The Bike, Ladies Night and the islands...
Hola...
Where to begin? I guess I'll start with "F U Joe
Sebok." Well, not really. Joe's a good kid and I
like him a lot, but he's pretty much responsible for
crushing my dreams at this year's Legends of Poker at
the Bike.
I went into this tournament feeling really good, as
the Bike is technically my "home turf." I couldn't
think of a better way to come off a lousy world series
by winning my first WPT title in my own backyard.
I was cruising along pretty good on day one, with
about 50,000 in chips. About three quarters of the
way through the day, I got moved to Joe's table, to
his right, is generally the case in poker when someone
busts you, he's the one person at the table who had me
covered. When the blinds were still as little as
200-400 I raised to 1,200 with pocket kings. For
those of you who've read my previous blogs, you'll
know I've had more kings shoved up my butt than Bobby
Fisher's last fifty opponents. Today was no
different.
Sebok reraises me to 4,500. Joe and I have become
pretty friendly as of late, and while nobody really
soft plays each other, I thought that following up
with another reraise to 13,500 would be enough to let
the kid know I had a hand. Nay.
"Seebs," as they call him, shoved in for the rest of
his 50k+ stack on me, and I was pretty sure I was
forced to call. If he had aces, he had aces. I
called. Turns out he only had one ace. Turns out one
was all he needed. And it turns out he only needed
one card to get there: the river. I later read on
Card Player that in the ever-growing poker slang Joe
gave to me what's known as a "Se-beat" (made famous by
Sebok for the number of bad beats he's taken over the
past few years) and on the river he actually
"Greensteined" me (catching an ace on the river, like
the title of Barry's book, to eliminate an opponent).
I'm now a part of poker slang history! Riveting.
My only wish was that Joe would take those chips and
win the damn thing! Unfortunately, his reverse
Se-beats only worked on poor old Kristy as he was bad
beat (again) to bubble the WPT TV final table (again)
in 7th place (again).
It was all good though, as I was going to have to
bring my ass through LA traffic once again and back to
the Bike that Friday for the invitation only WPT
Ladies Night!!! Owwwww!!!!! Ladies night! Two for
one drinks! No cover charge! Yeeeaaahhh!!!
Meeting in the ladies room!! Sorry, I turned into an actual lady for a second.
It was an honor to be invited to this year's Ladies Night. It was a tough
line-up, which featured Mimi Tran, Melissa "Red" Hayden", JJ Liu,
Pamela "Queen Kitty" Brunson and one of my toughest cash game poker foes, Linda Johnson.It was especially a treat because it was in LA
that my closest friends and family all got to be there and cheer me on.
I've had various friends and family members come watch
before, but never all at once, and oddly enough it was
the first time in my 16-year career that my mother had
ever come to watch my play poker. I guess that seems
odd to some people, but let me ask you this: How many
of your mothers come to your cublicles and watch you
type up TPS reports? None? Ok. So it's not so weird
then, is it?
I decided before play even started that I was going
just have fun. It's easy to say this, but it's a lot
more difficult to do it. Fortunately, JJ Liu made it
really easy on me by busting herself and doubling me
up on the first hand. I like to say it was on some
masterful play that I made, but she just went a little
crazy with top pair, when I had flopped a set, and
called off all her chips when I made a full house on
the river! I have to cut JJ some slack though,
because I think she gave birth literally 5 minutes before game time.
After that I played a little bit like a maniac. If
someone wanted to play, I was generally going to make
them play for most or all of their chips. I was like
one of those people who only watch poker on TV, so the
only move they know is "all-in." I shoved with some
pretty craptastic hands, and never got called, so
it'll be interesting to see what people laid down to
me on TV. I ended up losing one really big race to
Pam Brunson, but after battling my stack back up, I
won another big race against her, leaving my heads-up
with the seasoned vet: Linda Johnson. Good game to her.
