CARDRUNNERS

This past Thursday I got the opportunity to play in a charity poker tournament at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan. When I was younger, I used to love to go the bar in the hotel, Whiskey Blue, because it had a great atmosphere, with lots of little cushioned chairs and places to talk. Also, the waitresses were the most beautiful waitresses I have ever seen at any bar I've ever been to. But I digress. The tournament, which benefited the Hillel House organization. The tournament was a 1000 buy in tournament with rebuys (which were strongly encouraged).

The non-cash prizes for the tournament were pretty great. First was a wsop main event seat, but 2nd was 4 hours in a private plane. I would have loved to win that. There were also other prizes like lunch with famous businessmen, box seats to the Yankees, etc.

I mingled for a while, and got some food. I was eating with a novice player, and a friend of mine and we were trying to give him advice. My friend told the novice player to play aggressively. I told him to only play two pair or better and bet it to the house. I told him that two pair will most likely win in a showdown. He seemed to understand. The novice player and I sit at the same table and 3 hands into the tournament he is all in. The hand was hilarious. You start with 10k in chips.

He raised it up and another player called. It was pretty clear that a lot of the players at the tournament were novices. The flop comes Kh10h6x. He checks, the other player bets, he checkraises. Already, the line is pretty goofy. The guy reraises to 2300 (basically a min reraise). He shoves in for 10k. The guy thinks for a long while, and decides to call.

He has the 22.
Other guy has AhJh and spikes a royal on the turn. Apparently the other player had only played a few times in his life and the other time he played he made quad kings. I told the guy he better play in the world series.

I tried one bluff where the board came K6789. He had check called my flop bet when the board was K76. I bet the river, trying to push him off a king, and he called and said: I have the king. He had K10 for the straight, but he wasn't playing that, he was going for the king, lol.

One of the chairs of the charity event was David Einhorn, who was recognized in last year's World Series for two things. The first was his deep finish, combined with his donation of all of his approximately 700k in winnings to the Michael J. Fox Parkinson's charity. He is a very successful fund manager, but it's amazing that he would have pledged his entire World Series winnings even if he had won the 12 million first prize. Must be nice to not have 12 milly matter to you. The second thing, and this was cooler to me, was his sweatshirt. He had a blue sweatshirt that his wife and kids had given him for father's day. On the sweatshirt were hand prints in different color paint (yellow, red, green, etc.), which were the hand prints of his family. They were a good luck present so that their Dad got "good hands" during the tournament. I thought it was a really cool present, and he was actually wearing the sweatshirt on Thursday, which was neat. He definitely had a presence about him, and it's funny you can just tell some people are successful or will be just by their presence. I think if you saw him walking down the street you'd realize he was doing well.

Another amazing thing was that the entire staff of the tournament was former employees of the old Playstation, one of the first poker clubs I went to. I'm not sure if they recognized me or not, but it was pretty wild to walk in and see the former manager of Playstation in a tux.

After I busted out of the tournament I went to the club to pick up some cash, and unfortunately I got paid a bunch of it in 20s. 15k in 20s is a lot of damn bills, but luckily I'm headed to Vegas tomorrow so it won't be a problem to change those right up to 100s.

I'm planning on playing a tournament, hanging out with Taylor, Andrew, and some other friends, playing some cash games, and enjoying the Vegas restaurants and nightlife. I really want to see Love, too, we'll see if I can drag anyone to that.

Wish me luck. This month has gone really great so far poker-wise, hopefully it can continue.

David

I had quite a swear today, as Phil Ivey had lots of chips when there were 27 left in the reno wpt. If he took 4th, we would be tied and if he took higher, I would be 2nd. Luckily, and I mean luckily, he took 10th. David Pham is still in the tournament, which is quite impressive, as he has final tabled something like 50% of the big buyin tournaments he has played this year. He has a 2nd in a wpt so far, so if he wins, all he will need is a 7th to take me over. Pretty much though, unless something silly happens, Phil Ivey and David Pham will be the only people I have to worry about overpassing me unless someone who has won a wpt this season wins either foxwoods or bellagio. I am skipping foxwoods mainly because I was missing my girlfriend and it costs around $3000 to play the tournament, after room and flights. So...I have to sweat the last 2 wpts of the season just enough to keep me clicking refresh over and over.

Also, Lee Markholt and Brian Devonshire are still left in the tournament. I have been saying it for a while but I think Lee is one of the best nlhe players in the world. He simply never makes a mistake and isnt a huge spewtard preflop like a lot of live pros, which makes him really good. He has cashed in a ton of wpts but always gets screwed when he gets deep. Brian is a young guy that seems to play well every time I play with him, so hopefully he does well.

I also decided to move to 20 tabling 1/2 nl. I played 7000 hands today, running at 4ptbb/100, so thats nice. I did get disconnected twice today due to internet messing up, so that prob cost me a little as well. Well, thats about it. I hope to put in a decent amount of hands tomorrow and try to make some monies.

Before the tournament started I saw Patrick Antonous and we made a side bet that I pay 20% of his winnings and he would pay 20% of mine. So if he wins the tournament I am going to owe him 400K. My father was watching the tournament and saw him down to 8K in chips so its unlikely I will have to pay.

I was surprised that spectators were allowed to rail the games as it not that way in the USA. My dad was able to stand right over my shoulder and watch me play.
He is really funny about poker "superstars" he would tell me Joe Hachem has just been knocked out and how amazing it was that I could outlast him. The only poker he sees is on TV so he really idolizes the tournament players.

I played well today which I think was mainly due to my father being there. He has never seen me play poker before. Usually in tournaments I am unfocused and don't mind losing as I can earn more in cash games. Unfortunately I couldn't make anything happen in the EPT finals. I did meet luckexpress a prima player who I have played some with. He was on my right and we played a very big pot early. He min raised from the small blind and I reraised with QQ in the big blind to 450 at 25/50 blinds. He called and I bet 750 on a 785 rainbow flop. He checked raised me to 1600. I thought and called. The turn was a 5 and he checked. I thought I night be being trapped but I decided to play the hand all in since there were many draws he could have. I bet 2050 and he check raised all in for 9200 more. I called and he showed A8o but unfortunately the river was an 8. That dropped me down from about ~22K to ~8K. I worked my way up from there and build my stack up to 13K. Then UTG+1 raised to 600 at 75/150 blinds the button who I had seen repop an early position raise earlier with 76s reraised to 2.2K and I shoved my queens. He thought for a few minutes and called with AKs. Turn was an A and I was out of the tournament.