UWSWSOP Day 6: Fitting Ending
Dave Hill
hell I was doing in Vegas all that time without even seeing one hand
of the WSOP, I called Peter and instructed him to finish the trip
reports. There were still a few out there: Peter, Brandon, John, Rob,
and I think Greg.
Just to wrap up my end of things, I want to say that I am very proud
of Greg Raymer. Some of my first tournament hands and pot limit hands
at foxwoods were played at a table with him. His posts on rgp have
always been among my most respected. I had a feeling when I saw him
deep in the tourney that it belonged to him and I guess it did. I
hope that his newfound fortune doesnt take him away from rgp or
foxwoods.
Im also proud of Greg "General Lee" Kennedy, who won his first
bracelet in this year's UWSWSOP, and won it with class. Im sure that
he will come to defend it next year, and will be a welcome addition to
our strange little poker clan.
It seems we are gambling higher and higher every year, and so far the
majority of us are doing well. I am afraid to see what happens to our
money next year. Hell, I wasnt back in town a day that Josh wasnt
calling me wondering when we were going to go to the Playstation to
play in the weekly tournament. He NEVER plays in the tournament. This
poker thing hasn't just gotten out of hand in America, its out of hand
here on the Upper West Side.
Take it away Peter
http://www.meatmachine.org/poker
Final day of the trip report:
On the way to the airport, Dave calls me and says he has lost his
keys, and that he wants us to look for them. Everybody else ( Rob,
John Bacon, Brandon, Greg K. ) seem to be of the opinion that the keys
will turn up during the normal course of events or they won't turn up
at all. I, however, start to formulate a list of places where they
could be. About 1 am, my brother, Joey, and his friend/roommate from
Thailand turn up to gamble even though half of the crew has left, and
we already played for the "UWSWSOP 2004" bracelet like three days ago.
Anyway, I promptly get into a 3/6 game at the Mirage with my brother
and start playing wild just to be funny. There is a drunk guy to my
right who just liked to be in every hand, but, across the table from
him, there is a guy with like $400 in chips with a serious look on his
face ( who brings $400 to a 3/6 game ? ). Anyway, I stradle and the
drunk guy says he his going to play the entire hand blind. The
serious guy, of course, re-raises my stradle and everyone folds except
me and the drunk guy. We call him all the way down and he shows AQ,
and of course wins the pot. Things go on like this for an hour, and I
am eventually down $200. It is basically 4 am, and I decide to get
some sleep. I find my brother's friend and we all go up to the room.
We only have one room and the Mirage and 7 people in it. Luckily, my
brother and his friend brought sleeping bags. So, using the sleeping
bags, the three of us get to bed with Robert and Greg K. coming in an
hour later or so. I am sleeping in the sleeping bag on the floor
when, at 7am, Brandon comes back to the room and starts talking about
the game he just got up from. Anyway, there really is no space to
sleep, so I just decide to get up and start playing poker on my last
day in Vegas. Brandon takes the sleeping bag on the floor and I go to
see if there is a 10/20 game in the Mirage. Sure enough, they had a
table with one seat left. Well, like any poker game at 7am anywhere
in the world, there is a obnoxiously drunk person playing, verbally
abusing a Russian girl to my left. We are all trying to calm him
down, but he won't hear any of it. Anyway, I immediately lose $230 of
my $300 buy-in, so I am cursing myself for playing so loose last
night. By some strange twist of fate, I came back and ended winning
$200. I get up from the table around 11 am to see if anybody else is
up. On my way, I see my brother playing blackjack at a 5 deck
continuous shuffle table, which is, of course, asisine. I sit down
with him and see that he is already down $50 or so. I start playing
just to keep him company, and I start winning. At one point, he had
$10 left and wanted to split and double-down on that hand. Luckily,
the dealer allowed me to give him some money and he won. We left with
me up around $60, not including the money I gave to Joey. We go to
the room and see that most of the people are up except Rob. As this
is happening, I have been gettung calls intermediately from Dave about
keys, but rather than giving me useful information like where he had
his keys last or what his keys look like or what type of car he
drives, he just keeps asking if we had found them yet. Thus, I began
formulating a plan to try to systemically go over the steps Dave had
the last two days we were here. All of us, except for Rob, go to the
California Pizza Kitchen for lunch and try to think of places where
Dave lost his keys and also give odds on the chances of finding them
there. John Bacon took the field ( i.e. the keys are never found )
against me for $20 at 3:2.
After lunch, Joey and his friend want to go to see the WSOP at the
horshoe. I, however, had to go buy some new luggage. I take a cab to
the Fashion Show ( only to learn that it was really close to the
Mirage ). I get my new luggage and head back to the hotel and start
calling places looking for dave's keys. After calling three or four
places, I go downtown to find everybody and to continue the search for
the keys. After talking to John and Brandon to see if they checked
with the Nugget ( they didn't ), I go to the Golden Nugget to find
Joey, Rob, and Greg K. trying to get into the 4/8 game. The list is
unbelievably long, so I go to the Nugget and check for Dave's keys. I
also check the Four Queens and all the other crappy downtown casinos
we played in on Saturday night. After checking them all, I go back to
the Nugget and wait some more to get into the 4/8 game. Joey, Rob,
and Greg K. get seated at some of the 4/8 games, and I start to watch
Rob play, giving him tips ever once and a while. Rob eventually gets
annoyed with this and tells me that there are $125 buy-in single table
NL tournaments going, and we should all play one. I immediately get
on the list and wait another hour before sitting down.
