So, my will to blog my poker adventures has most definitely been very low for the past 6-8 months. I’m now at McCarran airport about to make my way home from this year’s WSOP trip and I haven’t blogged anything that’s happened this time around – truth to tell, I wasn’t massively motivated to do it in the “mornings” and certainly wasn’t going to do it before getting some sleep.
So, this is one long post, documenting the more memorable things from this year’s trip to the World Series of Poker.
Welcome to Vegas
My train to Gatwick was cancelled, I lost a credit card and my flight was delayed by several hours due to a faulty plane. Not running good so far. However, my cabbie for the ride from McCarran to Caesar’s reeled off a dozen of the most tasteless and disturbing Michael Jackson jokes you could ever hear, then supplemented his comedy routine with some full volume singing along to a Bocelli cd. He clearly has ambition. Sadly, he equally clearly has no talent. Bizarrely, I found this to be an excellent way to arrive – only in Vegas…
“I’m all-in. You call? You must have me…”
We played some cash at Imperial Palace, where the game is generally fairly soft. IP is a bit of a dive, so you get some degens and cheaper tourists there. One guy in particular, Jason, was most entertaining. He was a tall guy, with a vaguely Native American look to him, from NYC. He dusted off his stack around 5 times, and each time he’d shoved and been behind, and then gone to re-load.
He said the same thing each time:
“I’m all-in. You call? You must have me…”
5 times he re-loaded. 5 times he shoved. And 5 times someone had him.
It became something of catchphrase…
Equity vs Range
Bearded Mike texted that a player had tweeted that he had been busted by a donkey who had picked off his bluff. He said “he had no equity against my range”. This basically means that altho the villain of the piece had the best hand, that hand wasn’t big enough to beat the hand that our hero was representing. It’s a pretty disingenuous way to call a guy an idiot for making the right call. We liked that.
It became something of a catchphrase…
WSOP Donkey
That would be me by the way. In the $1500 NLHE event at the WSOP you get 4500 chips. I managed to lose 3000 of mine in one hand with the blinds at 25-25, which would be something to be proud of if it wasn’t so horrible. Cutting it short, I had QQ vs AJ on a J-high board with only the river to come, and 3 diamonds down.

So far I had called it down all the way. Sadly for me the river was another jack, and I called again anyway. I should have got away from it on the river and saved some chips coz it’s all he could have had, but really I should have raised on the turn or the flop and actually won the hand, I played it badly and I busted fairly early.
WSOP Legend
Bearded Mike had something of an epic day and very nearly rounded it off with a well-earned cash, which would have been awesome. However, he didn’t. Prize for outlasting 2000 other players? $0. On the other hand, having busted in inglorious fashion, I made a $100 from Mr. YouMustHaveMe at IP.
6-Max PLO in the Caesars Megastack
For me, this was a warzone. it was like playing poker in Baghdad with shells exploding everywhere and people running for cover. The bets were all “pot” and it was 3,4 and even 5-betting on most flops. Most of the players on my table had played online and continued that style here. We lost a player on the very first hand and the table behind me was down to 4 afte 2 minutes. I was blasted out after an hour or so. I think 9-handed the pace would have suited me better, but in this 6-max game you need to hit hard and hit early to build a massive stack so you can withstand all the action.
Cashing in a Rio Deepstack
It was only a min-cash, but it was the last tournament I played and I had failed to cash in any others, (a poor show), and it has some interesting elements to it.
1. Always protect your hand when you shove all-in from the 1-seat
I was doing ok in the early levels then I lost a fairly big pot and it left me down to 4.8k in chips with one hand to play before the first break. The 10-seat raised to 1200 and I shoved with 6d7d. Everyine folded really fast and the dealer scooped in their hands, and inadvertently scooped in my hand as well, right into the muck. SO all my chips are in the middle, and I have no cards. I hadn’t protected my hand, and really you should, so I thought I was actually going to be busted. The dealer hadn’t done it on purpose, and neither had I, but it would truly suck to be out of my last event in this way.
The floor was called.
The floorman ruled that 1200 of my stack should stay in the middle and I should get the rest back but be out of the hand, so I survived, but now I only had 3.6k at the break.
2. The Comeback
So, back after the break and shove with 33 vs QdTd and win. Up to around 8.k with ante’s and blinds.
