Thursday, September 17, 2009 - Liv Boeree
This week’s been one of my hardest ever in poker. As you can probably tell from the title of this blog, I experienced the agony of the bubble. Now obviously this is something none of us who have ever played more than a few tournaments have not experienced, but my encounters with it over the past few days have been none other than exemplary. It all started on Sunday, where you UB regulars may have been aware of, or indeed playing in, the 50 seat Aruba guarantee. This was UB’s $500 buy in massive giveaway of fifty $8,500 golden tickets to their annual Aruba Classic tourney (and if you don’t know what that is I dunno what planet you’ve been living on). Now I’m already going to Aruba either way, but I won a step into this 50 seat mega to try and win another seat which baEnsically equals a bucketload of cash. Anyway, I played pretty near perfect all tournament until we got to just 70 players, and then combination of factors allowed me to get short but then I did the inexcusable thing of miss a couple of vital blind stealing opportunities to get myself back to healthy. Next thing I knew there were just 55 left and I was looking like it’d all be ok with me sat in 48th. However lady luck seemed to favour a number of these shorterstacks and before I knew what was happening there were 51 left, and only 1 person shorter than me and he was at my table. By this stage neither of us had any fold equity whatsoever so I tried to play the waiting game. He decided to play it even more and left himself with basically two hands left (the antes were huge) knowing the blinds were about to go up and eat my stack completely. And they did. And I finished stone cold bubble for 51st out of nearly 800 for 50 seats after sitting up til 5am UK time and ready to throw myself out a window.
However, Monday morning made me suck it all up as I had to head up to Nottingham to play the first ever English Poker Open, a $5k buy in tourney featuring pros such as Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson so I was pretty excited to be playing it. Things started slowly for me but then I got moved to the feature table with James Akenhead and Devilfish. Devilfish pretty promptly doubled me up in a really interesting hand that I’ll write about next week, and then I cruised from there til the end of day 1 with about 60 of the 213 entries remaining.
Day 2 started a bit rocky with me getting short at one point but then getting it up to about 50k average with around 35 left and rapidly approaching the bubble. I then proceeded to run big hand into bigger hand in quick succession leaving me with a short shovable stack and doing the shovey thing at what seemed like an appropriate moment to get called off by yet another monster busting me again close to the money. Anyway, starting just as I busted was a super deep structure $750 event so I jumped straight back into the saddle to play that. This one went really well and before I knew it I’d played 10 hours and we were seven from the money and I had a healthy stack and picked up those darling little weapons (the AA) and got it all in versus the big stack with 44s. Can you guess happened? Where’s the rope…
Tags: Aruba, aruba classic, Devilfish, doyle brunson, English Poker Open, James Akenhead, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ub
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Friday, May 29, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
You see some strange juxtopositions at World Series of Poker tables. People of different ages, nationalities, races, sexes, and personal style. And then sometimes you see two people sitting side-by-side who just seem to go together. Like Jeff Lisandro and David “Devilfish’ Ulliott.
Not much else to say other than I thought this was kind of a cool picture. These two gentlemen have played a lot of hands here at the World Series over the years.
Tags: david "devilfish" ulliott, Devilfish, devilfish ulliott, jeff lisandro
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Saturday, May 9, 2009 - Phil Hellmuth
As we get ready for the WSOP 2009 I can’t help but think back to 2002. I knew the ramifications of what I was saying. I knew that the American public would perceive my statement as “sour grapes.” Oh well, I said it anyway. I just didn’t think that it would come to this!
While I was helping Gabe Kaplan with the ESPN Commentary during the last day of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in 2002, I put my foot in my mouth, way in my mouth. Robert Varkonyi had just lost $400,000 of his last $640,000 with 9-9 vs. Julian Gardeners A-A (all-in before the flop) on the first hand. So I just opened my mouth and blurted it out.
It seemed pretty safe to say, especially at that exact time, and, I wasn’t very impressed with Robert’s play anyway, so I said it, “If Robert Varkonyi wins the WSOP, I’ll shave my head.” Sensing some possible added drama, the executive producer said, “Repeat what you just said.” I still felt like backing off, but I thought, “What are the chances that this comment makes the final ESPN cut to make me look bad anyway? I mean, Robert has to win first place from $240,000 in chips.” So I repeated the statement for the ESPN Commentary.
Now the players were told what I said, and I looked at Robert right then, and he seemed to bristle a bit. I thought, “Oh no, I may have lit a fire under him!” I don’t know if that was the case or not, but I do know that Robert began to play better then anyone else in the field from that moment forward. He did manage to hold off an ace or a king when John Shipley moved all-in with A-K versus Robert’s J-J, and he pretty much dominated the final table play after that. He was only all-in one other time when he put in one million dollars before the flop with J-J vs. John Shipley’s A-J. After that pot, Robert steadily increased his chip lead until he had a stranglehold on the rest of the players.
With four players left, and the blinds at $15,000-$30,000, Robert opened for $100,000 with Q-10 (the same hand that he busted me out with versus my Ah-Kh in a memorable [for me!] pot two days earlier). When Scott Grey moved all-in for $250,000 more with A-9, Robert called saying, “This is Phil’s favorite hand (a reference to the beat he put on me), so I call.” I don’t like his call here at all. But with a flop of Q-Q-8, Q-10 really was my favorite hand! The turn card brought a 9 and the river brought an A, both of which hit Scott’s A-9, but it wasn’t enough to beat three queens.
