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Played the EPT Baden satellite today with the W$ I cashed in from not playing the Dublin satellite last weekend. Very tough game. I raised once and folded to a reraise and after that they were all over me – two players in particular, both Scandinavian if you think that’s relevant…. Couldn’t get any respect and couldn’t pick up any pots uncontested, and never saw a hand to do any real damage.
Whittled away I end up losing a race in the most frustrating way. Can you believe the board didn’t pair?
Preflop: Hero is BB with Js, Jd.
6 folds, SB raises to t300, Hero raises to t1445 and is all-in, SB calls t1145.
Flop: (t2890) Jc, Kc, Ts (2 players)
Turn: (t2890) 5s (2 players)
River: (t2890) Ac (2 players)
Hero has Js Jd (three of a kind, jacks).
SB has As Qs (straight, ace high).
So I’m not going to Switzerland and I’m also not going to Vegas. 4th in tonights Poker Dome qualifier on Mansion. Which was much softer by the way, but you’d expect that for $22 instead of $475. I had aces cracked early on, fought my way back, ran into quads with a full house, managed to not go broke and almost recovered before finally going out 4th with 2 getting seats. A good performance considering the beats, but not enough to put me on the road to anywhere.
I have never been to Barcelona. I’m told it’s very pretty, and the dogs do have noses. Quite how much of the city I’d actually get to see is debateable, but I have been trying two separate routes to get there. If either is successful you can be sure you will hear about it!
First, jumped into an EPT qualifier on PokerStars, for $36+$3 and entry into the main satellite for every $475 up for grabs this felt similar to the $36 qualifiers for the Sunday Million, but about twice as hard. I wasn’t disappointed though, staying lucky when it mattered most and soaring into the final five to win a seat.
WPT, WSOP and EPT satellites on Stars can be cashed in for W$ rather than T$, so I know I’m not going to blow this on smaller tournaments as I might do with a T$215 seat. However you can spend W$ on WCOOP events, so I might bottle out of this and put it towards the $530 No Limit event in a couple of weeks time instead. I was thinking I’d play the satellite if there were more than two seats to win, and right now there’s nearly enough for three so I probably will do that on Saturday.
The other tournament I want to get into is the Ongame Poker Classic. A few weeks ago I won a $50 ticket on PokerRoom and planned to use it to get into the Stage 2 Qualifier but it wouldn’t let me register. Their reason for this, they told me, is that you can either win a ticket to the qualifier or buy one. Which still doesn’t really explain why I can’t use a ticket for the exact value for that tournament, but I’m going to have to find another way to get through this one, as it’s fast approaching.
As my $50 ticket was about to expire – just like all money does – I decided to play a satellite for the Sunday Big Deal $300+$20. This has a guaranteed prize pool of $80,000 so you’d expect about 300-400 players – not too intimidating compared to the other sites big sunday events with 3000+ entries. Never been in it before – but I am now! This satellite also went unnaturally well and I picked up a seat by finishing in the top 2 of 18 players. This is the stuff television poker dreams are made of – I’ve parlayed $7 into $50, and now into $320. Next stop could be tens of thousands!
Oh, and I hit a royal flush too. I was so not expecting it that I didn’t manage to scramble to the print screen key in time, but here’s the hand history:
$50+$4 (real money), hand #933,398,217
Qualifier to Big Deal Multi Table Tournament, 1 Sep 2006 12:13 AM
Seat 1: Hallertauer ($5,440 in chips)
Seat 3: dosc74 ($6,420 in chips)
Seat 7: lucky_donut [QC,JC] ($4,960 in chips)
Seat 8: walkyre ($5,060 in chips)
Seat 10: bretbret ($5,120 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
bretbret posts blind ($100), Hallertauer posts blind ($200).
PRE-FLOP
dosc74 folds, lucky_donut bets $500, walkyre folds, bretbret calls $400, Hallertauer folds.
FLOP [board cards AC,10C,9H ]
bretbret checks, lucky_donut bets $600, bretbret bets $2,000, lucky_donut bets $3,860 and is all-in, bretbret calls $2,460.
TURN [board cards AC,10C,9H,4H ]
RIVER [board cards AC,10C,9H,4H,KC ]
SHOWDOWN
lucky_donut shows [ QC,JC ]
bretbret shows [ JS,AD ]
lucky_donut wins $10,120.
