WPT Reno
Posted: 2008-04-01 16:16:29By: Debo34
I just arrived back home after spending 15 days playing poker in Reno, Nevada. The WPT stop in Reno is one of my favorites of the year. The Grand Sierra Resort is a decent hotel with tons of stuff to do outside of poker. Good restaurants, a movie theatre, bowling alleys, and an outdoor driving range make an easy get away from poker. Reno is also just a 6 hour drive from my house.
The goal of my trip was volume. Since I hadn't played much live poker so far this year I decided to head to Reno with the idea of playing everyday or until I got tired. The lower buy ins (200- 3000) are ideal for my bankroll and I can play pretty much everything I want here without getting dinged too bad.
My trip got off to a good start. I cashed 4 of the first 6 tournaments I played in. I was running pretty good, and thought I was playing well. The one disappointment was a tournament where I hit the final 10 with the chip lead, only to go out 10th when I lost a race for 1/3 of my chips, and then the very next hand lost the rest with KK vs. A9.
A fun highlight of the trip was a final table I made in a $400 event. The final 10 consisted of me and 5 friends. It was easy to put the friendship aside and play poker. What made it tough is that they are all really good players. In the end we finished 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th 7th, and 10th. My good friends Jason Stern and Derek Dix finished 2nd and 3rd, I ended up in 4th, and UB player Mike Foley aka V00d00chile finished 6th.
I was feeling great going into the $7700 main event. The field was small with around 260 players, and the structure was good. My table draw however wasn't great. Outside of 1 player who went busted in the first 2 hours my table was tough. Ted Forrest, Miami John, Gavin Smith, good friend and 2 time WSOP bracelet winner Pat Poels were all at the table.
The first few hours were a roller coaster for me. Somehow despite losing with AA two times, both to Gavin holding A6, and 36, and losing with KK to a flopped set of 4's to Ted I was still in the game. I went to dinner with 20k, which was 5k more than we started with. After dinner I started chipping up. I knocked Gavin out when my JJ held on a pre flop all in vs. his AJ. It didn't get easier from there as Gavin's empty seat was soon filled by Eli Elezra. I got to around 36k when I lost the majority of my chips on the following hand. With the blinds 300/600 there were 4 limpers in the pot, I was on the button holding 1010 and decided to limp as well. In a 7 way pot the flop came out 10 4 2 with 2 hearts. It was checked all the way around to a kid to my right named TJ, who was a UB qualifier. TJ had played great all day but for some reason lost his mind for a split second on this hand. TJ fired 1500 into the pot, I raised to 3500 and everyone else folded. TJ thought for maybe 2 seconds and said he was all in. Of course I had to call, and of course TJ had the hand I didn't want to see... a heart draw holding the k8 of hearts. When the Ace of hearts fell on the river I found myself down to around 10k, instead of raking 60k in chips it was back to the drawing board.
I was able to last 3 more hours then busted out around midnight when I made the 2nd nut flush against Ted Forrest who was of course holding the nuts. Overall I had a good trip, and felt like I played well and learned a lot.
Congrats to Pat Poels who had a good run with 6 final tables, including 9th place in the main event for 57k. How could I forget UB's own p0ker h0 who was involved in a 3 way chop in the 2k event worth nearly 40k. Way to go Mark!
Debo