Now they were down to three players. The first hand after a fifteen-minute TV timeout was spectacular. Julian Gardener opened the pot for $100,000 on the button. Ralph Perry raised, and made it $300,000 to go from the small blind. Then Robert moved all-in (four million dollars!) from the big blind. Julian flashed his hand to me when he folded it and he had 10-10. Ralph decided to call with his J-J, and Robert had A-A in the big blind! This was one of the most exciting (and cold blooded) hands in WSOP history. In two hands, Robert had eliminated two players and now he faced Julian–with 5 million in chips to Julian’s 1.3 million in chips.
After only 10 more minutes, the blinds were up to $20,000-$40,000 when the following hand came up. Robert made it only $80,000 to go on the button with Q-10 (that hand again!), and Julian called in the big blind with Jc-8c, and the flop came down 4c-4d-Qc. Now Julian checked, and Robert bet out a relatively small $50,000. Julian decided to move all-in for $900,000 total (an $850,000 raise), and Robert announced, “I call.”
Now the hands were flipped face up, and the fourth card was a 10. With two million dollars in the pot, tournament director Matt Savage (who did a great job throughout the whole WSOP) announced, “Julian needs a club or a 9.” Not exactly Matt, what about the one card, that actually was a club, but still didn’t win the pot for Julian? How about the 10c on the river for Robert to immortalize Q-10 with a full house (tens full of queens) which beat Julian’s jack high flush with a final board of 4c-4d-Qc-10s-10c. What a great last card–both players make a big hand! Right after they turned the 10c on the river, the crowd started chanting, “Shave Phil’s head – shave Phil’s head…”
Of course, Becky Behnan made sure that someone had some barbers equipment on hand, and, I am a man of my word. I would have loved to avoid the head shave, but I certainly deserved what I had coming, and I knew it! First Robert, followed by Becky Behnan, Andy Glazer, the Devilfish, and others, took turns shaving my head in front of a room full of spectators, press and cameras. Although the “side show” spectacle of having my head shaved by Robert (who was very gracious and tried to let me out of a shaved head) in front of over 1000 people, was, apparently, very entertaining for those watching, it was Robert’s day.
Robert played magnificent poker while he dominated the final table at the World Championships of poker. Congratulations to Robert Varkonyi, the 2002 World Champion of poker.
Tags: Devilfish, espn, gabe kaplan, Robert Varkonyi, WSOP
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Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - Miss C
Hey All,
A few years back (actually nearly a decade ago:)) my boss at the time organized a poker trip to Europe and I thought this was a fabulous idea. There were 20 of us in total, all Aussies. We had been asked to do the live coverage at 2 of the events we were attending.
The first stop was Venice and we entered in the most grandest of styles, by water taxi from the airport. There was something truly magical the way the city just appeared and when we entered the Grand Canal, I didn’t know which way to look. In Venice there was no poker, we were here to soak up the culture and boy wasn’t it fantastic. Meandering through the maze of streets would be one of my most special travel memories. We were in town for 3 nights, but one of our group could not wait, he left his case for us to bring (and I can tell you an additional case in Venice is a hindrance when trying to pull 2 suitcases over cobble stones) and caught a train to our next destination which was Nova Gorica, Slovenia.
The rest of the crew arrived in due time via coach. This place was beautiful. It was never on my must see lists, but I would definitely recommend it. Great people and the biggest, juiciest cherries you have ever tasted. We were here to do the live coverage of the Torneo De Poker and it was a great event. This is the event where I met most of the European players I know, including the Hendon Mob and having the privilege of having Devilfish serenade us through dinner . A couple of the Aussies made the money, but while we were here, poker was not the only thing on our minds, we did a couple of trips to see the country and we were not disappointed. If you are ever there, visiting Bled is a must. The week here flew by and before we new it we were heading to Austria.
Vienna, Austria had us at the Concord Card Casino for the World Heads Up Championship where we also did the live coverage. This tournament had an American contingent – our very own Phil Hellmuth, Ted Forest, Layne Flack, Amarillo Slim and a very young Alan Cunningham. Unfortunately, if my memory serves me right, Phil was knocked out in the second round to an Austrian poker player named Erich Kollmann. Vienna also had us doing trips and we found some great places and we even had an adventure looking for the schnapps factory…we did find it! Once again another week flew by and we were off to St Petersburg, Russia.
St Petersburg the Venice of Russia, so beautiful, very hard to put into words. A very amazing and breath taking city, so old but really well preserved. The Hermitage was stunning, I could have spent days there. We were there during their white nights season, which means it only gets dark around 4am for about 30 minutes. Not good for someone who doesn’t like sleeping through daylight hours. Our evenings were spent at the regal Taleon Club Casino, an old mansion set on a canal. A sweeping staircase led up to the silver service 5* restaurant (where even handbags got chairs) and the gaming floors. When you played at Taleon, there were white carpets, murals on the ceiling a green room which was for ciagrs and a small beautifl poker room. Sadly this was our last stop on the tour. It was a lot of fun and there was a lot of laughs.
If you get a chance to do a poker trip like this, get on board it’s a great ride.
Cheers,
Miss C
Tags: Alan Cunningham, Amarillo Slim, Austria, Bled, CCC, Concord Card Casino, Devilfish, Erich Kollmann, Hendon Mob, Hermitage, Layne Flack, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, Slovenia, St Petersburg, Taleon, Ted Forest, Torneo de Poker, Venice, Vienna, WHUP, World Heads Up
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