop came 88x. At this point Annie stood up, looked at the guy, and yelled “F**k you!â€. She then threw her cards, looked at the dealer, and yelled “and F**k you, too!â€. She didn’t wait to see if she’d get her kings on the turn and river; she just up and left. Her brother, Howard Lederer, was playing downstairs, and when he saw her storming past he asked her what was up and got no response.
But, more about me now, and more about poker celebrities later. I played really well in the tournament, despite having the Devilfish two to my left. In all but two hands in the first two hours before break, I played tight, avoided major confrontations, and built my stack up just a tiny bit. I was getting a decent amount of respect, and I was fine with that. The first couple of hours were just about building an image, because although I knew that all the players at my table would soon move to a ‘real’ table (which it did), it wouldn’t actually break up for quite some time. Here are the two hands before the break that merit a closer look.
Hand One: Folded to me on the button, I raise three times the blinds with A Q off. SB folds, Devilfish calls in the BB. Flop comes ten high rainbow, Devilfish checks, and I move in. Then came what may be the most painful minute in my life. I just stared at the board, but my peripheral vision told me that the Devilfish was staring me down. After about 30 seconds of his thinking I put him on a small to medium pocket pair, less than ten. I then had to endure another 30 seconds or so before he mucked his hand. I didn’t show.
Hand Two: Folded to me in the cutoff. I only double the blinds with QQ. I had been getting some good premium hands dealt to me, but very little action. QQ is one of those hands that you kind of want action on and you kind of don’t. I decided I wanted some action, hence, the small raise. Button folds and Devilfish (him again) re-raises me the size of my original bet. Hmm. He’s been playing pretty tight, and he has no reason to believe I’m a maniac. So, he has a hand. I decide to just call, take the flop, and get out if there are any overcards. The flop comes K T T with two spades, and the Devilfish makes a pretty sizeable bet, I think four times the big blind. I mucked the queens.
On the break, I was outside talking to my girlfriend on the phone when I noticed the Devilfish standing with one other person about 20 feet away. So, I got off the phone, walked over, and asked him to sign the back of my tournament entry ticket, which he did very graciously. I decided to push my luck, and told him that if he wanted to also write down what he had on that hand where the flop came K T T, I’d appreciate it. He looked at me and said in that accent of his: “two queensâ€. I laughed and told him that I had the other two, and said that I guess the pot was going to go to whoever bet first. He replied that he would have been on a freeroll for the flush, since he had the queen of spades. I take from that that he would have called me if I’d moved in on him. Or at least he wanted me to think that he’d have called me. Hell, I don’t know. On to Level 3.
A player had been knocked out at my table right before the break, so there was an empty seat. (As a matter of fact, I’d seen no less than four people at my table get knocked out in the first two hours). The empty seat was filled by none other than Sam Farha, unlit cigarette and all. He was two to Devilfish’s left, so I didn’t expect to be in too many pots with him.
A side note on Sam Farha and the Devilfish: I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but I got the distinct impression that they don’t like each other much. This was confirmed for me by way of a couple of stories throughout my trip that I won’t get into.
The third hour of the tournament (50/100 blinds) passed pretty uneventfully for me, until this hand came up right before the level change. As long as I live, I’ll never forget it. I’m under the gun, and I’m dealt K K. I triple the blinds. Folded to Farha who just calls. Folded to an unknown player in the big blind, who raises it up another 600, to 900 total. This is just what I was hoping for. I have about 2200, and I pretend to think about it for a bit. I then move in. Farha gets out of the way, and the big blind calls. He has me just barely covered, and flips over two queens. I flip up two kings, and he looks dejected.
Flop: K T 3 rainbow. Sweet. Even if he hits his queen, I still win.
