World
Series of Poker T+6,7
Last
night I went to sleep at 9pm, woke up
at 10am, I guess my party animal days
are numbered. T+6 is a distant memory,
so I'll talk about today, T+7. Today was
the final table of the 7 Stud Hi-Lo, normally
this would be enough to put me to sleep
for another 13 hours, but our very own
rgper Andrew "I don't have a nickname"
Prock was playing, plus JP Massar was
here too, so JP and I sat and watched
as Andrew played an awesome game to get
heads up with Eskimo Clark. With even
chips they made a save and played on for
a little money and the bracelet. Unfortunately
after a while a lot went wrong for Andrew,
it looked like he was on draws that never
materialized so gave up some big hands
on late streets. The key hand that really
did him in was when Eskimo needed a 2
on his last card for a wheel scoop, and
he got the miracle 2. But all that aside,
what a fantastic achievement for Andrew.
Earlier in the day I got to meet him when
he, JP and I walked over to the Gambler's
General Store, about a 10 minute walk
from the Plaza. Andrew's a sort of Huck
Seed type, young and very bright, and
a major competitor in the dry wit department,
I think we'll be seeing a lot more from
him. Well done Andrew.
Today
was also the start of the Match Play tournament,
this is a series of heads up matches ending
with a bracelet and a first prize of 34K.
These were extremely popular with big
crowds sitting almost in the laps of these
superstars. I got to see a couple of these,
one was Daniel vs. Scotty, the longest
match of the day with more beer consumed
than even the Mike Laing matches. Unfortunately
I missed the end where Daniel won, but
he was ahead the whole game and had Scotty
down to the felt a couple of times, but
Scotty never gave up and had some very
nice comebacks. It was like watching a
verbal chess match, they both were joking
around the whole time, but I think under
the surface they were also trying to get
a read on how the other was playing. A
fascinating match.
Tonight
at 2am the power is supposed to have gone
off for a couple of hours (I don't think
it did, the clue being that I'm still
typing away) so I had to power down the
clock PCs tonight, I'm anticipating frantic
phone calls waking me up before noon.
Tomorrow is the final table of the Omaha
High, it should be a good one, a whole
bunch of action players are there, check
out these big names: Miami John, Phil
Hellmuth, Randy Holland, Barry Shulman.
But
for sheer entertainment they had some
major competition from Mike Laing. Mike
first polished off TJ in 4 hands, he raised
2 of the first 3 hands, mucked one, showed
a bluff on one, then called a small raise
from TJ. Mike had Q9s, flop was Qxx, TJ
moved all in and Mike figured if TJ had
AQ, KK or AA he wouldn't have done that,
so he called and the Q held up against
a TJ bluff. Then he played Micky Appleman.
This one was unbelievable, Mike talked,
and talked, and talked some more, driving
Micky nuts. I'd love to see Mike play
Amarillo, they wouldn't even need cards,
they could just talk each other to death.
Anyway, Mike raised almost every hand,
and mucked maybe one hand, and Micky just
waited and waited for a good hand, getting
chipped away. On the rare occasions Micky
raised, Mike reraised and Micky mucked,
Mike even showed several total bluffs,
and hands like 63o that he'd raised with
pre-flop, but still Micky wouldn't take
him on. It will be interesting to see
Mike play a more aggressive player (he
is up against the winner of the Diego
vs. Humberto match who then plays Barry
Shulman).
On
the clock front, Binion's finally found
a second PC so I no longer need to leave
my laptop PC downstairs, that was a major
hassle as I needed it for other stuff.
I've been very happy with the exposure
the clock has received, it will be appearing
at several other tournaments over the
next few months.
Numbers
today were up over last year. I found
out from a friend who knows a dealer that
dealers are getting minimum wage so are
counting on tips. He said that tips were
very bad yesterday but much better today,
so it looks like at least some people
are basing their tips on the 6% issue.
As we get to the more expensive events
we'll have to see if it becomes more of
an issue, but it doesn't seem to be affecting
the number of players much.
Tomorrow
(Saturday) is the HORSE, after that is
the 2K pot limit holdem, I'm going to
start playing satellites because I really
want to play the pot limit, that's been
my best game this year, it's an English
gene thing.
Daniel
already mentioned it in his post, but
it's worth repeating. While Matt was announcing
the heads up matches, he pulled out Mel
Weiner's name and pronounced it 'whiner'
(if I had the choice of being called 'whiner'
or 'weener', I'd choose 'Smith'). He then
pulled out Phil Hellmuth's name and announced
that someone in the crowd had declared
the match "whiner vs. whiner". Phil took
it very well, it got a huge laugh.
Paul
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