During the break before the heads-up, I got some great
advice from my friend Amir Vahedi who was watching
from the rail. I won't say what the advice was, but
it involved the fact that I had a sizeable lead going
in. I was planning on utilizing this advice when on
something like the fourth hand Linda moved in on me.
I looked down and saw one king, then the other. I had
to look a second time, because I couldn't believe I
once again had kings in a spot like that. Of course,
I again had to call, but believe me, I was pretty
nervous. Would the Kings screw me again? Oh well.
Linda had Jacks, and this time the Kings held up. I
had a very calm, understated reaction for about the
first ten seconds. And then all of a sudden it hit
me. I had won, and most of the people I cared about
on this planet were there to see it. And I had won
with Kings no less! It was a very gratifying feeling.
Technically it is a World Poker Tour title, and while
I'm not going to stop until I win an open event, it's
a good start. Plus, the prize was a $25,000 seat to
the Championships in April. Sounds like a good one to
win.
This brings us to the islands. I'm going to keep it
brief. For the first time in my life I was having a
shitty time in the islands and I basically busted
myself in both tournaments. Turks and Caicos came
first. I limped in a five way pot with 5s-3s.The BB priced us all in with a smallish raise.The flop came 7-7-6, and I decided that when the 4 hit
the turn, that I had the nuts. In retrospect there
were more hands than I thought that had me beat, but
for some reason I didn't put my opponent Mike "The
Grinder" Mizrachi on any of them. I had gotten Grinder
to get it all in bad against me just an hour before,
so I thought I could get him to do it again. Turns
out the low end of a straight on a paired board wasn't
the best hand. In my own defense, he had the absolute
last one I would have thought – pocket 4's. But his
full house had me drawing dead before the river. After
talking to none other than…Joe Sebok…I realized that
check calling there wouldn't have been such a bad
move, but that there was no reason to go broke with
it.
So I did what all good gamblers do, and overpaid to
take a flight to Aruba to play the next tournament.
It was a funny plane ride. This particular flight was
full of UB and Full Tilt pros, and a bunch of internet
nerds. I swear the internet nerds actually say "gg"
and "brb" to each other in normal, every day
conversation. jk.
Aruba was pretty much the same story. This time there
was some drunken dude at my table who was giving
away chips like he was a marketing rep for Frito-Lay.
Unfortunately, this superstar had been raising my blinds
all night, and finally when I had AQ in the big blind,
I decided I was going to get this clown to call off
with something worse. I was half right. He called
off. But it wasn't with something worse. This time I
was up against Kings.
A few moments later, I realized there was only five
minutes left to the day, and that there really was no
reason for me to lurch was Ace-Queen there. I was
pretty upset with myself, and so I went and lit a
bunch of shit on fire. Ok, that didn't happen. I
didn't get to have some fun while I was in Aruba
though: Phil Hellmuth paid me a thousand bucks to
swim across the pool with my clothes on, and a few
nights later there was some classic Phil at a party in
his suite where he practically listed off what each
item cost in the room (pictured below – notice how
Phil features the bottle – "Did I mention it's
CRISTAL!?").
I'm currently basking in my victory of defeating a massive field of
FIVE runners at the Ladies Night, and watching the stock market go crazy until
the Holiday bonus tourney main event at the Commerce to warm up for the fifteen dimer at Bellagio in December. Until
then you can catch me playing my table on
Full Tilt Poker (check my website for how to sign up).
Other than that, check out Barry Greenstien and Joe
Sebok's new website…http://www.pokerroad.com/ ....Good stuff, fellas...
Obviously I'm not terribly pleased with the last few
tournaments overall, but as always, there's a lesson
to be leaned. I especially feel as if in the islands,
I busted myself. I've got to stop doing that. But
I'm not letting that take away from the afterglow of
Ladies Night. A good friend of mine has taught me
that I need to "savor the mini-victory." While Ladies
Night wasn't a huge payday, my family was there to see
it, and that made it anything but mini.
Cheers!!
