Picking Up The Scraps

In poker and gossip both, I am reduced to foraging under the table for bits of skin and rind that even the dogs turn their noses up at. Personally, I've got nothing. Carlos Mortensen is very thin, Joe Hachem is very smug and Maria Ho is very hot. That's about it. In the interest of trying to entertain myself and anyone else anyway, I can cast around the Internet if that helps ...

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Top source at the moment is this thread on 2+2. By far the highlight is this classic degenerasian story :

"Tuan Le made a bet with a buddy of his (a high limit Commerce player) that he, Tuan, could go for some period of time without playing craps. If his buddy caught Tuan playing craps, Tuan would owe $3K. If Tuan stayed off the craps table (or didn't get caught ldo), he would receive $1K. I don't know if this bet was for the duration of the WSOP or for some other Vegas trip, but there was a bet.Anyway, Tuan gets caught playing craps and owes $3K. They do double-or-nothing and he now owes $9K. They do it yet again and now Tuan owes $27K to his friend.

How can he make $27K really fast? By playing more high-stakes craps, of course!

He ends up dropping $630K."

That's like an urban myth that probably isn't true but is so awesome you really hope it is.

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Another snippet is this bling vs bling confrontation between David Williams and our very own Devilfish :

"DF immediately started berating Williams on his play of the hand to which DW barked right back at him. This only enraged DF even more and the verbal assult continued...

DF...I don't need some punk kid telling me how to play
DW...well i don't need some OLD man telling ME how to play
DF...u better watch your Fkn mouth or I might knock your teeth out
DW....DO IT THEN!! and you won't be playing WSOP ever again
DF....keep talking big mouth and you'll see what happens
DW...yea well enjoy your time in our American JAIL (if u punch me)
DF...I don't give a fk about jail, i've already been there"

Someone quoted the line on a fight of Williams -190, which I think means that Devilfish would be like 7/4 against. I'm sure I wouldn't be the only one lumping on the Fish at that price. Poster was probably fooled by the fact that Devilfish looks like he just stopped off from a Wurzels Reunion Tour. I'd certainly run a mile rather than rumble with the Devilfish (which I might need to if he finds out about that Wurzels comment).

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Sometimes you really need to turn to the exuberance of youth. Especially today, after I witnessed a nit-off of gargantuan proportions between Tahoe Andrew and Vince Burgio. If there ever was a Battle Of The Draks, that would have to be top of the bill. And so, look no further than Tony Phillips' blog on Pokerverdict. Now, I went out for dinner with the Hitsquad guys after James Akenhead's result, and Tony's fine in person, no problem. I do think he gets a bit carried away in his blog, especially when he's "showing them what Tony Phillips is all about", as follows :

"I've had a lot of great poker minds telling me to ‘forget it’ [busting out 10th in the $1500 PLO] and ‘move on’, and ‘get a bracelet,’ ‘you’re playing great’ and ‘you’re a truly great poker player’. They are 100% right".

Confidence indeed, although he kind of spoils it by saying a bit later : "I'm not moaning, or telling you how great I am". Sorry mate .. actually you just did :-)

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But is there anything wrong with being proud of your achievements ? Well, I'm here to win a bracelet, I suppose, and if I did then I would wear it sometimes. After all, what would be the point of having it if you didn't. I just don't think I would go as far as Alan Smurfit and carefully place it in front of my chips for all the table to see.

A year later.

In a single table satellite.

Or maybe that's just me. Oh well. I might be a lost cause this year, unless lightning can strike twice in the final event get-out stakes, but at least, even in the Year Of The Pro, Hellmuth is doing his bollocks. And on that happy note, goodnight for now.

On The Treatment Table

This morning I woke up with someone jagging a knife in my neck every five seconds, or at least that's what it felt like, so I took my life (or at least my wallet) in my hands by calling a local doctor. To be fair, he was very good, and I feel a lot better. It was kind of funny though when he gave me a stern lecture about acupunture and Chinese medicine : "You don't know what's in that stuff. And they're only out for profit". Then he injected me with something I've never heard of and charged me $400.

Seriously though, I do understand why it's so expensive. The litigation-happy culture in the US has pushed medical bills through the roof and the general attitude seems to be "if you don't like it, go to law school", as in this poker instance related by Terrence Chan. Having found the guy in the Yellow Pages, I checked afterwards and found that the book contained 87 pages of physicians and 213 pages of attorneys.

