Hello fellow Ub’ers Already Missing Aruba!

Friday, October 23, 2009 - Shawn Rice

This past Trip to Aruba was my 7th straight year, For those of you that have not been and enjoy playing poker this is true paradise. I always look forward to seeing all the many friends, and people I work with and many of the people that I play online with. I decided that this year I really want to play more of the preliminary events this year as I rarely ever play those because I am in paradise and would rather do other non poker related stuff. I know my girlfriend was flying out later in the week for the final few days and the closing partys, So I wanted to play a little more live this year than previous years. I flew in about 10pm met up with a few friends and really wanted to take it easy that night, went and paid my way into the $540 for the following day so I knew I could not get wasted that night. I did play a little sit & go with Ho, Debo, Debo’s wife Erin, Mamma Ho and Susie Q, I think I chopped 2 of them and lost the last one and ended up in a cash game. Ho was ordering drinks and before I knew it I was double fisted drinking double crown and cokes and then Debo is ordering shots, so much for taking it easy in Aruba.

After the sit & go’s Ho jumped into a cash game and let me tell you he can liven up a cash game, ever pot was raised and reraised before the flop, I think I got lucky with AJ and beat AK for about a $900 pot, I was no way folding top pair in that game and I got lucky and hit. I won a little playing the cash game, I think Ho started out losing a few thousand and ended up killing them. He played his image so well and is a master in talking other players into do what he wants them to do.

I get to bed around 6am which is ok because my tourney does not start until 2pm. When I got to my table I could not have asked for a better table, everyone was limping and at early levels I don’t like to punish the limpers til the blinds get higher or the antes kick in, I like to let them know I am totally ok with them limping. within the first 2 rounds I had already doubled my 3k starting stack with no real risk. The players at my table were calling my raises with really wide ranges. I then look up and find that Ho, Jon Green , Debo and Mike “WiscoMurray” are all out in the 1st level. I must say I was really shocked to see that. I was a little pissed at myself because I forgot to ask Ho for the usual $500 last longer bet. I am about a 20 to one favorite when I make this bet, I think I have lost it once or twice in the many years we have made this bet, I always remind him of that time he beat me and he is always ready to try his luck again. I got out of the gate pretty quick and had some chips early but as it got down to the final table I was near last in chips, Only the final table got paid there was 95 players who started, I did make one move with 7s8s when I reraised the botton when I had about 14 times the big blind and he called my reraise all in with A 10 I out flopped him and doubled up to over 30x with a shot to win this thing.

It got down to 3 players, the final 3 deserved to be the final 3 in my opinion as my other two opponents were very skilled players, One of which being Frank “gator93″. Gator has won like well over 400k online in recent months and I know he wanted the win more than the 15k first prize, Frank raised 5x on the button 3 handed, small blind folded and I look down at my all time favorite hand, 2 black aces, I know if I reraise him here I will most likely get a fold on many hands in his range, so I decided like I had a little bit of a tough decision and just called, knowing he was going to continuation bet the flop, the flop come King high and 2 rags and to my shock he check it, the turn was another club making a possible flush draw, I bet into the flop and as I was putting chips in Frank yelled he was all In, I called he had raised with KcQc and had top pair and a flush draw to my to black aces, He bricked the river and I had a monster chip lead heads up, I had close to 200k in chips and my opponent had a little over 100K and we agreed to a chip chop and ended the night. The 13k was a great start for my drinking tab in Aruba. I took the next day off as I know I would play day 1b the following day. I spent lots of the next morning doing photo shoots and video interviews for UB and would be in the UB Icon suite checking up on my friends whom played day 1a, Later that night I went out to eat at a wonderful steak house in Aruba called El Gauchos with Frank. I took it very easy that night as I take a day before a major tourney very serious.

Day 1b seemed to be very stacked with lots of pros. I hated my table I had 2 world class players at my table , Gavin Smith along with Robert Mizrachi (”The Grinders” brother) and I knew if I made any mistake I would be punished. I didn’t forget to make my $500 last longer with Ho this time and that’s always sweet. He lasted til the beginning of the 2nd level. Ho did very well in Aruba last year making the final few tables before he blew up and gave Matt Brady a monster stack which Matt used to win the million dollar first prize.