Where to begin? I guess I'll start with "F U Joe
Sebok." Well, not really. Joe's a good kid and I
like him a lot, but he's pretty much responsible for
crushing my dreams at this year's Legends of Poker at
the Bike.
I went into this tournament feeling really good, as
the Bike is technically my "home turf." I couldn't
think of a better way to come off a lousy world series
by winning my first WPT title in my own backyard.
I was cruising along pretty good on day one, with
about 50,000 in chips. About three quarters of the
way through the day, I got moved to Joe's table, to
his right, is generally the case in poker when someone
busts you, he's the one person at the table who had me
covered. When the blinds were still as little as
200-400 I raised to 1,200 with pocket kings. For
those of you who've read my previous blogs, you'll
know I've had more kings shoved up my butt than Bobby
Fisher's last fifty opponents. Today was no
different.
Sebok reraises me to 4,500. Joe and I have become
pretty friendly as of late, and while nobody really
soft plays each other, I thought that following up
with another reraise to 13,500 would be enough to let
the kid know I had a hand. Nay.
"Seebs," as they call him, shoved in for the rest of
his 50k+ stack on me, and I was pretty sure I was
forced to call. If he had aces, he had aces. I
called. Turns out he only had one ace. Turns out one
was all he needed. And it turns out he only needed
one card to get there: the river. I later read on
Card Player that in the ever-growing poker slang Joe
gave to me what's known as a "Se-beat" (made famous by
Sebok for the number of bad beats he's taken over the
past few years) and on the river he actually
"Greensteined" me (catching an ace on the river, like
the title of Barry's book, to eliminate an opponent).
I'm now a part of poker slang history! Riveting.
My only wish was that Joe would take those chips and
win the damn thing! Unfortunately, his reverse
Se-beats only worked on poor old Kristy as he was bad
beat (again) to bubble the WPT TV final table (again)
in 7th place (again).
It was all good though, as I was going to have to
bring my ass through LA traffic once again and back to
the Bike that Friday for the invitation only WPT
Ladies Night!!! Owwwww!!!!! Ladies night! Two for
one drinks! No cover charge! Yeeeaaahhh!!!
Meeting in the ladies room!! Sorry, I turned into an actual lady for a second.
It was an honor to be invited to this year's Ladies Night. It was a tough
line-up, which featured Mimi Tran, Melissa "Red" Hayden", JJ Liu,
Pamela "Queen Kitty" Brunson and one of my toughest cash game poker foes, Linda Johnson.It was especially a treat because it was in LA
that my closest friends and family all got to be there and cheer me on.
I've had various friends and family members come watch
before, but never all at once, and oddly enough it was
the first time in my 16-year career that my mother had
ever come to watch my play poker. I guess that seems
odd to some people, but let me ask you this: How many
of your mothers come to your cublicles and watch you
type up TPS reports? None? Ok. So it's not so weird
then, is it?
I decided before play even started that I was going
just have fun. It's easy to say this, but it's a lot
more difficult to do it. Fortunately, JJ Liu made it
really easy on me by busting herself and doubling me
up on the first hand. I like to say it was on some
masterful play that I made, but she just went a little
crazy with top pair, when I had flopped a set, and
called off all her chips when I made a full house on
the river! I have to cut JJ some slack though,
because I think she gave birth literally 5 minutes before game time.
After that I played a little bit like a maniac. If
someone wanted to play, I was generally going to make
them play for most or all of their chips. I was like
one of those people who only watch poker on TV, so the
only move they know is "all-in." I shoved with some
pretty craptastic hands, and never got called, so
it'll be interesting to see what people laid down to
me on TV. I ended up losing one really big race to
Pam Brunson, but after battling my stack back up, I
won another big race against her, leaving my heads-up
with the seasoned vet: Linda Johnson. Good game to her.