As I am waiting, I sit down at one of the 4/8 games and put a bad bet
on this old woman by drawing to a two pair against her pair of aces.
She gets flustered and leaves the table. Just then, I hear my table
called out for the single table tournament. I get over there, and,
sure enough, the same woman i just bad-beated is there. To my left
and right are these really old guys while across the table there is
middle-aged bearded man who just seamed very serious about the
tournament. We start and first three hands, the middle-aged guy
raises every hand and just steals the blind. On the fourth hand, the
guy to my left re-raised him all-in, and he promptly folded. At this
point, I am thinking "Holy Shit, I am going to eaten alive by these
guys." On the fourth hand, I get pocket queens. There is a raise and
re-raise before me. I just figured I will go out in a flame of glory
rather than get blinded away or by making stupid calls. I re-re-raise
all-in. The guy two places to my left immediately calls, and I
thinking that this is end. Everyone else folds. My opponent stands
up, looks at me, and says "Pocket Jacks, right" as turns over his hand
to show A-heart Q-spades. I turn over my queens and he immediately
slumps back into his seat. The flop comes all spades though, and I am
thinking that this end this end. However, no other spade comes and I
double up. As this is going on, TJ Cloutier himself starts talking to
the old guy to my immediate left. TJ Cloutier actually went back and
forth from out table and the 100/point Chinese poker game. I asked
the guy to my left and how he knew TJ Cloutier, and he just responded
that he knew him for a very long time ( he looked very old ). Anyway,
three hands later, I get pockets aces and make a small raise hoping
that some re-raises me and I can go all-in. It doesn't happen and
suddenly I have 4 callers against my aces which I think is way too
many. The flop comes jack high, rainbow. The aggressive bearded guy
immediately slams all of his chips into the middle and yells out
loudly "ALL-IN". Everyone folds to me and quietly call. I turn over
my aces as he shows JQ. He immediately gets up and walks away not
even seeing the rest of the hand. So, I have got around 5000 in chips
( as we all started with 1500 ). I try to steal with K9spades and
immediately get re-raised by the big blind. I fold and he flashes an
ace. At that point, I just decide to sit back and let these guys tear
into each other. It gets down to 4 and and I get pocket jacks. A
small stack raises a little and I bring all-in with a re-raise. He
just sits there for a while thinking hard. I offered to show my hand
if he folded. One of the guys still in ( a hedge fund investor who
was already done 40k in poker losses for this trip alone ) informs me
that I can't flash my hand in tournaments or you get blinded off for
10 minutes. Anyway,as this conversation about tournament poker is
going on, i am called by my oppopent who shows AXs and promptly loses
with it. Well, it is down to three with the old guy to my right who
has almost an equal stack to me and the hedge fund guy with a very
short stack. I get queens again and raise him all-in from the small
blind. He quickly calls and shows AKs which does not crack my queens
as the hand is played out. Well, it is down to me and the old guy to
my right. I quickly call for a deal as I just want the money, and I
don't think anyone would let live it down if I got beat heads-up by
someone who the strain of turning his hand over may cause a massive
coronary. Anyway, by this time Rob had been watching for a while and
quickly tells me that the split should be like 60/40. The deal is
accepted much to the glee of those waiting to start another tournament
( the heads-up of the previous tournament took 30 minutes by itself ).
I take the money, and the crew ( now finished playing their high pace
4/8 games ) decide to take one last look at the WSOP. We go to the
Horseshoe across the street only to still wait in line to see people
playing. As we are waiting, Rob sees a guy selling chip set cases.
Rob says that would be a "sweet" present to get Josh for his birthday
even though his birthday is three months away. I agreed, and so we
spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out the best arrays of chip
colors to get for the set. After that, we were able to get into the
WSOP and watch for about 10 minutes. There was simpy too much going
on to actually get a feel of what was happening. Except for the main
table, which had Doyle Brunson at it, the other tables were too far
away to see anything.
We leave the Horshoe and take a cab back to the Mirage to meet up
with Brandon who was, in his own words, "killing" the 30/60 game. As
we meet up, we decide to go to In & Out Burger for dinner. We all
pile into Joey's car and head to the and In & Out. Joey and Brandon
both order their meals animal style which turns out to be a bad idea.
We go back to the Mirage. Joey and his friend had to leave early (
4am ) in order to get back to San Diego, so the three of us go back to
the room as Rob and Greg K. decide to give 3/6 at the Mirage one more
try. My brother and his friend leave at 4am to go back to San Diego
while Rob and Greg K. finally get back to the room about that time.
At 8 am, we all woke up to get ready to go. As Greg K, Rob, and I are
loading into a cab to go the airport, Brandon says he will check out
the games at the Bellagio before going to the airport ( he does this
every year, so we were not surprised ). I wonder how he did in that
game. Anyway, nothing exciting happens after that. Rob, Greg K., and
I get on our respective flights and head back home thus concluding
UWSWSOP Tour 2004.