I have played alot with Gavin over the last 5 or 6 years and not much with Robert, But I can tell you this , he is no prize to have at your table, He plays super and I totally respect his game. I got lucky in the 2nd level beating Tony from The Best Damn Poker Show season 2 with my AA on and A63 board and Tony holding 66, Those are just sick and Tong is a world class guy and hating to see him have to go out that way. Level 2 I was catching lots of cards and chipping up really well and had about 35k at one point from my 15k starting stack, I did get down below 8k at one point and finished the day around 13k. Day 2 was a bit of a grind as well and I had Eric Baldwin whom is from Madison WI, Who now lives in Las Vegas on my table, but luckily he was 2 seats to my right and he was sure torcher to may of the players he got involved with. I also got the chance to play with Tiffany Michelle who is now starting in this seasons Amazing Race on CBS, I used to work with Tiffany when I did lots of Radio for Bluff radio during the WSOP a couple of years back, It’s so good to see she is doing well in the poker and entertainment world, She is really a sweet lady. I ended day 3 with about 24k in chips and knew I would need to get a good start on day 3 to have a shot at this tourney that had 475 entrys.

On Day 3 I could not of got a worse table draw or seat position, two seats to my left of Robert Mizrachi and two seats to his left was Eric Baldwin, I did chip up to over 60k at one point for every bit of about 2 hands then I was on the button with 88 and Robert ended up with 99 and I was back down to around 30k, I was later in the big blind with about 13 or 14 times the big blind and it was raised from mid position from a guy who the day before called my UTG raise with Qh8h from the big blind when I flopped top set and he flopped a gutter and a flush draw we played a big pot and I doubled when he bricked out. So I am thinking he could have a big range but I know if I push and play for a 60k pot I am at best 50%, So I took in the value of just calling and seeing if I hit the flop and if I do I will give him some rope but checking and let him try and hang himslef. The flop come ace high , I checked it, he bet, I reraised him he called with AQ and GG me.

The following day I played a 1k buyin tourney and never really got ahould of any chips, I lasted til about 8 pm then when I busted I went and played the charity event UB put on for a local business that helps kids and familys in need. While playing the 1k tourney this lady on my left raised UTG with TT and gets called by 99 in late position and the button reraised with JT she and the other guy both call, the flop comes T high, she the the guy with JT get it all in and the board comes running JJ for her to lose her chips and double him up. Now a few minutes go by and she is still steaming and she reraised the guy whom had JT earlier and he calls half off his stack the flop comes JJ9 and she bets the flop and he calls making him all in and she flips over AA and he flips over Jc9c she screams out “God, I wanna kill a baby” I was in total shock hear a lady say this , right then and there I knew I wanted to bet she has never had a child, don’t worry river comes an ace and she busted him. I have heard many times over the years when you need to get lucky players will hollar “Just one time” but never had I heard that, But if it does work, I think poker players will say anything to make themselfs a little luckier.

The following day 10 of us had a shot at a $62,000 Mercedes, I was the second player knocked out when my TT ran into Ryan “papaGEORGIO’s JJ, Poker Ho was still playing and got heads up and ending up doing really well because they agreed to a chop and I had a small % of Ho which added to my drinking fund.

My girlfriend Amy fly in around 10pm that night, I went with my driver for the past 7 years named Henry and we picked her up and headed off to Phil Hellmuths private party ontop of the raddison in his suite. We just missed the Dan Band play, but the party was killer, check out many of the videos on youtube.com

The next night was the closing party and both Eric and Robert make the final table , Eric finishing 4th and ended up leading the Card Player of the Year points leader and Robert ended up in 2nd place , winning this year was Brandon Hall from Pa winning a little over three quarters of a million for his efferts., Thats a nice way to enjoy a trip in paradise.

The Dan Band was awesome as there were in Vegas when they played for our WSOP party a couple of years back, Many people got into the pool and it was really a ton of fun. The opening part rocked as well with tons of people in the pool and lets just say some where wearing less than others thanks to Phil’s bribes. and NO I was not offended in any way.

I hope you are all planning on next years Aruba trip, they just seem to get better and better, I missed seeing a few of you and hope this next year can be the best ever!

I am off to go help teach the November Nine Final Table Academy in Las vegas on Nov 6th, 7th and 8th Featuring poker instructors Phil Hellmuth, Greg Raymer, Bernard Lee, Mark Seif, Mark Kroon, Erica Schoenberg. Special Presentation by WSOP Commissioner, Jeffrey Pollack. Hope to see you there as well.

