Aruba Part 1
Saturday, October 17, 2009 - Liv Boeree
Well where can I start? I’m sat in Amsterdam airport after a somewhat hellish, screaming child filled ten hour flight back from a certain beautiful little island. The past ten days has been my personal heaven – the Ultimatebet Aruba Classic. After a riotous few days in Amsterdam with various UB pros we arrived in the balmy tropics and got straight to the most important part – locating the rest of the team and hitting the bar.
The first full day was spent on the beach and warming up my tubing skills for the inevitable bouts of last longer bets that were to bound to occur throughout the week. A number of us (including team members Matt Graham, Roothlus, Tiffany and Billy) rented a boat and we went for a very beery cruise involving diving competitions and trying to swim back to the boat against a very strong ocean current.
That night was the opening party including all the free booze and food UB could throw at the guests, and which inevitably ended up in everyone getting thrown in the pool. Lacey Jones and I had a chicken fight aboard Matt Vengrin and Matt Graham (we won, of course), and Phil managed to get through about $10,000 getting ladies to jump in the pool naked.
Lacey and I also got $1000 for one lucky guy who was the first one to jump in naked also… gotta keep the balance between the sexes!
Monday was relatively quiet as it was day 1A, and half of the pros, myself included, had been scheduled for a new UB photoshoot which I can’t wait to see the results of. Tuesday was day 1B, which was my first day of play. I had the Great Poker Ho on my table, who was lauding it up the way only Ho can, rallying the table and generally creating mayhem with some huge pots. Sadly things didn’t go Ho’s way once Robbie Cunningham came to the table and started crushing it utterly. I swear to God he had Jacks or better every other hand for two hours, and played them tricky enough too, knocking Ho out in the process. An interesting (and kinda costly hand) for me was when I had around starting stack and the blinds were 100 200. Robbie makes it 525 in the hijack, I have queens and make it 1600 in the cutoff. However, the supertight girl to my left who hadn’t played many hands at all goes to call his initial raise before I even get chance to act. When I say wait a minute, and do my threebet she instacalls behind anyway. The SB, who has been pretty LAG and was “internetting it up” as they like to say now does a really weird min raise making it 2700. Robbie now says “what the hell do I do?” and flats. I now ask the same question, and chose to call behind too (in hindsight should’ve jammed here, I mean, Laggy guy could have anything, Robbie or the girl, if they have me beat here are reraising) and the girl flats. The board comes A j 10 and Robbie bets out 2/3, I muck, the girl mucks and the SB stuffs it in with… A-10. What does the Cunningham have? Jacks of course.
My day went pretty much downhill from there and I got short after whiffing AK three times, and then found 10s vs QQs which sent me packing to the beach for more fun and frolics that I’ll document next week… tough life!
Tags: Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Amsterdam, Aruba, aruba classic, Billy Koop, Lacey Jones, Matt Graham, matt vengrin, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, Robbie Cunningham, Tiffany "Tiffany M" Michelle, ub, Ultimate Bet
