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
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Tuesday, July 7, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
As the Main Event began Matt Vengrin twittered a series of simple goals he hoped to achieve during each day. “Playing Main Event tomorrow,” he tweeted last Thursday, “I’ve decided to win it”. Well, maybe that wasn’t a “simple” goal to achieve, but once he started playing he checked off a series of accomplishments along the way. “Goal #1–make the first break”. After returning from the jam-packed halls of the Rio he set his next goal–”Make end of Day 1″.
Once that was done Matt enjoyed his time off (a mini-goal) and then returned to action today. He raised the bar to a similar height as on Day 1–”Make it past the first level”. And as he took his seat (choosing Jedi-like garb for today) he looked to in a good frame of mind to check off a number of goals today.
But it wasn’t meant to be–as Matt twittered not long after I took his pic, “Failed on goal 4.. Out of main, played like an idiot and deserved to be busted. Next year will be better.” Not quite the way Matt planned to end Day 2, but that last line (”Next year will be better”) isn’t the usual self-pitying rant you usually hear from poker players when they bust from the Main Event. And I’d be willing to bet that Matt will reach that goal, and that next year WILL be better.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, matt vengrin, world series of poker, WSOP
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Friday, July 3, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
With the start of the Main Event split into four Day Ones, which day you play becomes a major strategic question for players to consider. Do you play on Day 1A, which would leave you with three days to rest up before you play again (or give you a chance to get outta Dodge early if you bust out). Or 1B, which gives you an extra day off and two days to rest should you survive. Maybe 1C, giving you the opposite benefits of 1B, two days off before and one day off after. Or 1D, so you can come in completely rested and refreshed and not having to deal with a long layoff before you play again.
The last few years Day 1A has seen the smallest fields, while 1D has had the largest (those fields swelled perhaps by last-second satellite winners). So you have to factor that in as well. Along with calculating which day will see the most pros in the field, the most first-time qualifiers…it’s enough to make your head spin.
The only member of the Team UB/AP family I’ve seen in the field today is Matt Vengrin, who’s sitting at Table 87 in the Orange section. If Matt makes it through the next two levels (we’re only playing four levels today, not the five that were originally scheduled) he’ll have three days off before resuming the fight on Tuesday the 7th. But there’s still four long hours of play before Matt extends his stay.
Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, 2009 wsop main event, matt vengrin, world series of poker, world series of poker main event, WSOP, wsop main event
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Sunday, June 21, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
While Adam Levy and Brandon Cantu press forward in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold-Em event, three familiar names are battling it out in the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship. And just as Adam Levy was before him in the Hold-Em event, Matt Graham is the current chip leader. And I didn’t cooler him when I walked over to take his picture, giving up both reason to smile:
Michael Binger also returned on Day 2 and finds himself very much in contention with around 110,000. Come to think of it, Michael’s pretty much always very much in contention:
And Matt Vengrin is among the final 66 players and has rebuilt his stack up to 70,000 thanks to a timely double-up through Erick Lindgren:
Sixty-six players remain, twenty-seven get paid. The money bubble is a long way off and the railbirds will no doubt be crowding close as this star-studded field is winnowed down to the final table–or, maybe we’ll get down to the final nine before play is automatically suspended at 3AM. The PLO events have tended to play the fastest, a few of them have reached the final nine before that 3AM deadline. But this is a $10K event, a World Championship, with many of the best players in the world, so that may lead to a slower rate of attrition. Perhaps. We shall see.
Tags: 000 pot-limit omaha world championship, 10, 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Matt Graham, matt vengrin, Michael Binger, PLO, pot-limit omaha, ub, ultimatebet, ultimatebet wsop, world series of poker, WSOP
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Saturday, January 10, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
There were several familiar faces at the final table of last night’s UltimateBet Online Championship PLO w/rebuys event-Mark “P0ker H0″ Kroon being one of them. As we got down to the money bubble H0 was the shortest stack left and I thought he’d get his chips in sooner than later. I’ve never seen Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but last night I witnessed something almost equally remarkable–P0ker H0 playing tight on the bubble. But when the bubble burst (CUTEFRECKLES, sadly was left out in the cold) H0 shifted gears and planted his foot firmly on the accelerator, grabbing pots left and right until he arrived at the final table third in chips:
The first player eliminated was Matt “VENGMONEY” Vengrin, who bubbled the final table of the 2007 Aruba Poker Classic. Matt went out when OUTLAWNYC1 flopped the nut flush and that was pretty much that. THEGRAPER (love that name) was sent to the rail in eighth place when he flopped a flush draw to go with his pocket Queens but failed to improve against TRALAIRA’S Aces. And then, sadly, it was P0ker H0’s time to G0. After a 2c-Ah-4s flop H0 checked and then tanked after OUTLAWNYC1 threw out a bet. H0 moved all in and OUTLAWNYC1 quickly called. Both players had an Ace but OUTLAWNYC1 held two Kings to H0’s two Queens and a King on the river sealed H0’s fate:
VBILLER was next to fall, as DANTML flopped a set against him then made the nut straight on the river to lock up the pot. TRALAIRA had the bad fortune to get the last of his chips in only to see OUTLAWNYC1 flop a full house that left him drawing dead. “I’m getting very lucky,” OUTLAWNYC1 said in chat, and after making another huge hand said, “I flop monsters!”.
Grayson “THE_DEAN221″ Nichols was unlucky to flop trip Aces, only to find that DANTML had done the same and had him slighly outkicked. Nichols didn’t catch on the turn or river and that sent him out in fourth place.
And then there were three, with OUTLAWNYC1 holding a bit more than 50% of the chips in play. There had be talk during the final table about making a deal–idle talk, for the most part. But down to three-handed OUTLAWNYC1 again raised the topic and the three players paused to discuss possible terms. Making deals at a final table is a new feature here at UltimateBet (H0 talked about making a deal because he wanted to see how it would work) and the three players chatted back and forth about possible scenarios while a UB manager provided equity calculations and made sure all three players understood the chop and agreed. It took a bit of time, but when all was said and done the three players were satisfied and UBOC Event #1 came to a quiet end.
I happen to think dealmaking at final tables is perfectly acceptable and totally reasonable. The money in the prize pool belongs to the players, they have the right to discuss among themselves if they want to alter the payouts. If history has taught us anything, it’s that no chip-lead is ever safe, and since the payouts increase almost geometrically at the top of the ladder it’s understandable that players might want to lock in a nice score and not risk losing a huge chunk of change to a horrid beat. Having a representative from UB in on the proceedings helps ensure a player doesn’t get browbeaten or bamboozled into taking a really bad deal, so this is definitely a positive step. Plus, it was geting on 4AM and I (along with several of the players, I think) were getting woozy.
So, congratulations to OUTLAWNYC1, DANTML, AND RIMMER27, who can say without fear of contradiction that they were still standing at the end of the opening event of the UltimateBet Online Championship. We have a $300+20 No-Limit Hold-Em event starting at 2:30pm ET and the $500+30 Heads-Up event at 5:30pm ET. That’s right, two UBOC events today (and two mini-UBOC tournaments as well), so don’t miss out.
Tags: h0, mark kroon, matt vengrin, P0ker H0, plattsburgh, plo w/rebuys, poker tournaments, pot-limit omaha, rebuys, ub tournaments, UBOC, ultimatebet online championships, ultimatebet tournaments
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