O-Poker

(Sorry for the long delay between posts. I had a busy week and found out I had to go to Hawaii this week for business - kind of sucks to be away from the family for 3 out of 4 weeks. I'm breaking this up between 2 or 3 posts or I would probably never get it posted.)

The best thing about the WSOP this year is that I got to meet a ton of cool bloggers – most for the 1^st time. (in order of meeting on this trip)

Weak_Player – First blogger that I met this trip. We met up at the Venetian, had lunch, and hit the 2/5nl tables. It was great to meet him and I’m definitely a little jealous that he gets to spend the entire WSOP in Las Vegas playing the juicy cash games. He has a great live cash game style – tight aggressive against the guys that don’t pay attention and selective aggression against the LAGs that are paying attention. I’m curious to see how much he is up from playing cash games by the end of the trip. GL Weak, I’ll be checking your updates.

SprStoner – I met stoner and lucko last year at the P5s party. I recognized stoner from coverage of one of his events (I think by CC). I didn’t get a chance to talk to them very long because I had to run and blow my $$$ in a WSOP sat. A few days later, I randomly ran into stoner at Shutters Bar in the Rio and had a few beers. Fast forward to this year, I had just texted Bayne to see if he was still in the WSOP PLO tourney and was walking to the Amazon Room. I look up as I’m getting a beer at Shutters and guess who is standing 5’ away from me? Yep, stoner!! Talk about Déjà vu. We grabbed a few beers before Bayne and CK joined us. Stoner has a great mtt game and if he runs just average in a live mtt, he should have a huge live score soon. Keep getting the money in good and hopefully the poker gods will shine on you.

Bayne aka CrapsMachine aka Cockroach – I caught up with Bayne and CK just after CK busted out of the PLO WSOP tourney (just short of the money). I haven’t played craps in years (probably since before I started playing poker) and Bayne taught me how to rapidly lose money playing craps. I guess you need someone to get on a roll and I don’t think that ever happened while I was at the table. I don’t think you will find me at the craps tables on the next trip to LV unless I’m sweating Bayne.

CK aka Ms. SetoverSet – It sucked that she came so close to the money in the WSOP PLO, but didn’t cash. PLO can be a brutal game and it’s got to be tough to go so deep. She is walking around LV with $350+ of mine thanks to a set of set hand in a mostly blogger 1/2nl game at the Venetian. (more on that in a future post.)

Miami Don - I was really looking forward to meeting Don. CK, Bayne, Weak, and Don picked a great spot for dinner (N9NE) at the Palms. It just happened to fall on my b-day and the day after Don's B-day. I got to witness 1st hand just how bad he runs. In the 1/2nl blogger cash game, Don and Weak got it all in preflop. Don with AA. Weak with KK King on the river of course. If Don got one more bad beat while we were sitting at the table, I was going to grab my chips and duck for cover.

Vinnay - I wound up hanging out with Vinnay more than anyone on the trip since both of us were staying solo at the Rio and mainly playing cash games. It was great hanging out with Vinnay and talking over hands, hopefully I'll run into him at the WSOP next year.

LJ - Another blogger that I was looking forward to meeting. She was on a bad run coming into LV, but that is how it sometimes goes when you are exclusively playing MTTs - even for the best of the best. She took some brutal bead beats in tourneys and drowned her sorrows at Shutters (the hooker bar). The most ironic thing about her whole trip was that the bad karma turned good when she won her seat to the WSOP Main Event while playing in an online satellite in her Rio hotel room. Weeeeeeeeeeee for internet pokah!!!!

BamBam and Pebbles - Got to have one drink with them, but sadly didn't get a chance to play poker with them - maybe next time.

Hoyazo - I was glad I got a chance to finally meet Hoy and had breakfast with him and Vinnay before the $2k WSOP tourney. I was really rooting for him to go deep, but the cards weren't on his side. Maybe, I can get a chance to hang out with him more next time.

F-Train - I barely talked to F-Train, but since I talked to him for like 5 secs and I hung out a little with CK, I got to pretend like I knew a guy that went pretty deep in a WSOP event. He busted from the Razz event in 33rd place about 15 minutes after Vinnay and I showed up to rail him. Coincidence or cooler?

Astin - I met Mr. AA/KK on the day when I was feeling the worst. I was so hung over it wasn't even funny. I did get to raise and re-raise him a ton in the blogger 1/2 cash game. Congrats on the deep run in the Caesar's deep stack tourney.

Smokkee and Love_elf - I think smokkee was the first blogger that I ever met in person a couple of years ago. I've been an avid reader of his since before the poker pimping blog sell-out days. (I keed - sorta!) He played a tourney while a few of us had a late dinner. It was good to finally meet his better half. Now go back him in the WSOP.

I'll put up some interesting hands that came up while I was in LV in my next post - hopefully I'll have it up sometime before 2009.