Bond18 - Around the World in 90 Days: Days 29-30

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

I am not quite sure how to classify what day of my trip it is at the moment. My current sleep schedule goes as follows: go to sleep at noon, wake up at 9PM, stay up all night, sleep again at noon. As a result, for the last couple nights I’ve been relaxing in the room and playing online poker. On my first day back I managed to run like god in a $200 freeze-out tournament and win for $20,000. Online poker > live poker.

Since very little has been going on I thought it’d be a good idea to talk about my past experiences at the WSOP leading up to WSOP 2008, which will kick off for me with Day 1B of the $1,500 NLH event on June 1^st.

2006: I went to the WSOP in 2006 with a backer named Rob. We had a running roll of like $30,000 at the time, and knowing little of bankroll management (and honestly, just wanting to take some shots), we put me in a couple of the early low buy in-events. I blanked out of the first few tournaments, in all three getting it in pre with an over pair and getting two-outed.

Then, in the last tournament I intended to play until the Main Event, I swapped 5% with an Australian friend, Mark Vos. Long story short, Mark won the tournament and had to hand me over $20,000. Rob and I decided we should put that toward a few more events, and it was pretty much the same story - a lot of two outers. That’s not to say I was playing very well. I know for a fact that I was incredibly awful at tournaments and poker in 2006. I ended up playing nine events before the main and cashed none of them.

As for the main, I had won a satellite on Bodog back when they had the most absurd string of satellites I’ve ever seen, and had paid about $800 in attempts to get my seat. Things went very smooth in the Main Event until late on Day 2 when I got it all in with 7-7 on a J-7-3-6 board for a pot with three times the average in it against 6-6. River brought out the last 6 and I was crippled. I managed to run good and come all the way back until late on Day 4 when I got it in pre flop with A-K vs. a button raiser’s A-Q. He hit the Q and that was it for me, out in 198^th place which paid about $43,000. Unfortunately, Rob and I had sold off a large chunk of myself in the event, and I didn’t see too much of that money.

2007: Leading up to WSOP 2007 I agreed to a staking deal with Stevepa and Timex that allowed me to play in just about any event. I played a total of 30 events at the WSOP and started really getting into writing. Without much thought or intention, I decided to write up every event I played and log a bunch of trip reports for the Multi-Table Tournament Community section of www.twoplustwo.com. The end result was an enormous amount of support both for my play and writing, and a series of 25 trip reports that covered what happened during 30 events and my time spent in Vegas. A collection of all last year’s trip reports can found at this link.

The story from the Main Event was that late on Day 2 I was somewhere around second or third in chips at one point. I was a considerably looser, aggressive and creative player at the time, and some of the hands I got mixed up in were pretty wild. A little while into Day 3 with about 40 to go from the money I still had a large stack and, after a couple rounds of inactivity, decided to raise 9-5o UTG. I got one caller in late position and when an 8-7-6 flop came down, I nearly exploded. I fired out and he called. The turn brought a 2 and I fired quite big, he raised, I shoved, and he tank called 8-8 asking “Do you have the straight?” The river peeled off the 7 and a pot to be top 5 in chips going towards the bubble was shipped his way. The thread for the Day 3 trip reported ended up being 10 pages long worth of support. It was the kind of thing that’s kept me writing.

Interesting random events of the 2007 series include: making a final table at the Bellagio, during my interview before the final table telling Kristy Arnette “If I win you’ll find me face down in my own vomit”, getting heavily berated by Shannon Elizabeth, playing Hellmuth the day after he won his 11^th bracelet, getting drunk and tackling Sirwatts in the middle of the MGM Grand in front of a group of girls, then trying to climb into the promotional Dodge Viper on top of the slot machines, but instead kicking over a chair and yelling obscenities, getting asked for an autograph despite being nobody and having done nothing, and lots of other various crap I’m sure I’m forgetting.

2008: Hopefully this year will have the shenanigans and fun of last year without all the failure. I’ve rented a house with five other 2+2 friends and I’ll again be playing in the area of 30 events. I’ll be going back to Wisconsin for a few days to visit family but, outside that, I’m not intending on taking any days off. Days off are for pussies and people who want to keep their sanity. That and I now have somewhere in the area of $125,000 in make-up to work off. Here’ goes nothing.

As for my lasting memories of live poker in Europe, I think it can be summed up with the following photo:

bond18-europe Bond18 - Around the World in 90 Days: Days 29-30