Online Poker

I was back in Vegas this week with a vague idea of playing in one of the smaller Festa Al Lago tournaments at the Bellagio - a series of poker events that attracted all the top players in the world. The culmination of the festival was the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Championship, a $10,000 + $400 buy-in, and a world poker tour event. That was scheduled to start on the Tuesday, and I thought it would be a good idea to play in Event #10 at the Festa Al lago: The super-satellite for this event, which was held the day before on the Monday.

The buy-in for the super satellite was only $1000 + $60, more my speed at this fledgling stage of my poker career. I am a poker neophyte still, and neophytes should not put up $10k to tackle the world’s best just yet. So my intention when I started the event on Monday, facing over 400 top players, was to try and broker a deal if it looked like I had any chance of winning one of the seats. My conservative nature determined that it was better value for me to take $10,000, or a figure close to that, rather than risking it all for a long-shot money finish in the main event. My over-analysis was very premature, since I was thinking all this when they announced that there would be 37 seats up for grabs. It was Noon, and there was still 9 hours of no-limit tournament poker to go.

In the first two hours of play I was pretty sure that there would be no need for deals, or agonizing over whether to take the seat or the cash, because I was short-stacked and close to going back to my hotel room $1060 lighter. I had no cards early on, and the pots I won were small high-risk affairs where I raised simply to steal blinds. I then found JJ in my big blind and was raised by another short-stack from the cut-off position. I re-raised all-in and after thinking about it for 10 seconds he made a bad call. He turned over 77 and the pocket Jacks held up for a nice win. But as is often the case with my tournament play I managed to turn that little burst of good fortune into an act of hubris, betting strong with KQ suited the very next hand only to find a rock in my way. This guy was on my left, with position (of course), and more chips (of course), and his smooth call followed by a big raise after my puny continuation bet on the flop saw me back down in the chip count once more.

I was moved to a new table with only 3200 chips in my rack. Not a great effort considering we started with 3000. But I had survived the first three limits and the field was already whittled down to 265. At the new table I decided to try out a bold all-in raise to get things started. Evelyn Ng had been moved to my first table and done this to good effect when she first sat down, why not I? Or so I reasoned. After folding a couple of hands, and with the blinds now at 200/400 with 25 antes, I moved all-in from middle position with A8. An awful play, and one that I cannot defend, other than to say I had made tight lay-downs all afternoon with no reward. One player called, which was not what I wanted to see at all. He had me covered and turned over 99. An Ace came on the turn, and from then on I was able to play very strong poker.

I had established a table reputation as a weakling and a poor player, neither of which are remotely true but hey, no one knows me at this level. I was able to double through against some very tough players and hold my own against guys with big reputations: pros who were at my table during the event included Joe Sebok (Barry Greenstein's son who made 2 WSOP final tables this year), Mark Fleddermann, Mark Gregorich, Chris Bigler, Eddie Schaarf, James Van Alstyne, and Kenna James. The latter certainly lives up to his reputation as “the signing cowboy”. He was moved to my immediate left after I knocked out Joe Sebok (my A4 suited flopping a full-house against his KK, when he was short-stacked and had moved all-in; an easy call for me considering my chip stack at the time). Kenna began belting out a collection of tunes, ranging from maudlin country and western laments to that hideous Eric Carmen song, “I can’t live if living is without you”, and Kenna hits those high notes with aplomb.

I was then faced with that very decision I had been sweating over the entire time - namely whether to take one of the seats for the main event, or a cash settlement instead. In the end I opted for the cash, so I was officially listed as the 38th place “bubble” finisher for the tournament, but I simply surrendered the 20,000 chips in front of me for plenty of those real-money yellow $1k chips that the Bellagio hands out. It’s my second deal in as many months in only my second “big” live-game tournament. I feel like I am progressing rapidly, and that I can more than hold my own in the highest poker company. But, I also recognize the value of the money outside of the poker room, and $10,000 buys a lot of regular stuff, so I opted out. Next time, though...I swear I’ll take my chances in the main event.

For now, I want to concentrate on winning a Poker.com Aussie Millions satellite so that I can play in one of these prestigious tournaments on a true free-roll. But if I do win one, don’t hesitate to contact me if you want to do a deal in exchange for cold, hard cash. :)

Marc Weinberg
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