I had 15 outs (9 flush, 6 straight), so was a favourite against almost any hand with two cards to come. Nice as it is to see a royal flush, any king or any club would have done!
Michael Binger raises to $1,100,000 from the cutoff, Jamie Gold calls from the button and Allen Cunningham moves all in for $6,500,000 from the big blind. Binger folds an Gold makes the call. Cunningham shows 1010 and Gold turns over KJ. The board comes AK873 and Allen Cunningham has been eliminated in 4th place.
I heard this in the car just now driving home, and it made me think of England. Aww..
These are the official event photos of yours truly from Wednesday. Strangely I’m more interested in getting a copy of one of these than I was for my graduation photo… 1 2 3 4 5 6
Let’s start positive. I was responsible for sending three people to the rail in WSOP Event 37, $1500 NL Hold’em. My ace high flush crushed a ten high flush, a short-stacked AK was disappointed to find me with AA pre-flop and I made a broadway straight to crush two pair.
That wasn’t nearly enough though in a field of over 2800 players. Playing 11 handed (which wasn’t too bad really, the tables were nice and big, and pretty comfortable) there were still over 30 tables of alternates. The floor were struggling, and even made the announcement "Players can you play a bit tighter please, we are getting behind". I found this amusing, even if some thought it was inappropriate. Lighten up guys…
When my KK ran into QQ, the poker gods decided to let me go with a brutal Q on the flop. There was a raise ahead of me and I moved in pre-flop. QQ put in the third raise, putting himself all in and the original raiser got out of the way. I’d be in trouble with this hand, even with bigger stacks or without the third raise. Playing KK out of position on a Q high flop against a set of queens – I’d be losing a chunk here even if I can manage to not go broke.
There’s no shame in losing as an 80% favourite with 3-1 pot odds (when you include the blinds, antes and the first raise) – what better opportunity can you get, particularly when you don’t really have enough chips to isolate the raiser but someone else does it for you?
So generally I think I did OK, and could stand a fair chance when the cards go the right way – you need a mighty amount of luck to survive in this field. If I’d won an earlier coinflop with AJ vs KT, who was all in from the big blind for less than double my raise, and then had my KK hold up I’d have been in very good shape. I didnt try anything fancy, but I didn’t really need to, or ever have the ammunition to. The same went for the other players – whilst I didn’t notice anyone who I’d say was particularly bad, nobody really stood out as taking control of the situation or playing a consistently impressive game.
After four or five hours, the boredom was starting to get to some, for instance QTo raising and calling a reraise all-in, but I managed to stay patient. Considering this is the fastest structure in the WSOP (after they gave the $1000 event $1500 chips, which is just wrong) I just can’t comprehend how slow the main event would move….
And it’s over. I guess we were about 560th in the end.
It all went very choppy. The table broke and before I could open up the new one I’d raised to 2400 under the gun with AQ. One player calls and the flop brings 245.
We apparently bet 3200 out of position here, leaving us with 5800 but the other player has a bit less. He moves all in for 7400.
[01:44] Fake Me: committed
Well, yeah. Easy for me to criticise when I’m somehow completely detached from the hand I know. This is one of those bets where you look like a genius when he holds AK and can lay it down, but otherwise gets you into a world of trouble. It’s a check-fold, or a move all in – there’s no half measures with these stacks. I’d often push here if there’s something to represent but on this super low board, any pocket pair is going to play, so you won’t get any worse hands to call so you’re only doing yourself a favour against AK or another AQ.
[01:44] Fake Me: arse
[01:44] Fake Me: F**K
We didn’t get any help and we’re down to 1600 with the big blind coming right now. Any two will do now with 900 already in the pot in blinds and antes, and 33 looks sweet. It’s very sweet in fact when a 3 comes on the flop and we just about stay alive.
Next hand JJ vs KQ and we double up.
Next hand TT vs KK and it’s time for bed.
[01:48] Fake Me: bollocks
[01:48] Fake Me: sorry
Hey, it’s a hell of a lot better than having me blind away because I can’t make the start. At least we had a shot…
Anyway, I’d already noticed that a lot of the Full Tilt pros were playing this, and looking at the top stacks now I can still see John Juana, Erick Lindgren and Kristy Gazes vying for a seat. We finished above Phil Gordon, by the way, for what it’s worth. It does seem a bit tight though that these players – who undoubtedly are getting their Main Event entry paid by Full Tilt – are playing this satellite. One would expect the Team Full Tilt field to have a decent success rate in these satellites (it will be interesting to see how many of them make it), and certainly you would expect better than 1-in-24 to make the top 127.
