Another Day in the Office - Part 5

By Neil Channing - June 2005

I realised after an hour that I was never going to win the $2000 nlh playing so badly. My strategy had been all wrong from the start. With these large fields and small starting stacks everyone is playing it like a large field online comp, with a rush to get chips early or bust-out trying. What they are forgetting is that this tournaments have a one-hour clock. With a low starting stack relative to the blinds you have no implied odds and simply cannot play 7,8 suited and the like. You need to wait for a strong starting hand and get your money in to double up. I stupidly hadn't worked that out until half my stack had gone and became overwhelmed by the number of players. I found myself looking at the 1400 players and thinking I needed to get all the chips very quickly, instead of just concentrating on the players at my table and my cards.

My misery was ended with an AQ suited that ran into Kings after a couple of hours. I played pretty fast in the 2nd Chance tournament and busted early. These can be a good way to steam cheaply and that's what I was doing.

It was a bit early for bed on a Friday night and I saw Nick Gibson drinking away in a Nl Hold-'em cash game. It was short handed but there was plaent of laughing and joking going on so I settled in for a quick 8hrs. The maximum buy in was $1500 which I lost to Nick early on when he called my $150 reraise with QQ with the old K9. I loaded up again and got ready to gamble. A typical pot in this game was: Small blind $5, Big Blind $10, Straddle $20, call, call, all-in $1400, all pass, raiser shows AKoff. Nick seems to think  sold a load of chips to the guy next to me just before it broke but I can't remember. He reckons I won "about a grand", I thought I lost $400 and he was the one who was drinking.

The capped buy-in in this game is not too bad but generally these are unpopular with the professionals. I get talking to the guy next to me and he gives me the rundown on where the best cash games are around town. He tends to favour The Palms where you can sit with what you like. There is an oldish guy who sits in their $1,$2 no-limit game with $15000 every day. My neighbour asked him why he has such a ridiculously innappropriate amount for this game and got the reply:

"The chicks love it."

Maybe this has been Michael Arnold's strategy all along.

"King Richard" and Devilfish were cracking away on the next table playing $25/$50 PLO. This was a pretty fierce game with $10k pots fairly routine. Chufty was holding his own and him and Dave were chatting away. At one point Dave was telling Richard a story while riffling a large stack of $100 chips. The guy in the pot complained to the dealer that the chips in Dave's hand had come from the middle. An almighty row broke out with this guy accusing Dave of stealing. They checked the cameras, the chips were proved to be Dave's, and everyone carried on as if nothing had happened. 

I slept until late on Saturday and went to the Rio to meet The Camel and Asher Derei. Asher and his long-suffering English wife have rented a house here for the duration and were having a barbecue. We picked up Ben Akiva and drove to a lovely place with a nice pool and a large garden.

The occasion was officially Tomer Beinvenistu's birthday and, as well as some great cooking by Asher (BBQ-man's work), we enjoyed a great birthday cake. It was nice to be away from the Rio for a while although we did talk poker mostly. I was winding up David Levi (who maybe the Gary Bush of American Poker) for experiencing the most pain for the least gain so far. He has probably played the most hours of poker, getting in or close to the money in every event, without getting a decent prize. David was very upset that Betusa.com had not listed him in their outright betting on the event when almost all the other guests were listed. I told him he'd have to win something first.

Amir Vahedi turned up with his brother and made us laugh with some great stories. He has gone from the US Nipping Champion to a top star and good friend of Ben Affleck and J-Lo. He tells us a story of how Jennifer was sitting behind him while he played recently and two different people came up for his autograph ignoring her.

Tomer and his wife Joanne gave us a lift back to the Rio and I asked him about the fame thing. He says at least three times every day someone recognises him because of making the final table two years ago. At the airport recently he was almost mobbed. I guess he does live in Vegas though, and he might not be so famous in Wyoming, but it's still amazing to see the poker explosion over here.

The late night tournament again wasn't too late, although tonight I did it slightly differently by getting a load of chips before murdering them three tables out.

Sunday was a busy day as I had to get up to move to the Bellagio. For some reason the Gold Coast were full this week. This causes me a bit of rushing around before I head off to the $2000 Pot Limit Hold 'em which I'll tell you about next time.

Neil Channing is sponsored by Betusa.com

Click here for part 6