Bond18 – Around the World in 90 Days: Day 50

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

I maintain my position that off days are for pussies, cowards and people who care about mental health but, unfortunately, the combination of there being no hold ‘em event at the WSOP and my own incompetence in mixed games has forced me to actually take one. I guess it’s probably a good idea anyway since I never get to see Celina and I am several days behind in my writing. I spend 13 hours at the Rio, get home around 1:30AM and need to be asleep by 2:45AM in order to get eight hours sleep, so I don’t really have time to fit in the writing.

Since I actually have some time to write today and can think about how to be creative, but have no source material, I thought it’d be fun to talk about my experiences and play with known professionals during my time at the WSOP so far.

Because I’ve been playing so many events and spending almost all my time at the Rio, I’ve actually had the chance to play with and interact with a number of new players and personalities. So here they are:

David Singer: I played with David briefly during the $3,000 No-Limit event. He is a pretty quiet guy, though he’ll be very vocal when the floor is screwing up (which they legitimately did a couple of times during that event.) He has a very strange style of play that incorporates a lot of open limping and limp calling out of position, as well as flatting quite a few raises at awkward stack sizes. On paper his strategy should result in his getting torn up, but he’s been so successful (especially recently) that there has to be a method to his madness, though I’m not quite sure what it is.

John Phan: Phan is the single greatest time waster in tournament poker history. For even the most basic of decisions, John will sit there mulling over his options, counting down his stack, restacking it, staring down his opponent, and likely masturbating under the table. I’ve been told from numerous people that his stalling is intentional and a way to keep his opponents off balance, which I consider pathetic and lame. Heads up between Phan and Schwah took six hours due to Phan’s stalling, and he got the clock called on him numerous times on Day 2 of the tournament. He actually seems like a polite and friendly guy on the table, but his time wasting is totally inappropriate. As for his playing style, I don’t know much outside I got to see him call an EP raise in the SB with a medium suited Ace at about 25 BBs effective, and he’s willing to three bet light. He certainly doesn’t seem like the type to spaz out due to all the time he takes thinking things over.

Doug Lee: Doug Lee would be a hysterical guy if he didn’t take himself seriously. I nearly had a heart attack holding in the laughter of his “TV, you see me on TV” remark at the Bellagio and, in Australia, I got to hear him tell the table he is “one of the best young and upcoming players in tournament poker.” I didn’t get to see him play much.

Tim Vance: Tim Vance is one of the most awesome people in tournament poker. If there was one person in tournament poker I’d want on my side during a bar fight, I’m picking Tim Vance. He’s constantly talking to everyone and seems pretty modest about his big win. He’ll tell you stories about how lucky he was to get there in the first place. His style of play is pretty spewy-aggro with some considerable stack sizes flaws, which sucks because when he’s at your table you don’t want him to bust and have the table go quiet.

Men “The Master” Nguyen: Men seems angry at the world about 99% of the time, and the other 1% he’s drunk and aloof. I’ve played with him in two events so far, and like many old school live players, his biggest leak is total disrespect for position. No wait, his biggest leak is being a cheat and a scum bag who has his horses chip dump to him and who hordes tournament chips in his hotel room.

David Pham: I played with David very briefly during one event. He was very quiet and ran into a set almost immediately. That’s all I got.

Neil Channing: I played with Neil very briefly during one of the low buy in NLH events. The most noticeable thing about Neil Channing is that he wears the same ensemble of long sleeved white under shirt with a bright red Poker Verdict T-shirt every single day. No really, I mean every day. I see him at the Rio all the time and it’s never been anything else for like three weeks.

Luca Pagano: Seemed like a polite and nice guy when I played with him. His NL game was pretty TAGish and solid, but I did see him open limp the button in limit poker. For those of you who don’t play limit, that’s a big no-no.

John Juanda: Like Pagano (who he was sitting next to) John seems like a very quiet and polite guy with a thinking TAG style. I noticed that his hair was graying on the edges slightly, which sits in odd contrast to his exceptionally young looking face.

Kristy Gazes: Very talkative and humorous on the table. I played with her through most of Day 1 in the $3,000 No-Limit event. I thought she was a straight forward nit until she suddenly turned over a big bluff after open raising Q-6o in late position. Shows what I know. An amusing and unrelated Kristy story from Australia goes that one day after getting high in their hotel room a few of the 2+2 guys got onto an elevator which she was on. She looks them all over, then points to the first and says “You’re high” then to another “and you’re high,” then points to the one who didn’t smoke and said “but you’re not.”

Huck Seed: I ended up sitting next to him for a good chunk of the $5,000 event. Before I played with him, Huck never struck me as a particularly outgoing guy, but sitting next to him turned out to be the total opposite. He is very talkative and jokes around quite a lot and proposed a number of prop bets he would have destroyed me on. I declined them all.

Greg Mueller: As was written before, my only personal interaction with Greg was watching him curse out the guy who dared to question his cutting in line for the bathroom. It was quite amusing.

Noah Boeken: Noah was on my left during the second day of the $5,000 event leading up to the money. I thought he’d be the type to try and Euro LAGtard it up, but instead he played a very sensible and more straight forward game, I guess because the massive chip leader on his right was opening quite a bit.

Gavin Smith: Knows how to play with a hangover, that’s for damn sure. He told me he was out until 10AM with a noon start time for the tournament. He was surpassingly eloquent and thoughtful when I asked him about the JJprodigy interview he did on his radio show. Gavin will talk to anyone, about anything, at anytime. If someone taped Gavin’s mouth and nose closed he would chew through for the fear of silence, not suffocation.

Jeff Madsen: Was also out late with Gavin, but said he left the club at 6AM. Seemed really over aggro, loose, and not aware of stack size constraints at all. Took getting three-outed well.

Chris Ferguson: I’ve seen him in Vegas in the summer and Melbourne in the summer, and not one of those times did I see him without his dark hat and massive leather overcoat, so I guess he has the pain tolerance of Jesus. I didn’t get to play with him very long, but I did see him call a re-raise with A-Q out of position against Marco Traniello that seemed suspect. Outside that, he seemed to have a pretty solid/thinking TAG game going on. Everyone knows Chris is one of the nicest guys in poker and during our brief time playing together, he had numerous fans bugging him for pictures and autographs even though he was nowhere close to the rail.

Well that’s all I have for now. Hopefully I have some more interesting and random interactions that come before the end of the WSOP so I can do another one of these on some day when I have no material that I went out and lived.

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