Turn: J
River: A
And I was out of the tournament. The table actually got totally silent. I mean, everyone’s got bad beat stories, but having KK beaten by QQ on a KT3 flop is pretty tough. I didn’t say anything, I just got up and walked away, went to my hotel room, lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling for a while, trying to figure out if I could have played it better. I determined that I could have knocked him off the flop if I could have seen into the future and just called the re-raise, but I had to get Farha out. I know he likes to play weird hands to try and take someone’s stack. So, I don’t think I could have played it better. That’s poker.
Back on the horse. I looked in the mirror and asked myself if I was going to be on tilt for the rest of the day and night. After determining that I wasn’t, I called around and found out that the Bellagio was hosting a $1000 buy-in no-limit tournament that night. The WPT 25K buy-in Championship Event final table was happening that night at the Bellagio, so for me, there was no question. Off to the Bellagio I went, for a first taste of the Strip.
I won’t get into my impressions of the Strip. Anyone who’s been there knows how massively overwhelming it all is, and anyone who hasn’t has to see it to understand.
So, the poker room at the Bellagio was a bit of a disappointment. After being at the Golden Nugget, to be honest, every poker room was a bit of a disappointment. It was cramped, busy as hell, and generally chaotic. I’m sure this is due to a large part to the fact that the WPT Championship Event’s final table was hours away from starting, but I wasn’t really in the mood for chaos. I bought in for 1K, and ate dinner at the Bellagio’s buffet. A bit pricey, but oh my God. Quality: A. Variety: A+. I then went to have one beer (just one) before the tournament in the sports bar to watch the Habs/Tampa Bay game.
A gentleman soon sat down next to me and placed a WPT gift bag of sorts on the bar in front of him. I looked at him, and realized I was now sitting next to none other than Hasan Habib, the only ‘name’ player remaining heading into the WPT final table. Well, what luck. I could pick his brain 20 minutes before playing a tournament of my own. I introduced myself, and he talked to me for a while. He told me what his stack was like going into the final table that was to start in a few hours. It was pretty damn good. He told me that, to be successful, I had to mix up my game a lot. Sound advice. He then took about 2000 calls on his cell phone from friends and family. I pretended to watch the game while I eavesdropped on them.
My general impression of Hasan is that he is normally a very nice, patient man, who happened to be made a bit edgy by the fact that he was about to play a 6-handed game in which the winner received 2.7 million dollars or so. I totally understood, and gave him some space. The man wants cheesy poofs—and he really really did—the man gets cheesy poofs. He wants more ice, he gets more ice. After talking to him briefly about his situation and his opinions on his chances, I asked him to sign my Bellagio tournament receipt. He was clearly a little worried about what the hell he was signing. It’s not like I offered him a blank piece of paper to sign. It was a carbon copy form. After determining that he wasn’t signing anything that meant anything, he signed it, we wished each other luck, and I quietly took my leave.
Some 6 or 7 hours later he was 1.4 million dollars or so richer, with a second place finish.
The 1K tournament I’d signed up for drew about 80 or so players, with first place to take around $35,000. I’d like to tell you that I made the money, but I didn’t. I came in 21st, after playing well with unspectacular cards. I was fairly shortstacked when I made my last move. The guy to my right tripled the blinds, and I moved in with QQ. Back to him, he thought and thought and thought and finally called for almost all of his stack with AK suited. A good call, and we had a coin-flip situation. When an ace fell on the river, I was out.
I tried to get into the WPT taping which had already started, but they weren’t letting anyone else into the theatre for the night. Back downtown to play some 20/40 for the rest of the night at the Nugget and the Horseshoe. In general, over all 5 days of my trip, my 20/40 cash game results were really very good. I won’t go into any detail about any of them, but suffice it to say that anytime I had spare time I played 20/40 at the Horseshoe and/or the Nugget, and I quickly realized that a relatively unimaginative tight-aggressive game was good enough to win money. The games in Vegas are looser than I’m accustomed to. This may be because of the WSOP railbirds taking a shot at what is—to them—a big game. Or, it may always be that way. I’m not sure, but I sure was glad for it. And watching the pros at the Nugget is always a good time, and a good draw for low-limit WPT fans (like me) who might be tempted to sit down at the intermediate levels.