Anyway he also gave me some cortisone tablets. Just like the footballers ! With that I should be fighting fit and ready to go tomorrow. I have decided to spend as much time as possible playing WSOP events and screw everything else. I didn't come out here to grind. For example, there's a comp at the Venetian today, but if I went deep I'd be knackered by the end of the day ; if I made the final I wouldn't be able to play the shootout tomorrow ; and all for the possibility of $30-40K which isn't going to change anything. I'm here to spin it up and try to win $300-400K which would enable me to make some things happen that I'd like, not to grind and get my money back. I grind 11 months a year as it is. So I'll be on a very aggressive WSOP schedule this week, especially now I feel much better physically. Let us gogogogogo.

Wzzzzzzop

Well, I'm doing my bollocks happily enough, but I have to report a complete lack of shenanigans in the first week. The organisation is generally an improvement on last year and my top "playing with the pros" story is that I was on the same table as Jean-Robert Bellande in the limit comp, and he was a bit moany. Hold the front page. Socially I had a good meal in the Stratosphere revolving restaurant courtesy of Team Channing, nice to meet all the Hit Squad boys and well done again to James A.

I'm taking it easy this weekend (didn't play the $2500 today) before having another tilt Monday ($1500 shootout), Tuesday ($2K limit) and/or Wednesday ($3K HORSE). Maybe if I'm lucky I'll be on a table with Annie Duke, as in the $10K stud today (from Pokernews) :

"Annie Duke has just arrived at todays event. She arrives complete with a set of ultimate bet hats for the people at her table. It doesn't appear anyone has accepted her generosity. "

You have to hope that at least one person will give her the appropriate response as to what she can do with her ultimate bet hats. Even without the UB implications, how many people in a $10K tournament with no satellite qualifiers are going to say "Oh great, a $4.99 hat, I'll wear that all month, cheers". If that's all the damage control UB can afford they must have paid Bax and Rizen a hell of a price.

Update : Ooh, wait, I got one. Also from the Stud coverage on Pokernews :

"In seven-card stud, it is the job of the dealer to call out potential hands and also whenever pairs hit the board. All around the room several players are getting upset when the dealer is calling out "possible straight," "possible flush," or "pair of kings." "

I don't know what's better. The implication that players in a $10K tournament need to be told what the best possible hand is from the board, or that fact that this might actually be true in some cases. I can imagine doing that dealing the old £20 stud comps in Luton. "And a possible flush ..", "I know that, what are you telling me for, you fucking idiot".

Pain In The Neck

Surprisingly, the title does not apply to anything Harrahs-related, but the fact that I have cricked my neck something terrible. Who knows whether it was the plane, carting luggage about or sleeping in a strange bed but anyway it's killing me. It probably wasn't a good idea to let one of the poker massage women loose on it either. If I ever do that again I'm going to say "be gentle with me" first, like a prom night girl in a romantic novel.

So that's my excuse for not playing the Omaha 8 later today, albeit that one was fairly close to the bottom of the list anyway. I'll keep building up with the single tables and limit cash for a couple of days till the 6-handed on Thursday. A quick session of $20-40 limit hit the spot yesterday when the single tables were all full, I might have to log a few more hours in that game, which played like $3-6 online for the most part, if that.

Overall there have been a few noticeable improvements so far. The single tables have their own room and a slightly better system of registering. On the downside, no $10 food voucher for playing the $500s, oh well nothing lasts forever :-). The nightmare of trying to register for a tournament in the first week appears to be a thing of the past as well. I like the way the $10K (and to a lesser extent $5K) tournaments are spread out, hopefully these will keep a lot of the better players out of the way while I crack on in the $1500-$3Ks. The poker kitchen has some better food, and more importantly there's now a Japanese restaurant right outside the elevators, which is a great result, Japanese being about the only relatively healthy food you can get in Vegas. If you know the Rio though, it's right underneath where that boat is winched around in the free show, so if one of those chicks misses her throw, I could easily see a bead necklace landing in my scalding hot soup. Risk and reward.

Finally on the subject of the ME final being delayed to November, in discussions so far, the most common complaint people have is that when you make the final, you're in form. But 4 months later you probably won't be. Further proof of two things : a) you can fuck with poker players as much as you like and most of them won't even realise, never mind do anything about it, and b) I'm in the right place to make some money for the next month :-)

Update : As it happens, the single tables have been stopped this afternoon because they don't have enough space for everything. This will be the case on and off till the 14th when another room is freed up. So I might actually start tomorrow in the $2K, rather than kick my heels all day again. I came to playyyy. Also neck feels better after a trip to Chinatown for some acupuncture :-)