FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#250B – London Journal #16B – Million Dollar Cash Game #16 – Ict Bin Ein Gambler

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

Cards in the air at 12:34 PM local time. My chip counts from the previous post were correct. None of the short stacks have rebought (yet). Like yesterday, in the early hands, it looks like a lot of guys are going to play a lot of hands.

Phil Ivey immediately started chatting up the props. Brian Townsend, who I heard went 36 hours without sleep going into yesterday’s game THEN went out drinking with a buddy he hadn’t seen in years, claims to have gotten a good night’s sleep but “Phil’s been trying to tempt me with the props.”

It’s hard to find something Howard Lederer won’t give or take action on, but he is resisting Ivey. He proposes that he’ll play props with Phil … if Phil pays him $10,000 per hour. Phil doesn’t say yes but he says, “Write down your ten best props.”

“TEN?” Howard exclaims. “I’ll sleep every other prop with ten. I’m the only prop player who ever slept six props in a row.”

“That’s my plan.”

After the first hand, Phil asks for a tissue and blows his nose. He asks the lovely Maria, who is taking care of us at the bar (which is actually a dressed up production facility) to leave a bunch of tissues behind. Full Tilt has a big series of tournaments coming up in Germany and Phil’s made it clear he’s not loving the idea of going. (I’m speculating but I heard he’s having a great summer on the golf course. If so, then doing right by Full Tilt here is costing him big, which is a reasonable thing for any businessman to be concerned about.) He and Uncle Tilty were mixing it up off-camera in the bar area yesterday – I’ll post an amusing bit later if I get a chance, or after I get back to the U.S. if I don’t – and it’s clearly going to continue today.

Uncle Tilty: “You’re not getting sick on me, are you Phil?”

Phil: “Yeah, I’m feeling kind of sick. I don’t know if I can make Germany.”

At this point, he can’t help breaking into that grin – you know the one if you’ve seen Phil Ivey much, the one that lights up a room and creates an incredible contrast to his often stern, austere, taciturn appearance at the table.

Phil: “Don’t worry. I always wanted to go to Germany.”

By way way, in the big hand at the end of the day yesterday, the one that cost Chris over $70,000, he had pocket nines. (I wrote about it in the last post of the day.) Chris raised with 9-9 and Phil flat-called with A-A. The board was 3d-6d-5s-5d-Qs. Phil took over the betting and Chris called $50,000 on the end. Ferguson’s problems were two-fold: first, it was a perfect illustration of the bad position Chris was in all day, with Ivey, Antonius, and Lindgren/Townsend to his left; second, because Phil Ivey is capable of playing anything and making that kind of bet with absolutely nothing, he was a little stuck calling.

It also illustrates, though I didn’t talk with Chris about the hand, the problem when you start putting an opponent on a hand. That board ended up so threatening: any five, a flush, a possible straight (but that’s very unlikely), a low pair for a set, a queen. In the end, ANYTHING but a naked bluff beats Chris’s two nines (and Ivey is capable of such a bluff, especially because Chris showed opening strength but stopped betting). But you start thinking an opponent has one kind of hand because he’s playing a certain way and then another kind of hand becomes possible. You can discount that, though, because it doesn’t fit with the way the hand has played. In fact, the more dangerous the board becomes, the more hands you find yourself ELIMINATING because the opponent’s aggressiveness earlier in the hand doesn’t fit. By the end, all you can beat is a bluff but you end up discounting just about all the threats.

(If this sounds vague, it’s because I’m still steaming over how I blew it in the Main Event of the World Series and it was on exactly this type of play. I had J-J against 8-8 and the flop was 2-3-8. As my opponent kept betting and I kept calling, I put him on big cards. When an ace hit on the river, I could have gotten away, but by then I figured he wouldn’t have kept betting without a pair and was bluffing the ace. I don’t think Chris “overthought” this, but I know I did in the Main Event and it’s a danger, where the more dangerous the board becomes, the easier it is to convince yourself your opponent is bluffing.)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Be Sociable, Share!