One more thing about the Bellagio. The table immediately behind my tournament table was where the second biggest game in the place was being played. The area set aside for the really big game was off-limits, so I don’t know what it was or who was in it. The one behind me was plenty big, with only $100 and $500 chips in play along with wads of cash tucked against the rail in front of each player. It was pot-limit something, and Celine Dion’s husband was playing in it.
I’d heard from numerous sources—poker players and cab drivers alike—that Celine’s husband has a bit of a problem. He likes to play high-limit poker. The problem is, he’s not that good. So what I saw was a bunch of unknown (except for one guy whose name escapes me that I’ve seen on WPT) pros rubbing their hands together in celebration of another night with Mr. Dion at the poker table. On my way out, I pointed out to a couple of older tourists who were watching the room that Mr. Dion was slightly to their left and three tables in. They thanked me, and turned their attention to the left. I think they might still be there.
After a great breakfast in the basement restaurant at Binion’s, I took my seat at my first ever WSOP event. They had a record 850 or so entrants, so they had to literally build tables out of felt, plywood, foam and padding the day before. These tables were oddly rectangular in shape, and they were located about a mile away from where the ‘real’ action was taking place upstairs in Benny’s Bullpen. I was at one of these rectangular tables. I looked around and recognized none of the faces, which was good. However, one seat was still empty, and five minutes into the tournament it was occupied by none other than Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott. Two to my left. Shit.
My thoughts on the Devilfish: very nice guy. Tighter than I expected, likely due to how early it was in the tournament. Great accent. There was a guy at the table who knew him really well, a quiet Southern man with a razor-sharp wit. This guy’s verbal jabs at Dave were fielded with ease by the Devilfish’s wry, dry, sardonic, English sense of humour. Some of the topics discussed were the Devilfish’s preference for fat little boys, his tendencies to come from behind, and his latest escapades with the Southern man’s wife. There were no women at the table, and there were no punches pulled. I was really enjoying myself, and I was playing well.
Before I talk about my tourney experience, I’ll share two of the more popular stories involving poker celebrities that happened over the course of this 2-day event. First of all, at some point, T.J. Cloutier decided to move all-in with a pretty healthy stack on the flop after his opponent checked it to him. The flop was A Q 3 rainbow. T.J. had 8 9. His opponent had pocket aces. Oops. Bad timing, and T.J. was gone. This may have happened at the WPT Championship Event and not the 2K NL WSOP event… I’ve heard a lot of stories and some of the details are fuzzy.
The other story involves Annie Duke on the very first hand of the tournament. This happened upstairs, so I didn’t see it. But I heard about it a couple of times, told the same way, once from someone who was at the very next table. Apparently Annie was dealt K K on her first hand. She made a standard preflop raise, and was re-raised by an unknown player. Annie popped him once more, but she still had chips in front of her. The guy then moved in on her, and she called. The guy had 88. Annie’s kings were looking good, but the flop came 88x. At this point Annie stood up, looked at the guy, and yelled “F**k you!â€. She then threw her cards, looked at the dealer, and yelled “and F**k you, too!â€. She didn’t wait to see if she’d get her kings on the turn and river; she just up and left. Her brother, Howard Lederer, was playing downstairs, and when he saw her storming past he asked her what was up and got no response.
But, more about me now, and more about poker celebrities later. I played really well in the tournament, despite having the Devilfish two to my left. In all but two hands in the first two hours before break, I played tight, avoided major confrontations, and built my stack up just a tiny bit. I was getting a decent amount of respect, and I was fine with that. The first couple of hours were just about building an image, because although I knew that all the players at my table would soon move to a ‘real’ table (which it did), it wouldn’t actually break up for quite some time. Here are the two hands before the break that merit a closer look.
