LA H0
Posted: 2008-02-29 10:20:55By: P0ker H0
I just got home from the WPT L.A. classic. It was a great time thanks to UB senting all of its online qualifiers to the LA Kings hockey gameThursday night, hanging out with some old fiends, and making some new ones. UB sure knows how to throw a party! Free food and drinks, and we got to meet a few of the hockey players when they came into the UB suite. It was a blast! I had the opportunity to meet and talk to one of our new on-line players, Scott Montgomery, aka - "R_A_Y" (a nice kid from Canada). He told me that this was his first live tournament. As we walked back to the UB suite, he grabbed a snowball off the zamboni and smashed it on my head! He said it was for "good luck ". As we laughed about it I had a strange feeling it might work. Well as I'm writing this, he is sitting at the final table along with UB's very own Phil Hellmuth playing for almost 2 million dollars. I guess the good luck was for him, not me!
One of he great things about UB is that they run satellites so the average guy can go play live at WPT events. Every night there are two $30 rebuys to win your way to the event and play in their super satellites. On Wednesday nights, they hold the $520 to win your $10,000 main event seat. That's how Scott and I got to LA. As a poker player this is really why I play, getting into the big live events and playing for millions of dollars!
After a long Day One with no real notable hands , I started Day Two with 30k, about an average stack. I normally love Day Twos because the blinds and antis are worth stealing . But this Day Two would be a little different because I had Johnny Chan sitting just to my left . Stealing might be a little harder today. The first level went really well , I had aces hold up against kings early then I built my stack up to around 67K. Near the middle of the 2nd level blinds were 300-600, with 100 antis. I was in 1st position with A-Q ss, I make it 1700 to go, JC calls, button calls, as does the small blind. The flop comes 3-5-10 all spades…Weeeeeeeeeeeeee! SB checks, I bet 3700, JC with 75k thinks for a bit and makes it 12,500, then the button pushes 34k, SB folds. Now I could smooth call here, but there is a ton in the pot, so I shove. JC folkds and the button stands up and says, "I know you have the flush but I can't fold." He flips over 10-10, a set. The turn, of course, is a 5, the boat. Now I'm back to around 30k instead of sitting nice with over $100K. A few hands later I get a table move and my new table wouldn't let me win a hand. I'm out. GG H0
Phil and Scott are still at the final table in LA. GL, and make UB proud.
Next stop- Reno for the WPT event in March. Hope to see you there…H0
