Poker Review

WSOP Blog 2009 Day 4

There are 2 tourneys today, both $2,500 but the afternoon one is six-handed so I opt for that. I bike ride for 1hr 20 mins in the gym, then lounge around the pool before heading off to the Rio at 4.30pm. Like a doughnut I find out this tourney is Limit! OMG I hate the game, so I decide to get a refund and play some cash at the Venetian.

There is a $5-$10 PLO that’ll do, so I sit with $5k. There are local guys and two German pros who I know. I can honestly say that my cards were so dead for about an hour and half that even I couldn’t find a raise. I decided not to panic as I have 5 or 6 hours to burn and ordered some food to eat table side (this is something I don’t normally do, I like to sit properly when I eat). I have been playing for nearly 3 hours and I am down to $3,350.

There is one local guy who raises everything that moves. When I pick up Ah Qh 5c 4c and raise in position 3, he pots me I think why not? I am going to represent AA-xx so I re-pot him. There is another guy in the middle who started the hand with $1,700. Now he’s all in and the original raiser moves all in with his $8,000 stack…oops! I have completely messed this up, but hey - I have to call now. Sure enough I river a heart for the nuts and win a $9k pot. Very nice “Raiser” I think, ha-ha.

10 minutes later I get a call from Devilfish wanting to go out. That was all I needed so I upped and went.

The Fish got a dance-floor table in Pure which is the club in Caesars Palace (nice place).

I met him and Michael Greco over there and in we went. We shared a table with a guy and his daughters who had a poker club in Montreal.

Well, seven half-litre bottles of Grey Goose later and I was all over the place (I hadn’t had a drink for 4 days). I will post a few of the pictures we took - the funniest was Devilfish dancing up on a podium to Lady Gaga’s poker face…….ha-ha brilliant!

The night is not entirely done yet, I got back to my hotel and remember stumbling through the casino floor trying to find the elevators. I stopped at a roulette table, where there was lots of noise going on. I pulled out $400 and put it on 8. The dealer says it’s $200 maximum, so I asked him: “Am I in Vegas or a sweet shop in Thornton Heath?” No one knew what the hell I was on about, but I moved $200 on to 10 and yes you’ve guessed it, 10 pops in. Luvvly jubbly, another $7k in the posh.

So although no poker at the Rio today I still showed another $10k or so profit after last nights excursions.

Night night from me.

Ian Frazer

WSOP Blog 2009 Day 3

Wow! Up early this morning, let’s get the gym out the way first.

On the bike doing a couple of 30 mins programmes (the gym here, by the way, is absolutely fantastic) and Roland De Wolfe comes in. “Just gonna bang out a quick mile on running machine” he says. He’s so funny, I love him, but he runs like a heavy weight boxer. We arrange to meet in 2 hours to go to the Rio.

I walk through the casino and see Roland playing Baccarat. I said, “Come on, we are going soon”. He agrees and asks to cash out. They hand him three white $5k chips, but then realise he owes $300 juice. “But I want the white chips” he cries. “So I offer him $300 cash just to get him the chip back so we could go. He says: “Don’t worry son, I will win it.” OMG, I didn’t want to hear that. So he bets $500 on bank. Six player results later and he’s ?16k in the hole chasing $300. Thank god the next one came bank - he got out of it! He said: “Okay, cash me in.” They added his chips up and he was a little short of another white chip because of the juice again. I said, “Well, you’re not going to do that again.” He looked at me like I was nuts and said: “Come on, it cant be bank again!” Ha ha ha, Roland kills me.

We leave, and I go to his room to borrow a razor. He is in one of the Rio’s penthouses - wow, what a gaff! The best hotel room I have ever been in. He gives me a razor, takes me into the sports room, fully equipped with American pool table, big screen etc, and then challenges me to $500 a game. Anybody who knows me won’t bother asking who won. (I have a table at home.)

Okay we are at the Rio and it’s the $2,000 NLH. I arrive at my table to find it is going to be the 3^rd one to be broken, so there is no time for image building here and I decide to crack on and try to build a quick stack, I figure I have two to three hours.

I go into attack mode raising and re-raising and after a funny couple of hours I have 9k chips. We get broken and on my new table I play very tight, the first hand I play is about 40 mins in there is a raise and 2 calls I am on the button with 3h 5h so I make a call too. The flop comes 4-6-7 with one heart. The original raiser bets the pot, and they all pass to me, and I flat call, hoping for a picture or an ace. (I figure he must have big pair and he will think I have a good draw because of my call.) I am going to get him so good! Turn brings a 9c although not ecstatic its still a good card for me as he can think it hasn’t hit me properly anyway. He bets out, I raise, he calls, and a 10 comes - he has 8-8. He bets I call and I am down to 1,800 chips. Luvvly!

The next round there is similar betting a raise and calls I am on button again and call with Kh 3h. The flop is 3 hearts. I check-raise all-in and the guy has Ah-Jh. Luvvly jubbly, out again!

The ending to this day gets better though as I head over to the Bellagio to catch their $1k tourney there is only 65 runners and I get to last 4 and chop the money I get $10k according to chips.

Off to bed and ready for Day 4.

WSOP Blog 2009 Day 3Wow! Up early this morning, let’s get the gym out the way first.On the bike doing a couple of 30 mins programmes (the gym her, by the way, is absolutely fantastic) and Roland De Wolfe comes in. “Just gonna bang out a quick mile on running machine” he says. He’s so [...]

More: continued here

WSOP Blog 2009 Day 4Well so far so good, I am up $30k and eager to play.There are 2 tourneys today, both $2,500 but the afternoon one is six-handed so I opt for that. I bike ride for 1hr 20 mins in the gym, then lounge around the pool before heading off to the Rio [...]