Hand One: Folded to me on the button, I raise three times the blinds with A Q off. SB folds, Devilfish calls in the BB. Flop comes ten high rainbow, Devilfish checks, and I move in. Then came what may be the most painful minute in my life. I just stared at the board, but my peripheral vision told me that the Devilfish was staring me down. After about 30 seconds of his thinking I put him on a small to medium pocket pair, less than ten. I then had to endure another 30 seconds or so before he mucked his hand. I didn’t show.
Hand Two: Folded to me in the cutoff. I only double the blinds with QQ. I had been getting some good premium hands dealt to me, but very little action. QQ is one of those hands that you kind of want action on and you kind of don’t. I decided I wanted some action, hence, the small raise. Button folds and Devilfish (him again) re-raises me the size of my original bet. Hmm. He’s been playing pretty tight, and he has no reason to believe I’m a maniac. So, he has a hand. I decide to just call, take the flop, and get out if there are any overcards. The flop comes K T T with two spades, and the Devilfish makes a pretty sizeable bet, I think four times the big blind. I mucked the queens.
On the break, I was outside talking to my girlfriend on the phone when I noticed the Devilfish standing with one other person about 20 feet away. So, I got off the phone, walked over, and asked him to sign the back of my tournament entry ticket, which he did very graciously. I decided to push my luck, and told him that if he wanted to also write down what he had on that hand where the flop came K T T, I’d appreciate it. He looked at me and said in that accent of his: “two queensâ€. I laughed and told him that I had the other two, and said that I guess the pot was going to go to whoever bet first. He replied that he would have been on a freeroll for the flush, since he had the queen of spades. I take from that that he would have called me if I’d moved in on him. Or at least he wanted me to think that he’d have called me. Hell, I don’t know. On to Level 3.
A player had been knocked out at my table right before the break, so there was an empty seat. (As a matter of fact, I’d seen no less than four people at my table get knocked out in the first two hours). The empty seat was filled by none other than Sam Farha, unlit cigarette and all. He was two to Devilfish’s left, so I didn’t expect to be in too many pots with him.
A side note on Sam Farha and the Devilfish: I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but I got the distinct impression that they don’t like each other much. This was confirmed for me by way of a couple of stories throughout my trip that I won’t get into.
The third hour of the tournament (50/100 blinds) passed pretty uneventfully for me, until this hand came up right before the level change. As long as I live, I’ll never forget it. I’m under the gun, and I’m dealt K K. I triple the blinds. Folded to Farha who just calls. Folded to an unknown player in the big blind, who raises it up another 600, to 900 total. This is just what I was hoping for. I have about 2200, and I pretend to think about it for a bit. I then move in. Farha gets out of the way, and the big blind calls. He has me just barely covered, and flips over two queens. I flip up two kings, and he looks dejected.
Flop: K T 3 rainbow. Sweet. Even if he hits his queen, I still win.
Turn: J
River: A
And I was out of the tournament. The table actually got totally silent. I mean, everyone’s got bad beat stories, but having KK beaten by QQ on a KT3 flop is pretty tough. I didn’t say anything, I just got up and walked away, went to my hotel room, lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling for a while, trying to figure out if I could have played it better. I determined that I could have knocked him off the flop if I could have seen into the future and just called the re-raise, but I had to get Farha out. I know he likes to play weird hands to try and take someone’s stack. So, I don’t think I could have played it better. That’s poker.
Back on the horse. I looked in the mirror and asked myself if I was going to be on tilt for the rest of the day and night. After determining that I wasn’t, I called around and found out that the Bellagio was hosting a $1000 buy-in no-limit tournament that night. The WPT 25K buy-in Championship Event final table was happening that night at the Bellagio, so for me, there was no question. Off to the Bellagio I went, for a first taste of the Strip.
I won’t get into my impressions of the Strip. Anyone who’s been there knows how massively overwhelming it all is, and anyone who hasn’t has to see it to understand.