So if Full Tilt are paying their entry to the satellite, isn’t this just a stealth rake? And if they’re not, why are these guys playing it at all?
The strangest thing about having someone play for you is that I’m really not sweating it that badly at all. We’re getting in bad shape, picking up just the blinds with AA and somehow I’m not relating what’s happening on screen at all to my shot at a $10k seat and ultimately $10m and all that fame and (more) fortune malarky.
Even when this happens, I just find it … well… slightly amusing.
[01:30] Fake Me: well 5 hands to push or not
[01:30] Fake Me: all in next hand
[01:31] Fake Me: ok not this time
[01:32] Fake Me X: KJ o
[01:32] Real Me: nooooooooo
He duly moves all in, from early middle position
Fortunately the big stack big blind folded, and we’re still alive.
And try as I might to stay out of it, I can’t. But whether I’d follow my own advice here I don’t know…
[01:37] Fake Me: ok this level is going to kill us
[01:37] Fake Me: looks very dodgy now mate
[01:37] Real Me: push any 2 if folded
[01:37] Fake Me: here we go
He does as I suggest
[01:38] Real Me: gl
[01:38] Real Me: what ya got?
[01:38] Fake Me: KQ
We are called by AJ, but the flop brings a Q and we survive
[01:38] Real Me: f**k yeah
[01:38] Fake Me: rockin
An average stack is within sniffing distance once more…
So Full Tilt’s fear that they’d be out of pocked on the guaranted tournament was – as expected – a load of nonsense. There were 3,050 entrants making 127 seats to be awarded! They’re making a cool $106,750 in entry fees from this tournament alone.
I also just checked at PokerStars who were having a 150 guaranteed seat satellite today – with 7,377 players they are awarding 234 seats! Blimey, that’ll go on until the wee hours and then some…. The self proclaimed largest satellite in the world ever, and it’s very hard to argue. I didn’t even realise their software could cope with such a big field – usually it’s capped at 3600 or some such number.
I got back a bit earlier than I thought I would and I’ve already seen myself rollercoaster.
[00:13] Real Me: how are we doing?
[00:14] Fake Me: 5500
[00:14] Fake Me: make that 9200
[00:14] Fake Me: AA just held up
[00:19] Fake Me: in 50th place
[00:24] Fake Me: 11595 chips
At that point we were in 37th place and I’d finally got settled, microwaved myself a chicken burger (surprisingly good, and ready in just 55 seconds) and pulled up the table on screen to watch.
Then it all went a little pear shaped. The first hand I saw with AQs turned into the nut flush draw vs two overpairs (88 and JJ on a 7-high board) and we got no love from the poker gods. I decided to stop watching for a while – clearly it’s bad luck to observe yourself from afar, with likely side effects ranging from mild itching to a variety of natural disasters.
But by the time I was brave enough to peak again we were back down to just over 5000, and the average had overtaken us. It’s now the second break, and after a steal with 66 (so I’m told) we have 5,785 with 250/500 blinds and a 50 ante. 1090 players remain and the average stack is 8394.
So I’d already qualified for tonights Full Tilt 100 WSOP Seat guaranteed satellite, but after I realised I wouldn’t actually be able to play it from the start I’ve had to make a deal with someone else to play it for me. I can’t really say who this is, as he’s apparently had to arrange to “work from home” tomorrow in case it goes on late (I figured it’d run to about 5am if all goes to plan).
The prize package is a $10,000 WSOP Main Event Seat with $2,000 for expenses paid in cash. I had tried everything to get Full Tilt to deregister me from the tournament – I’d asked if I could transfer the seat, take it’s value in satellite tokens to play other tournies on their site, even if they’d give me the $535 seat value to buy into a WSOP event for which of course I’d agree to wear their gear (which is pretty hideous) whilst I played. They gave me the runaround for almost 2 weeks, sounding like something was going to happen but eventually the Promotions Manager said no.
Their excuse: this is a guaranteed seat tournament so you must play it. They were afraid that there would not be enough entrants to cover the 100 Main Event seat prizes. Like that would ever happen. I was more pissed off that they kept me hoping for so long without a straight answer, than the fact that they wouldn’t actually bend the rules for me. I mean, how long does it take to say “rules is rules”?