Proud UB Team Member
Shawn Rice

Tags: Aruba, Bernard Lee, best damn poker show 2, Bluff Radio, Debo, Eric Baldwin, Erica Schoenberg, Gavin Smith, greg raymer, jeffrey pollack, Jon Green, mark kroon, Mark Seif, matt brady, Mercedes, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, Robert Mizrachi, ShawnRice, The Amazing Race, The Dan Band, Tiffany "Tiffany M" Michelle, ub, UB Team, Vegas, wiscomurray, WSOP

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Good times in Vegas.

Monday, April 20, 2009 - Debo34

My Vegas trip was pretty short, just 5 days but was filled with nonstop action, and activities. The very first day I participated in Doyle Brunson’s 2nd annual beer pong tournament at hogs and heifers bar in downtown Vegas. UltimateBet was represented well with me, Scott Ian, p0ker h0, Tracy Scala, Hollywood Dave, and Wiscomurray all attending. I was teamed up with Scott for the tournament, which unfortunately for us was short lived. In the first round we played 2 bouncers from the bar, who by the way were defending champions and it showed. They started off hot and it looked like we were going to get destroyed. We actually made it close at the end and had a legitimate chance to win it if we had made just 2 more shots. Scott had never played the game before but he was a natural…no surprise that a rock star would be good at a drinking game. It was an awesome time, with a lot of cool people.

The next day I played the $500 6 max circuit event at Caesars. This tournament was a bit strange in the fact that for the first 6 hours of this tournament every single thing I did seemed to work out perfect. I picked up and had to show down so many big hands early, that a few hours in, it didn’t matter if I had cards or not. I won pot after pot building my stack from 8k to 36k with small pot after small pot with nothing big ever risked. Just when it seemed like I would cruise deep into this tournament, it all came crashing down in 1 big hand. With the blinds at 300/600 a fairly aggressive player made it 1800 from second position. I was on the button and looked down to see KK. The raiser had close to the same stack as was a very aggressive player after the flop even when he missed. The player directly behind me was a player who seemed like he was going broke soon.  He was sitting on 14k and I thought it was very likely he might squeeze here as well. He had all of his chips in the middle at least 6 times before this hand. So I decide to flat call and try to trap and win a big pot. The guy behind me immediately raised to 6200 of his 14k. When it folded back to the original raiser he thought for about 20 seconds before announcing he was all in. This became a monster pot for this time in the tournament. Part of me wanted to lay this hand down. Not because I thought I was behind, but because everything had gone right with very little risk so far. I really didn’t want to gamble for all of my chips at this point. It reminded me of some of the things I have heard Phil Hellmuth say in the past, that at the time I heard them I thought were absurd. He was talking about not wanting to get all his money in even though his hand was dominant because he knew he would find better spots with less risk. This all made sense to me at that particular point in time. I knew my hand was good but yet I wasn’t sure I wanted to call. I decided to make the call, and the guy who made it 6200 folds with almost half of his money in the pot. My KK was up against AK and I lost the hand when an ace came on the flop. He had me covered by 900 chips. I went to the rail, and he went to chip leader in the tournament with over 80k in chips. I can’t wait to discuss this hand with Phil next time we are together. I’ve never wanted to fold a hand that I knew was dominant so badly in my life. I know this sounds crazy, as it did to me before I was put in a spot where I felt like I had control of the table like I did that day.

The only good news that came about busting from this tournament is that I got to attend the UB dinner at Fix at Bellagio we had for our Bellagio super sat package winners. Miss C put on a great dinner party and we had a great time drinking and eating, and drinking some more as we got to chat with the winners. When we were finished there we all headed over to play the drunken 11pm tournament at Caesars. Luckily for me I was out in the first 20 minutes so I could get some rest for the next day.

The next day I went and played a $2500 satellite for the 25k WPT championship. As it turns out I really didn’t need to get sleep at all for this tournament as I was out within the first hour when twice I flopped top 2 pair, and twice got caught on the river. Grrrrr

My trip overall was an A+ for fun, and a D- for poker.  It’s hard to pay the bills with fun last time I checked, but I guess it could be worse. Besides, I’ll have 7 weeks in Vegas starting late May. I’m sure I will get my fill then.

