WPT Update #2 [01.12.2006]
Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but I had some trouble with internet access while in the Bahamas, and didn�t really care enough to fix them. After all, I was in the Bahamas.
This is a double update. I posted Update #1 with the date Jan 6, because that�s when I wrote it (even though it wasn�t posted until today.) Make sure you read that blog before this one.
On Saturday I finally made it out to the beach. I met up with Brandon Schaefer, and Carl Olson (I became friends with those guys when all three of us made the final table in Deauville). Rounding out the group was their friend Justin and his girlfriend. The Atlantis resort had some waterslides that lots of people were talking about, so we had to check those out. The idea was cool. The slides go under water and through tanks full of sharks, sting rays, and other crazy animals, but you can�t really see much since you are going too fast as you pass through.
After that we headed to the beach, relaxed, and got some sun. To be honest, it just made me miss being home in LA. That afternoon was the first Paradise Master�s event. It was a $500 buyin, and I had nothing better to do at 4pm, so I decided to play that. I made it kind of far, even though I never really got any cards or had any chips. I guess I sucked out a couple of times when my stack got desperately low. It was pretty uneventful overall. Schaefer ended up finishing 5th in that.
Since it�s hard to get a decent connection in the hotel rooms at the Atlantis, most people were playing in the lounge by the Coral Towers. The room was always packed with poker players. I played the $100 rebuy on stars, and at one point, Sirio11, Bugstud, and BelowAbove were all at my rebuy table. All four of us were sitting within ten feet of each other which made things kind of awkward. Don�t worry, we didn�t pull anything shady, but we kind of had to spread ourselves out so we could hide our hole cards.
On Sunday, I mostly just played live poker. First I played a $1,000 sit�n�go. Greg Raymer was at my table, and so was Raptor517 from 2+2. I got caught stealing with 73o when AQ called, but somehow managed to suck out. After that things went smoothly and I never got my chips in as a dog. I pretty much ran over the table at that point. With five players left, I open raised a pot, and Raymer tried making a move on me with AT or something. Another player called his all-in (with AQ I think), and I called with Jacks. My hand held up, and the other two players were so happy to have made it into the money despite having short stacks. After that point, I just used my chip lead to take down the blinds and I ended up winning the thing pretty easily.
After that I played $50/$100 NL for a while at the second table which was a must move table to the other, juicier table. I ended up leaving when I realized I was too far down on the list to ever to make it to the main game. I pretty much broke even.
I made sure to get to the poker room early on Monday to play the main $50/$100 game. The lineup consisted of Mike Matusow, Serb2127, Hazards21, Bet2Win, Curzdog, Viffer, Twin Caracas, and a few other tough players. It was definitely a tough game, but there were two rich guys that were supposed to show up later, so I stayed in.
I had some sick cards the first fifteen minutes of the session. I had aces once, queens twice, and AK twice. I didn�t play any big pots with those, but I was definitely putting in a lot of money preflop and I had a loose image as a result. Viffer opened a pot for 350, I called with jacks, and so did another player. The flop came 762 with a flush draw. Viffer checked, I bet, and Viffer called. The turn was a seven. Viffer checked, I bet again, and he check raised all-in. There was no way I could imagine Viffer playing an overpair or a set like this, so I called. The river blanked, and my jacks were good. I never saw his cards, but I�m pretty sure he had a flush draw, and maybe a pair or a gut shot to go with it. I originally bought in for $15,000 and was up to $25,000 after that hand.
The game was sooo much fun. Mike the Mouth is just unreal entertaining. Some people see him on TV and think he�s an asshole, but that�s definitely not the case. He just has fun needling people. He refers to people as fishcakes and donkeys, but it�s all in fun. Psychologically, it�s great to have the table chatting, laughing, and having fun, because they are more likely to play loose and gamble when that�s happening, and gamble we did!
There was some sick prop bet action at this table. Everyone involved picked a card. Serb had twos, I had threes, Bet2Win had fours, and Mike had jacks. If your card comes on the flop, everyone else gives you $500. If a pair of your card flops, everyone gives you $1,000. If you hit trips, you get $5,000 from everyone (this never happened.) Money was being tossed around left and right, and it certainly helped to loosen up the game. Normally, I don�t gamble without an edge, but I honestly think I had an edge in this game. First of all, it gave me a looser image at the table which was perfect, but mathematically, there was an edge too. You are more likely to see a flop when people at the table hold high cards in their hands, which means that low cards are more likely to hit the flop than high cards. Mike was definitely the underdog here.
Eventually Brandon (rich guy number 1) showed up. His parents own 20th century fox and something else, and he claimed to be a multi-billionaire which is pretty ridiculous. His girlfriend was insanely hot, and he apparently used to date Mischa Barton. He didn�t have much cash on him, so he kept borrowing money from Mike. He lost about 30k of Mike�s money before having to call it quits for the night. He said he�d return the next day with 100k to pay Mike back and play with, but he never did. I wonder if Mike is gonna end up getting stiffed over this or not. The guy has money up the wazoo, so I think Mike will get paid back.