So, the poker room at the Bellagio was a bit of a disappointment. After being at the Golden Nugget, to be honest, every poker room was a bit of a disappointment. It was cramped, busy as hell, and generally chaotic. I’m sure this is due to a large part to the fact that the WPT Championship Event’s final table was hours away from starting, but I wasn’t really in the mood for chaos. I bought in for 1K, and ate dinner at the Bellagio’s buffet. A bit pricey, but oh my God. Quality: A. Variety: A+. I then went to have one beer (just one) before the tournament in the sports bar to watch the Habs/Tampa Bay game.
A gentleman soon sat down next to me and placed a WPT gift bag of sorts on the bar in front of him. I looked at him, and realized I was now sitting next to none other than Hasan Habib, the only ‘name’ player remaining heading into the WPT final table. Well, what luck. I could pick his brain 20 minutes before playing a tournament of my own. I introduced myself, and he talked to me for a while. He told me what his stack was like going into the final table that was to start in a few hours. It was pretty damn good. He told me that, to be successful, I had to mix up my game a lot. Sound advice. He then took about 2000 calls on his cell phone from friends and family. I pretended to watch the game while I eavesdropped on them.
My general impression of Hasan is that he is normally a very nice, patient man, who happened to be made a bit edgy by the fact that he was about to play a 6-handed game in which the winner received 2.7 million dollars or so. I totally understood, and gave him some space. The man wants cheesy poofs—and he really really did—the man gets cheesy poofs. He wants more ice, he gets more ice. After talking to him briefly about his situation and his opinions on his chances, I asked him to sign my Bellagio tournament receipt. He was clearly a little worried about what the hell he was signing. It’s not like I offered him a blank piece of paper to sign. It was a carbon copy form. After determining that he wasn’t signing anything that meant anything, he signed it, we wished each other luck, and I quietly took my leave.
Some 6 or 7 hours later he was 1.4 million dollars or so richer, with a second place finish.
The 1K tournament I’d signed up for drew about 80 or so players, with first place to take around $35,000. I’d like to tell you that I made the money, but I didn’t. I came in 21st, after playing well with unspectacular cards. I was fairly shortstacked when I made my last move. The guy to my right tripled the blinds, and I moved in with QQ. Back to him, he thought and thought and thought and finally called for almost all of his stack with AK suited. A good call, and we had a coin-flip situation. When an ace fell on the river, I was out.
I tried to get into the WPT taping which had already started, but they weren’t letting anyone else into the theatre for the night. Back downtown to play some 20/40 for the rest of the night at the Nugget and the Horseshoe. In general, over all 5 days of my trip, my 20/40 cash game results were really very good. I won’t go into any detail about any of them, but suffice it to say that anytime I had spare time I played 20/40 at the Horseshoe and/or the Nugget, and I quickly realized that a relatively unimaginative tight-aggressive game was good enough to win money. The games in Vegas are looser than I’m accustomed to. This may be because of the WSOP railbirds taking a shot at what is—to them—a big game. Or, it may always be that way. I’m not sure, but I sure was glad for it. And watching the pros at the Nugget is always a good time, and a good draw for low-limit WPT fans (like me) who might be tempted to sit down at the intermediate levels.
One more thing about the Bellagio. The table immediately behind my tournament table was where the second biggest game in the place was being played. The area set aside for the really big game was off-limits, so I don’t know what it was or who was in it. The one behind me was plenty big, with only $100 and $500 chips in play along with wads of cash tucked against the rail in front of each player. It was pot-limit something, and Celine Dion’s husband was playing in it.
I’d heard from numerous sources—poker players and cab drivers alike—that Celine’s husband has a bit of a problem. He likes to play high-limit poker. The problem is, he’s not that good. So what I saw was a bunch of unknown (except for one guy whose name escapes me that I’ve seen on WPT) pros rubbing their hands together in celebration of another night with Mr. Dion at the poker table. On my way out, I pointed out to a couple of older tourists who were watching the room that Mr. Dion was slightly to their left and three tables in. They thanked me, and turned their attention to the left. I think they might still be there.