Good Luck

Debo

Tags: Bellagio, doyle brunson, Fix, Hollywood Dave, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Scott Ian, Tracy "Fatcats" Scala, ultimatebet, wiscomurray, WPT Championship

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Last Man Standing

Saturday, January 17, 2009 - Gene Bromberg

When you play in one of our UBOC events you can win back your buy-in by knocking out one of our pros, who are easily identifiable because their screen names are in red. But if you checked the leaderboard last night you’d find that there was one bounty that went uncollected during UBOC Event #10. And that’s because Matt “WISCOMURRAY” Murray won the shorthanded Limit Hold-Em tournament last night in a back-and-forth scrum that saw players go from worst to first (and then back again) in a single hand.

Both THELTRAIN and BOOMBAT2 were brutally short coming into the final table and they were quickly escorted to the rail. THELTRAIN went first, committing the last of his chips with Qh-8d and getting called by HYERAN KIM’s Ah-10h. The board bricked out and THELTRAIN collected $1,890 for his sixth-place finish. BOOMBAT2 was next to visit the payout window, as he raised with Kd-3c and was called by YNGMANN4QUIKI. After the 3d-5h-2c flop BOOMBAT2 pushed in his last handful of chips. YNGMANN4QUIKI called to find that his As-Qh had been outflopped, but the Qd spiked on the turn and the Ah on the river for good measure and BOOMBAT2 was out in fifth, good for $2,340.

YNGMANN4QUIKI went out next, but not before a hand that rivaled Teddy KGB’s cold-decking of Mike McD at the begining of Rounders. After a raise and a call before the flop WISCOMURRAY and YNGMANN4QUIKI exchanged a series of raises and re-raises after a 5c-Qc-10d flop. The same happened after the Kd turned, and when the 8c fell on the river YNGMAN called one last bet from WISCO, who turned over Kc-Jc for the rivered flush (after the flopped open-ender/flush draw and the turned pair). YNGMANN4QUIKI flashed Kh-Ks for the turned set that didn’t hold up, and one hand later WISCOMURRAY finished YNGMANN4QUIKI off, hopefully the $2,790 he collected for finishing fourth provided some solace (maybe some Oreos would help as well).

Down to three-handed WISCOMURRAY, HYERAN KIM and Kevin “KICE32″ Iacafano took turns hammering away at each other. The blinds were large enough and the stacks small enough that losing a single hand could deal a crippling blow, and that’s what happened to KICE32. He lost a huge pot when WISCOMURRAY tabled a flopped set of threes and that left KICE32 with just $28K. But he tripled up on the next hand when, holding K-9, he flopped a King and turned a nine to get back in the game.

At one point HYERAN KIM seemed to be getting the best of it but he couldn’t deliver the knockout blow. There was one hand that might’ve been decisive–with the board showing the five through eight of diamonds HYERAN KIM bet and WISCOMURRAY called. HYERAN KIM showed the nine of diamonds for the straight flush, while WISCO flashed the Ace of diamonds for the faux-nut flush. WISCOMURRAY might’ve lost more on that hand, but he didn’t, and slowly the tide turned his way. He went on a run where he won five hands in a row, including the one that sent KICE32 out in third place. With WISCO holding 8d-9c, the flop came 8s-Ac-As, and after a bet and a call the turn brought the 9h. A bet, raise and re-raise left KICE32 with just $17K and that went in after the river brought the 8h. WISCOMURRAY showed his full house and when KICE32 couldn’t beat it he was our third-place finisher, good for a $3,780 payday.

The heads-up match started with WISCO holding a $760K to $140K chip lead over HYERAN KIM, and though KIM won seven of the ten heads-up hands (including one where he doubled-up with pocket Aces) he never made up much ground. After getting his stack up to over $300K HYERAN KIM lost a big hand when WISCOMURRAY turned a King for top pair, and on the next hand the two players exchanged a series of raises until KIM was left with just a few thousand chips. The flop came 10h-3h-Qs, the last of HYERAN KIM’s chips went in, and that’s when he learned that his Ah-9c were completly crushed by WISCO’s Ad-10c. The Kc on the turn gave HYERAN KIM hopes of a chop, but the river brought the 6c and the end of HYERAN KIM’s hopes. He won $5,454 for finishing as our runner-up, and Matt “WISCOMURRAY” Murray took home $9,000 and serious bragging rights within the Team UB roster for taking down a UBOC title.

Tags: kice32, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, ub, ub tournaments, UBOC, uboc events, uboc tournaments, ultimatebet, wiscomurray

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