During the break before the heads-up, I got some great
advice from my friend Amir Vahedi who was watching
from the rail. I won't say what the advice was, but
it involved the fact that I had a sizeable lead going
in. I was planning on utilizing this advice when on
something like the fourth hand Linda moved in on me.
I looked down and saw one king, then the other. I had
to look a second time, because I couldn't believe I
once again had kings in a spot like that. Of course,
I again had to call, but believe me, I was pretty
nervous. Would the Kings screw me again? Oh well.
Linda had Jacks, and this time the Kings held up. I
had a very calm, understated reaction for about the
first ten seconds. And then all of a sudden it hit
me. I had won, and most of the people I cared about
on this planet were there to see it. And I had won
with Kings no less! It was a very gratifying feeling.
Technically it is a World Poker Tour title, and while
I'm not going to stop until I win an open event, it's
a good start. Plus, the prize was a $25,000 seat to
the Championships in April. Sounds like a good one to
win.
This brings us to the islands. I'm going to keep it
brief. For the first time in my life I was having a
shitty time in the islands and I basically busted
myself in both tournaments. Turks and Caicos came
first. I limped in a five way pot with 5s-3s.The BB priced us all in with a smallish raise.The flop came 7-7-6, and I decided that when the 4 hit
the turn, that I had the nuts. In retrospect there
were more hands than I thought that had me beat, but
for some reason I didn't put my opponent Mike "The
Grinder" Mizrachi on any of them. I had gotten Grinder
to get it all in bad against me just an hour before,
so I thought I could get him to do it again. Turns
out the low end of a straight on a paired board wasn't
the best hand. In my own defense, he had the absolute
last one I would have thought – pocket 4's. But his
full house had me drawing dead before the river. After
talking to none other than…Joe Sebok…I realized that
check calling there wouldn't have been such a bad
move, but that there was no reason to go broke with
it.
So I did what all good gamblers do, and overpaid to
take a flight to Aruba to play the next tournament.
It was a funny plane ride. This particular flight was
full of UB and Full Tilt pros, and a bunch of internet
nerds. I swear the internet nerds actually say "gg"
and "brb" to each other in normal, every day
conversation. jk.
Aruba was pretty much the same story. This time there
was some drunken dude at my table who was giving
away chips like he was a marketing rep for Frito-Lay.
Unfortunately, this superstar had been raising my blinds
all night, and finally when I had AQ in the big blind,
I decided I was going to get this clown to call off
with something worse. I was half right. He called
off. But it wasn't with something worse. This time I
was up against Kings.
A few moments later, I realized there was only five
minutes left to the day, and that there really was no
reason for me to lurch was Ace-Queen there. I was
pretty upset with myself, and so I went and lit a
bunch of shit on fire. Ok, that didn't happen. I
didn't get to have some fun while I was in Aruba
though: Phil Hellmuth paid me a thousand bucks to
swim across the pool with my clothes on, and a few
nights later there was some classic Phil at a party in
his suite where he practically listed off what each
item cost in the room (pictured below – notice how
Phil features the bottle – "Did I mention it's
CRISTAL!?").
I'm currently basking in my victory of defeating a massive field of
FIVE runners at the Ladies Night, and watching the stock market go crazy until
the Holiday bonus tourney main event at the Commerce to warm up for the fifteen dimer at Bellagio in December. Until
then you can catch me playing my table on
Full Tilt Poker (check my website for how to sign up).
Other than that, check out Barry Greenstien and Joe
Sebok's new website…http://www.pokerroad.com/ ....Good stuff, fellas...
Obviously I'm not terribly pleased with the last few
tournaments overall, but as always, there's a lesson
to be leaned. I especially feel as if in the islands,
I busted myself. I've got to stop doing that. But
I'm not letting that take away from the afterglow of
Ladies Night. A good friend of mine has taught me
that I need to "savor the mini-victory." While Ladies
Night wasn't a huge payday, my family was there to see
it, and that made it anything but mini.
Cheers!!
posted by Kristy Gazes at 8:37 AM
0 comments