More: continued here

Matchroom Sport can announce the seven players set to take part in this year’s PartyPoker.com Premier League which commences at Penrith Leisure Centre on Thursday 3rd of September and concludes with the play-offs at Potters Leisure Resort, Hopton-on-Sea on the weekend of the 28th and 29th November.

Leading the way is defending champion and World No.1 Ronnie O’Sullivan who will be attempting to lift this title for an astonishing sixth consecutive season and ninth time overall.

The Essex-based ‘Rocket’ has made this Sky Sports-televised event his own in recent times, beating Mark Selby 7-2 in last year’s final, John Higgins 7-4 in 2007 and Jimmy White 7-0 in ’06.

World Champion Higgins will be returning to Premier League action in an attempt to halt O’Sullivan’s dominance and he will be joined by UK Champion and World Championship runner-up Shaun Murphy.

35 year-old Higgins was a winner of the Premier League ten years ago when he beat Jimmy White in Maidenhead and will be looking to have a good run after failing to qualify for the play-offs last year.

Murphy makes his second appearance in the event, having played in 2005, following a massive return to form over the past 12 months.

World No.8 Marco Fu is also a previous Premier League Champion when in a memorable weekend in May 2003, he toppled O’Sullivan 6-4 in the semi-finals before beating then World Champion Mark Williams 9-5 to land his first professional title.

The second overseas player in the line-up is Australia’s improving Neil Robertson, who bagged his third career ranking title last year when he won the inaugural Bahrain Snooker Championship.

Robertson had a torrid time of it on his only other Premier League outing in 2007 and will be looking to improve on that year’s showing.

While ‘legend’ is a term freely used in sport, it is hard to think of any other word when describing seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry.

The 40 year-old Scot has achieved everything there is to achieve in the game, several times over, and is still a very dangerous competitor. Hendry last won the League in 2004 but that will mean nothing when the action  gets underway.

Finally, the joker in the pack is Bristol teenager Judd Trump. The up-and-coming World No.30 qualified for the Premier League by winning the ultra-competitive Championship League Snooker. Hailed as one of snooker’s greatest ever prospects, Trump now gets his chance to see what he can do among the game’s elite.

Commented Matchroom Sport Chairman Barry Hearn, “I think this is very exciting line-up with a  diverse selection of top players competing.

“Of course, Ronnie will always be the man to beat in this event, but I feel anyone of the others has a chance of winning this title come the end of November.

“Some of the players have struggled with the 25 second shot clock but coping with that has always been one of O’Sullivan’s many strengths.

“The standard is high and I am looking forward to 12 nights of top class snooker in September, October and November this year.”

Now entering its 24th season, the PartyPoker.com Premier League Snooker is the world’s only major snooker tournament played to a league format. The field consists of seven of the very best players in the world and each player plays the others once over the best of six frames, making a total of 21 matches.

There are two points available for a win and a point for a 3 – 3 draw and following the round robin section of play, the top four players moved forward to the big money play-offs in December.

The total prize fund is in excess of ?200,000, and the money for the round-robin section will be dished out on a ‘frames won’ basis with ?1,000 awarded for each frame. In addition, there is a ‘Double Your Money’ bonus for a break of 100 or over of another ?1,000.

Successful players carry forward their bonuses to the play-offs where the serious money is up for grabs. The ?1,000 for a century bonus stays and the champion receives ?30,000, the runner-up takes home an additional ?15,000 and the beaten semi-finalists make an extra ?5,000 each.

The semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and the final is over 13 frames.

The event will be broadcast for over 48 hours LIVE coverage on Sky Sports in the UK and Matchroom Sport Television will produce 24 x 2 hour highlight programmes syndicated globally.

The Full Line-Up

Ronnie O’Sullivan - No.1

Shaun Murphy - No.3

John Higgins - No.4

Marco Fu - No.8

Neil Robertson - No.9

Stephen Hendry - No.10

Judd Trump - No.30

My plans for this trip are; arrive on 2nd June and play 3 x 6 handed events and any others I fancy if I get busted early, up until the 11th June when I need to get back in England. Return to Vegas on 24th June and stay until the end of main event or when I get busted. Well that’s the plan anyway!

I arrive in the lounge at Virgin where my mate Greco is having breakfast with a few other British pros, we have the standard, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and exchange a bit of banter about where everyone is staying and then head for the plane, I have booked Encore it is meant to be fantastic. I have booked to sit next to Grec’s thought we could have a good old chin wag about poker as I haven’t seen him for ages, wrong!

Boy can he sleep, I’ve watched 3 films and he’s snoring his head off (lucky sod). We are getting ready for landing and Grec’s asks “what you doing today” as we get there about 2pm and my response was well I think I will chill out at the hotel get some nice food and sleep so as I am ready for tomorrow’s tourney. “yeah your right so am I” he says. We all leave the airport and go our separate ways.

I check in to Encore wow what a gaff; I get asked would you like a tour of the hotel sir? Na just show me my room, after all I am going to chill, eat and sleep remember?

As soon as my bag is unpacked and I swallow nice chilled beer from fridge, I am off! Taxi to the Bellagio I remember there is a $1k tourney every day at 2pm with buy ins until 5ish.

I am like a kid in a sweet shop, you wouldn’t think I’ve been here more than 25 times.

I buy into the tourney look for my seat and low and behold on the next table Greco, ha-ha we have a good old chuckle and crack on. Well the tourney gets 84 runners, we both make final table, I win it $24k in the posh and Grec’s comes 5th what a result, luvvly jubbly.

It is now 4am, we are both at the Rio to buy in for the first tourneys we are playing, as mine starts in 8 hours, and there are whispers of tourneys being sold out.

I was more worried about not waking in time and missing registration.

Lets hope tomorrow is much of the same.

Ian Frazer