The I’m in the bb with A4 and there are a few limpers so I shove, on the grounds that no-one can be that strong, and get called by KJ. The ace holds, I’m back above my starting stack. Soon I have around 22k, above average.
3. Pure Skill
The blinds go up real fast in this event. Suddenly a decent stack becomes a shoving stack, and the average stack was never really above 15 bb’s. I called a shove with AhTh and was up against QJ and held, up to 35k or so. Then I have KK and call a shove from a guy with AK. I win again. Big stack.
Amusingly, 2 of my double-ups came courtesy of the guy in the 10-seat who would probably have busted me before the break with my 6d7d hand, and I could easily have been ruled out of the tournament with the dealer incident.
Very proud of my play here, I got my chips in the middle and held up 4 out of 4, you can’t buy talent like that.
4. Card-dead
Being card-dead when the blinds are going up like a homesick angel is a good way to lose a stack in one of these events and my big-stack was blinded-and-ante’d down over a couple of hours. And suddenly I’m all-in again, this time with A9 vs A4, and once more I hold up.
5. Jamming into the Nuts
So for the first time in 2 or 3 hours I decide to actually play a hand of ‘poker’. It folds round to me in the small blind and I flat call with J9. The bb raises, and I decide to call and then jam the flop, a stop-and-go really. The flop hits, I jam. The bb has pocket aces. Well done me. Short again.
6. Trapping with an Underpair
Getting near the money but as usual I am dangerously short of chips. The 900+ filed has thinned out to just over 100, and 90 get paid. I find AQ, but it’s a mis-deal, then AK, and I just win the blinds. Then I get 88 and I get it all-in. I get called by a guy with QQ, which seams like bad news, but he doesn’t realize how skillfully I am trapping him. I hit the set on the turn, just as I planned, and once again I have a stack to play with. You can practice all you want, but trapping with a concealed soon-to-be set takes heart.
7. Penalty!
Sadly, altho I won that last hand I actually exposed my cards with two players still to act, (I hadn’t noticed they still had cards). They folded, but the floor was called and I had to sit out for a penalty of one complete round. This is pretty harsh, coz you still have to blind and ante, and it costs thousands of chips while you can’t play, or even remain in the playing area.
However, only Mike, (he of “Bearded Mike” fame), had realized the strategic advantage – not playing means I couldn’t get it all-in, and by the time I returned to the game we were in the money!
Even my penalty worked for me.
8. Sick Outdraw.
Eventually I get it in with Q8 v J9 and she makes a straight against me. How sick is that? I am the unluckiest player alive. #FML
She had no equity against my range.
9. Justice!
So I cashed. I took was escorted from the building by heavies wearing black suits and shades, carrying suitcases full of my huge bricks of cash.
Or perhaps not.
Playing Cash
I haven’t played cash for a long time, and when I did I didn’t enjoy it at all and was pretty bad at it. This time, however, I played some cash and felt more at home. I had 3 winning sessions out of 4 at IP, Venetian and Planet Hollywood. I didn’t do much in terms of reads etc, but I was very patient and exploited my big hands. This doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly become an expert cash player, but it’s a decent start and I’ll be keeping going with it.
The Madsen Check
People check in different ways – some tap the table, some make a circular “keep going” type motion, some say “check”. Playing cash at the Venetian, one guy used both hands to shoot the flop repeatedly, like a gunfighter. It looked kinda cool, but took a lot of effort, even the thumbs were working. A modified version of this is much better, one hand, one shot, like Michael Madsen in the first scene of Reservoir Dogs when he pretends to shoot Harvey Keitel. It’s now known as The Madsen Check.

Michael Madsen checks the flop
This whole paragraph shows how slow cash play can be, and the depths one has to go to stay interested when the cards are not being friendly.
Brutus
AK is “Big Slick”, 88 are the “Snowmen”, K5 is the “Hog Roast” and now 82 is “Brutus”. If you know the last words of Julius Caesar from Shakespeare’s play then this will make sense to you, otherwise don’t worry too much about it.
Conclusion
So, not the most successful trip I’ve ever had poker-wise, but a lot of fun as always, and some branching out with cash games that went pretty well – I’ll look to expand on that. I really only got going towards the end of the trip. Next years’ trip will be longer, with more WSOP events, so it will need a proper build-up and practice so I don’t throw away the early days getting used to playing again and donking off chips. There’s some good south coast UK stuff coming up I want to play in, so hopefully look to do well there.
Until next time…