Thursday, August 20, 2009 - Liv Boeree
So as you may have guessed from the title, I’m in Macau. The reason why I flew 12 hours from home is because I got invited to come play the Asian Poker Tour, a $4400 or so buy in (it’s actually like a million Hong Kong Dollars which sounds way more impressive). It’s a pretty cool event, with loads of side events and some fairly crazy cash action from what I hear. On the first day I arrived was the “Celebrity” event which was a charity freeroll for various Asian actors and models which they asked me to play and it was pretty fun to play, particularly when a number of people played their hands literally face up and a couple of people had literally never played before. I somehow ended up tenth which was the trophy bubble, typical! Otherwise, I’ve been mainly wandering around Macau getting lost. The city is really cool, it’s basically a more densely built, more humid version of Las Vegas, just with a lot of Cantonese (maybe?) writing everywhere. I mean, even the hotels are the same. There’s the mini-Wynn, a Venetian, MGM Grand and it looks like they are building a more impressive 60 floor version of Caesar’s Palace. The food however, is erm, horrid. Now I’m really not one to complain about food, I am literally a walking dustbin and will eat anything and everything, however the food I’ve sampled here so far really sucks. Someone ordered the “brisket”, which was obviously a massive -EV decision as any kind of meat dish of unspecified animal in China is never wise, but damn this stuff was awful. It was literally a brown, jellified goo that I can’t imagine any animal being made up of. At best we believe it was pulped slug and tasted in that ballpark too, so that’s where my money lies.
Tags: Asian Poker Tour, Caesars, Macau, MGM, Venetian, Wynn
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Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - HollywoodDave
Well my peeps, another week, another FT, baybee! I went down to the Hard Rock here in Vegas (haven’t really left since the WSOP ended lol) the other day to play in the first event of their new Megastack series. Its the first time they’ve put on an official series of events (as opposed to running just dailies etc) so I figured it would be off the radar a bit and ripe with donkalicious rockers ready to be taken down by yours truly. And it did not disappoint!
The field had a couple scattered semi-pros but for the most part these guys loved to drink & wear their tells on their sleeve. There were only about 100 people total playing this inaugural event, and before i knew it i was super deep and approaching the money bubble. What was really awesome as well was the structure of this tourney was really well thought out — usually in the deepstack events at the Venetian or Caesars or whatever, despite how many chips you start with, two or 3 hours in the structure starts skipping crucial levels that make the majority of the field suddenly shortstacked, no matter how many chips in front of them. Not so here at the Hard Rock — even though it took more than 12 hours to go from 100 to the money, i never felt as if the structure skimped on any necessary levels, which made for a lot of great play.
I ran pretty good, picking up big hands often enough — and more importantly, getting paid off on them as well — til inevitably I got my JJ cracked by 77 about 5 people from the money. I still made it to the FT ok but never could recover… it was one of those pots that woulda made me the mega chip leader or crippled, and of course it all came down to the fucking 7 on the river. It was a shame, because I really felt like I was the best player in the field at that point, at even shortstacked at the final table had a lot of confidence that i could still win by picking the right spots and getting the money in good.
Alas it wasn’t to be, and 7th is all I could pull. I ran into too many bigger hands when I had decent ones, and was too short to capitalize on my monsters. All in all, it was good to be back in live action, since one of the last live events I played was one of the Bellagio Cup event last month where I also final tabled (6th in that one). A good vote of confidence if nothing else!
Other than that, just been playing a lot online at UB and looking forward to Aruba. I’ve got that sick suite hooked up at the Occidental next door to the Radisson, and am planning to stay for a full week AFTER the poker party leaves the island… can’t wait! Also my pilot is now officially done & we are shopping international networks til October, then pitching domestically all fall after that. So HD will be back on air soon, bitches!
Alright, rock on, I’m out –
-hd.
Tags: Aruba, Bellagio, Caesars, Hard Rock, Hollywood Dave, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, ub, Vegas, Venetian, WSOP
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Monday, April 20, 2009 - Scott Ian
I flew to Vegas today to play in Doyle Brunson’s Beer Pong tourney. The event was being held at Hogs And Heifers in downtown Vegas. If you’ve never been to Hogs And Heifers, I highly recommend it. It’s a real dive bar with the right attitude. It’s definitely worth the cab ride from the strip. It’s only a couple of miles but it feels like a universe away from the bullshit fancy pants places in the casinos that charge way too much and everyone looks like a Rock Of Love or Tool Academy cast member. I paired up with UB’s own Debo and we figured we’d have a good shot at winning the thing. My hand-eye coordination is really good and even though I’d never played beer pong before, I have had drinks on stage before and still played my guitar perfectly!
Guitar playing has got to be harder than throwing a ping pong ball into a cup right?? In the first round we drew last years champs who also happen to work at H&H. Debo and I weren’t scared. We beat them and then we’re the team to beat. Send a message! The match started off ugly for us as one of the players on the other team named Mitch hit like 6 in a row. Jeez!!! We started to come back and I made 5 or 6 shots and we closed the gap from being down like 7 to 2 to 4 to 2. They hit again and we had 1 cup left. We got them down to 2 cups but then they hit and we couldn’t tie it. Oh well, there’s always next year. I had a blast any way. The shit talking was epic and the bar was crazy with 4 tables of beer pong going at the same time. A whole group of us, me, Debo, Poker Ho, WiscoMurray, Tracy “Fatcats” Scala and a few others made a $100 a man last longer bet but we made the mistake of inviting the ringers as well so nobody collected. Everyone was having a blast. The Binger brothers lost a tough match. Michael Binger was on fire, hitting 6 in a row at one point. Liv Boeree also kicked ass in her first match. I was out but stayed to cheer on my pals and drink a lot of PBR. Debo came and found me and told me that a bunch of guys were heading over to Caeser’s to play a $200 tourney and I decided to roll with them because if I stayed at H&H I would get REALLY drunk and not be very happy on my 7:25AM flight to NY the next morning.
So we phantomed to Caesers. Myself, Debo, Ho, Wisco and Tracy all bought in. Wisco and I were at the same table. There were only about 100 people in the tourney and I felt good about my chances with 5000 in chips and 40 minute levels. I played so patient, winning pots, playing my image, chipping up to around 15K. At that point the blinds were 2-400 with a 50 ante and I woke up with AA on the button. There was a raise in front of me to 2K, I call. The flop comes Q,6,2. He shoves, I call. He’s got 10’s. The turn is a blank and then he spikes his 10 on the river. I felt the air go out of me a bit and now my 5:30AM wake up call started to loom large. I really didn’t tilt, what can you do? I got my money in good. That shuffle is an asshole. That’s all it is. That beat took me down to a little over 5K in chips and now the blinds were 3-600 with a 75 ante and I shove the next hand with A3c. The BB calls with 89c. My A high wins it. I was still a bit loopy from the KO blow of the rivered 10 but at least I had around 13K. A few hands later I steal the blinds open raising to 1800 and then the next hand I have 99 and I open raise to 1800. Wisco shoves, I call. He’s got AJ and he hits an A on the flop and that leaves me with 1200. I’m all in a few hands later with Q8 vs AK and I’m off to bed for my
7:25 AM flight to NY.
All in all a blast of an day/night and I can’t wait to hang with Team UB again soon.
Cheers,
Scott
Tags: Beer Pong, Caesars, Debo, doyle brunson, Michael Binger, Vegas
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