Another Day in the Office - Part 3

By Neil Channing - June 2005

I decided on Sunday to knuckle down to winning a few tournament chips in the one-table satellites. After a while I had $1250 less than I started with and decided to knuckle down to winning some money in the late night tournament.

This is a cash tournament that seems to have settled down at around 280 players. Most of these people are not going to play in the World Series event at noon the following day as this one finishes at around 5.30am . Luckily for me I don't worry about sleeping and am a bit sick. The Camel tells me he saw a flyer about this describing the fast structure, the fact it was paid in cash, the large fields, it only costs $225 etc The final unique selling point they identified was that if you owe a lot of people, you can win this and no one will find out, as it finishes late, and the final is watched by one man and a dog.

The tournament has 20min rounds starting with 25/25 blinds and a 1000 stack. The introduction of antes makes it VERY fast. Luckily most of the players are not aware of this. I read a magazine article recently that said that the James Bond film "Licensed to Kill" was to be called "Licensed Revoked" until they found that 85% of Americans did not know what the word revoked meant. It shouldn't be a surprise then that most of them think KJ is a perfectly good hand to call a re-raise with.

The tournament progresses quite smoothly until we get 3-handed. One of the guys can play a bit. He wants us to know it though and keeps the contents of his pockets on the table "for comfort". It must be uncomfortable sitting with $20k and all Phil Ivey's (his pal) tournament entry tickets. (he just bought him in.) I raise 24k out of my 120k on the button (300 in play). He re-raises 80k all-in. I make the call with AJ which beats his A8. I then lose the heads-up and cop for $10,700.

Go for a bit of breakfast with Nick Gibson and Dave Barnes, who we persuade to stay for a few more days to play the short-handed tournament on Tuesday.

I get up pretty late on Monday and play some cash after I've lost $525 in a satellite (played a 50/50 for half the chips 4 handed). It's quite a fun 5/10 nlh game and I'm joking around with the guys at my end of the table. The guy at the far end is a total prick who is swearing and moaning whenever he loses a hand. He loses a big pot and looks like he's getting ready to go. I was thinking of stopping and so was my neighbour. We all have fun by getting up as soon as "the value" goes complaining that there is no point playing now.

The late night tourney becomes the early night tourney and I'm off to sleep.

For men sex and driving are generally regarded as two things we don't admit to doing badly. You can add short-handed hold 'em to that list. Everyone I've spoken to has been really looking forward to this new event. "It's my game" they all say. It seems nobody is campaigning for a 12 handed tournament boasting:

"I haven't got a move in my body. I'm totally granite, I just wait for aces me"

Surely they can't all be good at it. With 600+ setting out to play aggressively maybe a passive start might work. As it is when I get to my table two guys don't turn up for 20mins, and the four of us get stuck in to stealing their money.

We start with Torstein Iversen, who plays in London a lot and is a good guy, and Ferdy Bonyadi on our table but they soon both go. I start well and double up but lose a lot back with Ac7c on a flop of 5,8,7 with two clubs. I check-raised on the flop but the 8,7 moved in and I had to call. That was 2k gone, but I soon had it back and was playing 50% of the pots. Keith Lehr came and dominated the table playing very well, as did R andy Holland. He re-raised an under the gun raiser in a hand where I had AK suited in the BB. If I move in he must call and we don't know if the under the gun guy has a hand. I layed it down. I then got lucky busting out Stan Goldstein before the table broke.

I went to find Mel Judah and Mike Laing on my new table and clashed immediately with Mike. Those of you that know him will be thinking "Was he drinking?". Amazingly he was just on the coffee but you wouldn't have thought so when on a Jack high flop it went bet, raise, re-raise all-in, call. I had the old J3 and Mike J2. We split the pot and had a laugh. He talks more than I do, and when sober is great. He was unlucky when he got knocked out. At one point we looked ac ross the room at Minneapolis Jim who was playing in the Omaha final and was drinking away.(he's another drinking legend). Mike claimed that Jim was just an amateur and that he made himself a four to five drink favourite over him any time.

For two hours before dinner I battled away with a short-stack and got up to 9k with 87 players left. Robin Keston was in my line of sight and seemed to have a lot of chips. I also noticed during that two hours he was continually enjoying a massage by one of the team that work at the tournament. I think it was an attempt on the world record rubdown.

After dinner (fruit and a shower in the room) I went back and played one hand. Andrew Black (great guy from Ireland immortalised in the Billion Dollar Deal documentary, recently given up being a monk) raised from the button, I moved in from the blinds with AK and he called with QQ. I came 87th and 67 got paid. Nobody did anything wrong it was just annoying.

I then went off to play a one table satellite and was just thinking what a good line-up it looked when Greg Hopkins sat down. I've played with Greg a lot and think he's very underrated. Sure enough he started well and tripled up while I struggled early on. Luckily I hit a run of luck and won FOUR CONSECUTIVE even money chances to get a 60/40 lead heads-up. We chopped up the side bets and he immediately suggested splitting the 5k proportionately, so I got 3k.

A quick loss in the Late Night comp and I was off to watch Jeff in the limit omaha 8 or better final. He played very well in a very long final and got a little unlucky in a big hand before finishing 3rd for $77k. He was disappointed as first was 277 and second 177 but after a few days I hope he'll think of it as a good result. Just before bed I noticed that with 15 left in the shorthanded my 2% Dave Barnes was still going at the close of the days play.

Neil Channing is sponsored by Betusa.com

Click here for part 4