WSOP 2006 - TP's Updates...

[Talking Poker]

Damn, RR... You go to bed WAY to early! I need a new assistant! You should have Text Messaged me, MB, as RR had apparently already checked out for the night.

This thread is kind of a mess, eh? We should have made a new one for the live updates (in Railbird) and saved this one for more of a general Vegas recaps type of thread. Oh well.

First, let me answer a few questions that I saw here:

Yes, we started with 1500 chips, and not 1000.

Green chips are always 25. Always. I had so many in front of me, they kepy coming by and buing stacks (20) off of me n exchange for a purple (pinkish in this particular tourney) 500 chip. I sold 7 stacks and at the time of that message, had 6 left (plus plenty of other chips).

Let's see, what else were you guys speculating about? Yes, this is a bacelet event, of cousre. It's the WSOP - they all are. It's the event I inished 6th in last year. To make more money, I'd need to finish 4th this year. Go figure. 1st place money moved from 220k to 230k thought and they are paying 99 spots, not 90 like last year.

There are monitors teling you the average chip stack (it just divides starting chips by the number of players left), but there's no way to say who the chip leader is. I am CERTAIN I was the leader for a good while though early on. I had to be.

Ok, time for a new post for the good stuff.

[Talking Poker]

OK, let's get right to it first: For the second straight year, I've made Day 2 of this event. We are well into the money, with only 40 players left. I'm guaranteed $4000ish, I think. At spot 36, it bumps up another $1000.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I have less chips right now than I had an hour and a half into the event. I have a mere 9200 chips going into tomorrow, with the blinds being 800/1600 with a 200 (300?) ante. Yikes. The good news is I'll be on the button to start.

As for the tourney itself, I wouldn't even know where to start (and I forgot to take a notebook today!), so I'll just be general and random here for a minute:

I've been playing pretty great all day. I have yet to suck out on anyone (of course), but my best hands have held up a LOT - that's my definition of "lucky." I've lost three huge pots when the money went in and I was either on a big semi-bluff or had a monster draw (and correct pot odds to call) for each of them.

I showed up 5 minutes late, and had about tripled up with 15 minutes of siting down (via multiple small and medium pots). The first hour and a half of this tourney was not only the biggest rush I've ever been on in my life, but most of the players said it was the biggest rush they had ever seen. I was being dealt monsters, I was getting action, and people kept going all in on me when I was holding the nuts. I've never seen anything like it.

On the second or third hand I was dealt, I flopped quads with 99. I checked the flop, and there was a bet and a raise behind me - LOL. I called, which ended the action (a flush card hit the turn), of course, but still. Then my QQ overpair held up. Then I flopped a set of Ts and busted KK. Then my AK busted QQ (this was about as "bad" as I got my money in the whole time). then my AA busted KK all in preflop - and he had a healthy stack. Etc, etc.

It was SICK. At one point, Mike (he finished 17th in the Main Event last year - you would recognize him - nice guy) told me he'd buy me breakfast if I'd leave. He later changed his offer to breakfast and a hooker, and then changed it again to "you name it." hahaha....

Steve Danneman was moved to my table after one of the breaks. He's friends with Mike, and I chatted with him for a minute - I told him I think he's "The nicest guy in poker!" - but ONLY for a minute, because I busted him on the first hand he played. It's funny, when he noticed my stack, he said, "Oh, so you're the guy he (Mike) was telling me about on the break." heh. When he left, Mike said he had warned him.

Let's see... what else? I played with a number of pros today - not really any other big names (there were quite a few in the field though), but lots of guys who are pro players. I really enjoyed most of the people I played with - met some great guys: Tracy, Chris, Angel, Mike, etc... Definitely an enjoyable table. It's funny - I started in the 11 seat, which became the 10 seat when I busted the first guy and eventually became the 9 seat when we started playing short handed. My ass has been in the same exact seat all day, and I've seen a LOT of people rotate through the rest of the table... and I mean a LOT.

I could go into specific hands, but I won't just yet. Not winning any of those big pots I mentioned has kept me from having a monster stack (I think the highest I ever got was maybe 28k or so), but I can't really complain after the start I had. And like I said, I've been playing well... My 9200 chips in nothing - I may only last a hand or two tomorrow, but I'm still happy with my performance, and you never know. If I double up once, I'm back in it, and if I double up twice, I'm in good shape. We start play again tomorrow at 2 PM local time.

Oh, let me tell you about one SICK hand that happened with about 5 minutes left to play. This good player (top internet guy - I forget his name) with a MONSTER chip stack raised to 5100 and the dude to my right (the second biggest stack) reraised 5200 more. The first guy immediately pushed and the second guy instacalled and flipped over AA. The pusher had.... 89s, and didn't get there. The pot ended up being about 120k!!!! Ooops, bad read. How sick is that though??? The 89 guy didn't have all that many chips left and pushed in on the last two hands of the night, winning the blinds (my blinds) and antes both times.... That's my plan for tomorrow. It could be a very quick day for me.