I played for fourteen hours straight, but other than the cards I had in the first fifteen minutes, I got nothing. I only flopped one set the entire night vs. Mike and it didn�t exactly turn out well. Mike open limped before the flop, I called with 66, and a player after us raised. Mike and I both called. The flop came 654, all hearts. Mike led out for 800, about half the pot. I smooth called, and the preflop raiser folded. The turn was a black deuce, and mike led out for about 1200. I felt like he was just praying for a raise, so I decided to just call in case he flopped a flush. The river was a black ten, and Mike checked. I reevaluated the previous streets, and thought maybe he had the bare ace of hearts. I made a small bet of $2,000 hoping to make it seem like I was week, and maybe Mike would call sensing a bluff. Instead, Mike raised to $7,000. I know Mike is capable of raising with absolutely nothing when he senses weakness, and I felt like I showed enough weakness that I had to call. Unfortunately Mike showed AJ of hearts (the nuts), and my only set of the night was busted. My read on the flop and turn was right, but I second guessed myself on the river and it cost me $7,000.
Not only were my cards cold, but I lost some money in prop bets too before finally quitting those. At the end of the night, I was almost exactly even, and I was very happy to be there. I�m very happy with the way I played that night. I made a few huge bluffs, and none of them got called. My favorites were a turn check raise with ten high vs Mike, and the very last hand of the night I got Serb to fold aces to me when a flush got there on the river (that I didn�t have). We played until the poker room closed at 4am.
At one point in the night, Ozzy was still in the main event kicking ass. I left my table to go watch him for a while as they were almost down to the final six players. Oz is only eighteen years old, and I would have loved to see him win this event. He was a short stacked with nine players left, but managed to eek his way into the final table. He had a nice cheering section, and we were all so excited for him. The final table started at 10am the next day.
Against my better judgement, after playing poker I decided to watch the sick prop gambling continue. Mike, Twin, Bet2win and Serb went to the lobby to watch Nick Schulman (TheTakeover) play some online poker. They were so elated to see the speed of their prop bets speed up with the faster play of online poker. They ended up gambling until 6am. I decided to head out around 5am to get some sleep before watching Oz win the WPT.
I woke up early on Tuesday to watch the WPT final table, but was quickly disappointed. On the very first hand, Oz�s big blind was raised, and he pushed all-in. The opponent called with 7�s, and Oz flipped over pocket aces. Despite being a 4.5-1 favorite, Oz became the first player ever in the four years of the WPT to be eliminated the first hand of the final table. It was just sickening. I mean I literally felt sick to my stomach after that happened. Oz is so talented, and I wanted to see him destroy his first WPT. I guess it�s a nice consolation knowing that he�s talented enough that everyone can count on seeing plenty of more big finishes from him in the future.
I played a little more $50/$100 that afternoon, but it wasn�t long before Ozzy stacked me when I made a terrible. I joked that he only had about $1.1 million to go before making up for not winning the WPT. I didn�t have much cash left on me after that, so I called it quits for the trip.
That night I played some random games with Thorladen, Empire2000 (aka Roman aka Obender), and SaveMySkin (Chris Fargis). First we played Chinese poker, but that got boring real fast. We then switched to spades. Thorladen is a champion bridge player, so he certainly had an edge on us, although he was teamed with Roman who was the weakest player of the four of us. Chris really impressed me, and the two of us ended up winning.
After that, Roman taught us how to play Trumps, and it was certainly a very interesting game. Before I knew it, it was 5am again, so I decided to get some sleep before my flight early in the morning.
It seemed like the plane was finished boarding, and there was no one next to me, so I stretched out and fell asleep taking up both seats. I was woken up by Mike Matusow who didn�t hear them say the flight was boarding and almost missed the flight. He sat next to me on the plane and we had some interesting sleep-deprived chats. I�m sure most of my readers want to know what I think of Mike, so here it goes.
Mike is typical of a tournament player you see on TV. Most of these guys are great at what they do, but they are specialists. Mike for example is a great tournament player whose specialty is reading weaker less experienced players. He has a huge edge over those players, but this doesn�t translate to as big of an edge in high stakes cash games or online play. One thing he told me on the plane was that he didn�t think online poker was real poker, but I really think he would improve tremendously if he spent some time learning how to play the cards rather than learning how to play the players. It�s interesting how so many live pros have tremendous skills in some areas, but don�t have a good handle on the fundamentals. It also became obvious to me that Mike wasn�t the most disciplined player. He has a lot of degenerate / compulsive tendencies about him, and I doubt he�s ever managed a bankroll properly.
Before it sounds like I�m criticizing Mike, I should clarify. I love the guy a lot and really admire what he does. He�s the best player in the world when it comes to joking around and getting action from a table, and he�s my favorite TV personality for this reason. While he is certainly a very good player, I don�t think he will ever have the discipline that it takes to become one of the best players in the game. His reads were great, and I hope to make reads half that good when I get more experienced in live poker, but he really needs to work on his cash game skills if he wants to become one of the best. I also want to clarify that I currently suck at cash games, so in no way shape or form am I saying that I�m better than him. Since he is commonly put on TV with some of the best players in the world, those are the players that I�m comparing him to.
So anyway, now I�m back home in LA for the first time in three weeks, and I have to say it�s great to be home. I don�t know why I spend so much time away from home when I love it here so much. Hopefully I�ll be able to spend a few months here before my next trip, but I don�t think that will be the case.
Overall, the Bahamas was fun, although not very profitable. I lost about $30,000 in the cash games, but considering the high stakes I was playing, it�s really not that much. I�m very happy that Oz made the final table, although a bit sick on how he went out. It�s a shame that since he lost the first hand, he won�t have more TV time, but it�s only a matter of time before Oz becomes a household name. The kid is just scary talented.
� Thanks for reading
� Justin Bonomo
