Bellagio Update [04.11.2007]
So I�ve been playing the Bellagio tournaments since they started on the 7th. No results yet unfortunately.
I�ve been playing well, but the all-ins haven�t been very friendly to me at all. I�ve lost a lot of 70/30�s, and a few crucial coinflips, but that�s to be expected.
I played the $3,000 event yesterday, and was doing really well.
At 300/600 blinds, JC Tran raised to 1700 on the cutoff. Alex? (sorry if I got the name wrong) called on the button. I had AKo in the SB, and JC knows that I know how loose he is, and that I�m not afraid to play back against him with a marginal hand, so AK is gold in that spot. I reraised to 6k, and the big blind folded.
JC had around 27,000 chips, and pushed all-in. I licked my lips and prepared to make an easy call, but the button went into the tank. It was about 10,0000 more for him to call.
He was on tilt from a hand before where he got a set all-in vs a flush draw on the flop and lost. He hemmed and hawed for a while, and kept saying stuff like, �I smell a rat.� Some people at the table asked him who the rat was, and he basically said it was both of us. He thought we both had complete trash. Alex said that he knew it would be a bad call on his part, but that he really wanted to call anyway.
�Well, what are you waiting for?�
�I�m waiting for someone to call the clock on me.�
Immediately, Jeff Madsen said, �clock!�
As the floor man was coming over, Alex told him it wasn�t necessary. He pulled a coin out of his pocket and said, �heads I call. Tails I fold.�
He flipped the coin. It went onto the floor.
�Let it go. Let it go. I have another.�
He flipped that coin. Tails.
�Damnit, I was really hoping for it to be heads�
Someone else at the table shouted out, �Best two out of three!�
Alex�s eyes lit up as if he had just figured out how he was going to win this pot.
He flipped another coin. Heads!
Jeff Madsen asked, �If this next one comes up tails, are you going to say best three out of five?�
Well, Alex flipped the third coin, and it came up heads again.
Alex called for his final 10,000.
I called instantly, since AKo is a monster hand in a spot like that, and the button flipped over lol-ATo.
JC flipped over 77, and I was in decent shape with AKo.
Unfortunately, a ten came on the flop, and I didn�t improve against JC.
I had them both covered, but was only left with 7,000 chips after that.
I did rebuild up to about 20,000 chips without a showdown (thanks in part to moving all-in over the top of two consecutive raises from JC).
Unfortunately, I got ATs all-in vs KQ and lost that for 90% of my stack. I was pot committed to call without even looking at my cards the next hand in the small-blind, and that was all she wrote� for me.
Despite the fact that he was crippled on two separate occasions while at my table (the above hand NOT being one of them), JC managed to make the final table with the chiplead.
My good friend Jon Little aka Fiery Justice aka JCardshark also made the final table second in chips.
Long story short, they ended up chopping heads up. Grats Jon!
I don�t know if I�m supposed to congratulate JC or not. I�m friends with him, but I recently made a 1k bet, getting 25-1 odds (yummm $25,000) that I would win the Player of the Year race for 2007. It was mostly a friendly bet, considering that JC Tran had a HUGE lead in the race, and even a bigger one now, but at 25-1, my odds can�t be that bad.
I�ve also been placing a few WSOP prop bets.
The following bets were against Steve Sung, and I put up $1,000 for each bet.
He gave me 4.5-1 that Daniel Negreanu wouldn�t win a WSOP bracelet this year.
He gave me 7-1 that Barry Greenstein wouldn�t win a bracelet.
And he gave me 9-1 that Phil Hellmuth wouldn�t win a bracelet.
So I�m putting up $3,000, but if all three of my horses win a bracelet, I win a tad over $20,000. Obviously, it�s unlikely that they will all win a bracelet, but I think I�m a significant favorite in this bet.
If you are wondering why Negreanu�s odds are so much worse than Greenstein�s, it�s mostly because he will be playing more tournaments.
As for why Hellmuth�s odds are so low� well, he�s not exactly a favorite among poker players. I probably could have gotten the line down to 12-1 if I had bargained longer.
Now that I�m out of the $5,000 tournament, it�s time to go out and get some drinks.
OMG, I almost forgot. Congrats to TheWacoKid for taking down the 2.5k tournament!
-thanks for reading
� Justin Bonomo