Anyway, so to get my glamourous assistant to play the tourney for me, I had to give up the $2k additional prize money – not an awful deal for either of us really, as I’m already in Vegas if I get the seat and the chance to $2k cash for 6-8 hours playing at no risk isn’t bad. I’m just hoping its enough incentive for him to not actually play this like a freeroll!
The fun starts at 11pm, and I’ll be back probably sometime between midnight and 1am.
I have decided to make it my mission this week to qualify for a big event through an online satellite. Why, I’m not really sure with Vegas just round the corner (T-18!). But I’ve not had much time to play poker lately and I decided that if I was make time to play this week then I’d do it with a mission.
I’m still not going to be able to throw myself at this, with hundreds of other real world things to get done before we go away, but any poker I play will be focused on The Mission. I’m going to try to (gasp) single-table these games too, something I haven’t done for quite a while. Occasionally two quallies I want to play will overlap so I might make an exception, other than that I’ll have to see just how good my patience is!
I have identified four possible satellites that I want to get into as cheaply as possible:
OnGame Poker Classic:
Stage 1: $6+1
Stage 2: $50+$4
Stage 3: $300+20
Final: $5000+$200 on Sept 2nd played online down to 45 players
Final 45 play live in Barcelona Sept 28th-Oct 1st
Aruba Ultimate Poker Classic:
Sub-qualifiers to satellites costing $200 or $1000
Event is Sept 23rd – Oct 1st
$10,000 package includes $5,200 entry plus travel and accomodation
Camp Hellmuth:
Satellites are $109, package worth $3000
Event takes place in Vegas Aug 11-13
Camp value $2000 + $1500 expenses paid
Ultimate Bet WSOP $3k Satellite:
$30+$3 rebuys or $50+$5 freezeout.
Prize is $2000 in WSOP entries + $1000 cash.
I’d use this for a main event satellite and another preliminary event.
I’ve so far played four qualifiers, and so far managed to keep to one table at a time without getting itchy fingers!
PokerRoom $6+$1 Poker Classic Stage 1. I began at lunchtime with the 12:10 qualifier and it was short and sweet, but thanks to a masterpiece of misplanning this early in my quest I’d already put some bacon in the George Foreman grill before I realised it was about to start and would have been distracted by food shortly afterwards anyway. 8 minutes in and I was busted with QQ, moving in on the flop with my overpair vs two flush draws which both hit on the turn. I was pleased to see I was ahead but didn’t really like the move as my all-in came after I got raised and called by the other two players. The bacon factor, along with seeing that there was only one seat and one cash place in this satellite with 24 players almost certainly influenced my decision.
$11 feeder to Camp Hellmuth satellite. I survived 59 minutes before busting out in 6th place – hey at least I didn’t have to sit through the break with hardly any chips left… There were only 9 entrants in this giving us a small overlay on the seat value, but meaning that it was first place or nothing. With a minimum raise to 120 under-the-gun and one caller I reraise to 340 with 44. If the min-raiser actually has a hand and comes to life I can get away from this with 865 chips remaining. The raiser folds, but the weak caller wants to see a flop and I feel I have to move in on the flop when he checks to me as long as the board doesn’t look too scary. He instacalls with JT on a J62 rainbow board (couldn’t ask for much better without a 4!) and I’m done.
$20+$2 satellite to $109 Tournament. As UB now offer tournament dollars, even though this was not a Hellmuth satellite I would be able to use the seat value to play in the event I wanted. This seemed like good value, with one seat for every five and a half players (I have had decent success in a similar structure on PokerStars) however it was a turbo tournament with 5 minute levels. In total there were 38 players for 6 seats and $106 cash, but I went dry when it mattered and got called by a rag ace when I needed to steal some blinds. I went to the rail in 16th place.
PokerRoom $7+$1 Satellite to $50+$4. This seemed to be a bit better value than the Stage 1 qualifier, with the same value ticket prize. Finally, things go right and I land a ticket for just over 2 hours work. I have more detailled notes about this one, and depending on whether it sounds vaguely interesting when I read it back I might post some hands later. However when I went to register for the Stage 2 tournament, it wouldn’t let me use this ticket! My next mission is to find out why…
Summary:
Played: 4
Cost: $48
Won: $54
Not exactly impressive yet. About even 🙂
Continue reading Questing (Part 1)
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