Fabrice Soulier (something like that) is also sitting 2 seats to my left. He was one seat to me left in Aruba for quite a few hours, and he final tabled that WPT event earlier this year. He's a good player.... and has his own film crew making a documentary or something about him.

Anyway, that's it. I'm guaranteed at least 40th place money. I know 36th is another $1000, but I'm not playing for that. I'm going to try to double up and make a run at the Final Table.

GL me!

Oh, two more things....

Zybomb update: After getting sucked out on for a $2200ish pot (KK vs QQ vs XX all in on the flop - Queen on the river), Zy ended up dead even in cash games for the day. He's a really good player.

Also, I met BadBlood today! We only chatted for a minute (I was playing), but it's always good to put a face to a name. Hopefully we can get together again later this week...

[Robbie Robb]

Great report thus far!

I should be good for reporting today until around midnight my time (9pm Vegas time). If anyone wants to step up after that, let me know. I can reroute msgs from Mark to your email!

[omahilo]

nice report TP...

too bad you couldnt of hit aleast one of those monsterous draws, you would be talking about being right in the thick of it to make the final table.

also nice job busting Steve Danneman lol.

[MathBabe]

Well, I don't actually know how, or know your number. :-) But I'm sure I could receive instruction.

Unfortunately we're cottaging this weekend. If no one else offers, though, Robbie, I'll see if MD's Blackberry could be used for posting.

[pokergoof]

MB and I should be able to post from the road by Blackberry, assuming this post turns out OK.

[Tony Cheval]

I don't have any IM type thingums, but my email seems to be pretty fast, and I'm on the computer most of the day lately if you want to try sending me stuff.

[melioris]

Good luck TP!

Any chance a west coaster can step up and post updates when TP makes it late into the night tonight?

[Robbie Robb]

I've got tentative arrangements with MB to carry on the posting but I think they're going to be on eastern time as well. If anyone west coast (or an insomniac east coaster) plans on being around tonight after midnight EDT, shoot me a PM with an email address and I'll forward over the TP messages to you to post on here!

[Robbie Robb]

Ah, good to see cardplayer finally got its collective head out of its ass the sand and FINALLY has chip counts for event 40. Of course, it's just the end of day counts and I fully expect these NOT to be updated now that day 3 is kicking off today.

Hopefully pokerpages continues to report on this event.

[Penguinfan]

According to Cardplayer he is the short stack, is that right? If so then there is no where to go but up.

Good Luck TP, you own this event!

[Robbie Robb]

that seems to agree with the pokerpages report (except CP spelled his name right).

[Penguinfan]

Playing day two today/now right?

[Tony Cheval]

He said 2pm Vegas time.

[Talking Poker]

I highly doubt we'll need any live updating after midnight tonight. I start playing at 5 PM ET and may very well be done by 5:10 or so. Even if I double up once or twice and go deep, the whole tourney will probably be over by midnight...

[BrianSwa]

think more positive/.

[Talking Poker]

Other than the misspelling of my last name, this looks right to me:


Interesting how 6th paid $44,180 last year and - with a bigger field - only pays $35,035 this year.

Two double ups or even a few BLIND STEALS and I'm right back in this. I have low expectations and high hopes.

Hey, just found a picture of me from last year that I never saw:

[Talking Poker]

Well, it will be. With increasing blinds, these things simply can't last forever.

[Penguinfan]

Call Nolan Dalla and tell him to get ESPN over there and start covering this, tell him I said so.

[Reel Deal]

Go get 'em P'rollo!!!

[MathBabe]

Hey, this is entertaining stuff, so if reporting needs to be done past midnight EST I'm happy to stay up. Rye, campfire, updates, no problem! Of course Murphy's Law says that now that we've spent time working it all out, we won't need it.

I actually emailed Justin West at PokerPages yesterday to say "if you see this guy, could you report on him?". He emailed me back and said "you're not the first person to request an update on the guy!" He looked yesterday and didn't see Mark. He seems like a nice guy in email and if he's not off covering the Main Event, I wouldn't be surprised if we see something from today. I figured if nothing else, it would put the TalkingPoker.com name in his mind and the forum might get mentioned some other time.

[melioris]

Yeah, I emailed him the same thing last night and he promply replied with a very nice email back saying he would look for our boy TP.

[Talking Poker]

I'm easy to find, with the giant "Talking Poker" on my chest.

[Robbie Robb]

I emailed him this morning and told him to say Hi to Mark if he saw him! Too funny.

[BrianSwa]

hey you should play this event every year Mark, its like your event I think if not this time eventully your winning this one.