Comments
Great reports, enjoyable read!
It's weird watching big games. It goes like this: preflop, someone raises. 5 minutes is spent while this person picks up their wad of bills, counts it all as efficiently as a cashier, stops, re-counts the amount they want to raise to, and throws it in. Then, someone contemplates a call. The person who might call picks up their wad of bills, counts it all as efficiently as a cashier, stops, re-counts the amount they have to call, and then throws it in or mucks their cards.
It's *almost* as exciting as standing next to a cashier's cage and watching a cashier.
what up with that ?
I'm really not sure. The 2K can't mean that much to her. She lost her buy-in. So what? Also, she must have taken a lot of bad beats in her lifetime if she's a professional poker player, so she should be used to them.
4 possibilities:
a) This story is not true. I did hear it twice, and once from a guy who claimed to be at the table next to her. But, maybe the guy likes to lie, or maybe it's just some rumour that got started.
b) The player with the 8's and the dealer were both giving her a hard time while they were sitting around waiting for the tournament to start, and this part of the story was left out when it was told to me.
c) Something close to what I described actually did happen, but the details got blown out of proportion, and the original events that took place bear only a slight resemblance to the story that was told.
d) The story was told to me with perfect accuracy, and Annie Duke was either having a very bad day, or she's a very bad loser. Or both.
I found it interesting enough to mention in the report, but because I wasn't there when it happened, I can't say for sure that it's true.
Regards,
all_aces
However, it's now dawned on me that you mean: define the meaning of rainbow.
A 'rainbow' flop is one that is made up of three different suits, thus presenting no immediate flush draws. For example, it is safer to slowplay three of a kind on a rainbow flop than it is on a two-suited flop.
A 'rainbow' board is a board (all 5 community cards) that ends up having no flush possible for the hand. In other words, a rainbow board doesn't have at least three cards of the same suit.
Regards,
all_aces
Interesting
Interesting indeed
and also
does Farha like anybody? didn't he have a bounty on Moneymaker??? :?: was this confirmed??? :?:
Did you like teh spelling mistake? Nice touch I thought.
Mwahahahaha
ScottyZ
Teh message we can all take from this is that you are a sick, sick man.
You kill me.
Regards,
all_aces
i bet u it was that darn monkey with the laser :evil:
bad monkey bad :evil: :shock:
For the record, I didn't.
In fact, I didn't even know this when I made my original "consiparacy theory: I made a fake Guest post" post, but the IP address of the Guest post in question actually *does* match one of our posters. It seems like someone (besides me) really is trying to stir up the Annie Duke hornet's nest.
The plot thickens!
And don't worry Mr. X, your identity is safe with me. 8)
Mwahahahaha
This is getting weird, even by my standards.
ScottyZ
Evil :twisted:
Since I would probably be the next most likely candidate, I'd like to go on the record as saying that I am not Mr. X, either.
I thought that the fact that a random question came up about my *Day 2* report was a little TOO coincidental.
Regards,
all_aces
ps: ScottyZ, if I wanted mind games, I'd play poker. Oh wait...
No fair! Everybody who *isn't* Mr. X can't just come out and say this... we'd eventually be able to figure out who it was...
"I'm Spartacus."
Of course, just because somebody *says* they didn't do it doesn't mean we have to believe them.
ScottyZ
What, something wrong with the resurrection of a 22 day stale post that happens to contain a rumor of Annie Duke going ballistic via some inane newbie question? You're *way* too suspicious...
LOL
ScottyZ
deception and bluffing? what? :roll:
Evil :shock:
CO?
Are you twisted evil?
:twisted:
Regards,
all_aces
Makes you really think... :idea:
you took the KK vs QQ hand well. me i would have been on tilt for the next month.
Look at you 97% favourite on the flop, 80% favourite pre-flop ... don't you know you don't push small edges in a tournament