Back from Reno

Updated 3/32/06 8:00PM PST

Woah!! Reno was a blast. Despite only coming in 120th out of 592 players, I had the time of my life and met some pokah pros.

Day 1

I start off looking for my seat after getting all my info to the registrar. I see David "The Dragon" Phan in the payline looking to get his seat. I approach him and say "Hi David." He says hi back and shacks my hand and I wish him good luck as he heads the opposite direction. Wow!!

1st hour of the 1st day of the tourny was something I'd like to forget. Table 54; Seat 8. 1st bad hand of the day. Guy in middle position raises the pot to 3x the blind to 150. Guy next to him says "You must really like your hand" as I too noticed how excited and how wide his eyes were. It's folded to me and I have QQ. I take a flop and it looks like a good one on 9-7-3 (something like that) and is rainbow; I bet and he raises. I take a good 2 minutes and end up folded this bad boy. I asked him what he had and he says he had a big pair. I believe him. Do you guys like this fold?

Next crippling hand w/in the hour. My AK gets flushed out by an A4 and I am down to about 1500 chips of my original 10,000. Despite being a great favorite here, I played this hand terribly and is a big reason why I struggled.

I get moved to Table 14; Seat 2 and things don't start off well. A pretty aggressive table and now I am down to 900 chips. Hard to raise and re-raise with this low of chips even at the 75-150 blind levels. 20 hands at this table or so I finally get to act in an un-raised pot and look down at 8-5s in mid position. I push it all in and is folded around to the small blind who takes his time and stares me down for 2 mins or so. He finally folds and so does the BB. SB says he had a small pair. Phew. 2 hands later, I get dealt an AKs. UTG (Under-the-gun) raise and I push all in and its folded around. He shows his pckt 9s and my AK is a fitty-fitty. An Ace flops and it holds up!!

I make moves now with my ever small stack and get it up to 5000 at a break. Blinds and antes are moving up. 1st hand after a break I get a K-K dealt and raise 3x and am reraised a few seats down (the guy that folded the small pair earlier in the SB). I put the rest in and he called immediately. I say "you got aces" he says no to my relief and then says "you got kings" and is right on. It holds up and now I'm over 10K!!

I later get it to about 25K and then take a hit as my JJ gets cracked by a fatman on the short stack who put in his last 7K in PF w/KQ and hit a K on the turn. This fat guy was on a heater. He got me and cracked Joe Sebok, Barry Greenstein's son's Aces w/a set of 10s on the flop before I could get Joe's picture taken with him. The fatman (but was very nice and humble) would also take another pair of pocket 10s and crack J-J w/a runner-runner flush. Goodness!!

Another person at the same table who was on a heater was Kevin Song. This guy's style is much like Tuan Le's and so was his luck (for 3 days). He ended the day w/96K and had re-raised a couple of hands that I initially raised. My end day chip count was exactly 13,000. I survived Day 1 from 900 chips!!

Day 2

I am at the same seat and table but nobody from the previous day is there. Will this seat continue to be lucky? Well, I decided to take a stand earlier after one of the pros (1st name Jonathan. I can tell he was a pro; good poker face and Evelyn Eg came by and gave him a hug!! Also hung out w/pro JC Tran) raised on the cut-off. I get AQs in the BB and push all in. He counts his chips and stares me down. I have the "Jesus" stare at him. He finally calls. I ask him if he's got a pair and he turns A8s over. I hit a Queen and am up to almost 30K now!! Was shocked too cuz the dealer had been dealing a few bad beats at this table with one not long before where A6 cracked AJ.

To my surprise and delight/fear, John Juanda has been moved to our table 3 seats to my left!! Juanda has a decent chip stack and was actually table talking at our table which was not very common to see him do. We even crack remarks about my man Phil Hellmuth who was MIA in the tourny so it was ok to do that. Made it to the break and asked him if I could get a pic with him. He agreed as Hasan Habib walked by and we ask him to take it. He takes about 3 tries and finally gets it but its blurry as hell (will post later). No time to get another pic or to get one with Hasan as everybody makes a mad gold rush to the bathroom before the break is over!!

30 mins into the next round where blinds are 600-1200 with 100 antes. I had set up the 2 people to my immediate left with position raises the past 2 times around. They had more chips than me but I had the cahonnes to bet into them. This hand unfortunately finally ended my tourny run. It's folded around to me in the SB and I get those Queens again. I raise to 3400 and he immediately goes all in!! He has 60K and could have easily raised 3x-4x what I raised because he was only gonna get called by a hand that had him dominated. Good play but bad raise amount. I put him on a small pair or weak ace and call. He says "you got me" and flips over K4o. Here comes the "you got me" jinx as I see this nightmare flop of K-3-3. I see no help on the turn and the river is a "paint" but its another King and now my 28K or so is all gone and rewarded to this donkey hitting his 3 outer. Got to shake Juanda's hand again and gives me some kind remarks.

This is a long post and am surprised if you read all of it. I also attended the Finalt Table Tapping which I will write about later tonight or tomorrow. I will also get my pictures up. If you have a facebook account they are up there. I will try to post them here later as well.

Premium hand stats:

- JJ went 0/2: The all-in that I couldn't avoid cost me about 7K on day one. Also on Day 1 on an early hand, it went call-call and I popped it and 3 saw the flop w/a King hitting and the 1st caller bet leading to a fold. Loss was minimal in this case.

- QQ went 0/2: Wish I had Johnny Chan's luck with his fav hand of whores. Of course, I folded it early in the 1st hour w/the dude's eyes getting huge like Chris Tucker's and the obvious backbreaker all in versus K4o

- KK went 1/1: All in PF vs AK and it held up for about 5,300 on a double up.

- AA went 2/2: Wow, I actually thought this hand would bust me. 1st time I get this hand, was at the 2nd table I was at on the 1st day. I have about 11K - 12K. The UTG player (the fatman Doug before he caught his heater) raises the minimum. I and my neighbors have caught on this guy that when he raises huge, he has a mediocure hand of 2 overcards or a small pair and when he raises small, he has a monstrous hand. Knowing that, I think I'm out immediately. Then 2 seats from him, it's popped up again. It's folded around to me and I'm thinking I probably should fold before looking at my cards. Low and behold I get dealt "America Airlines," "The Weapons of Mass Destruction," pocket aces and do an acting job before I push. The fatman immediatelly calls (if I had QQ there, I'd muck) and we got the PartyPoker special: QQ (Fatman), KK, vs. AA. No paint on flop but the turn put a 4 flush for the QQ. River was irrelevant and I built my stack to about 30K.
Next AA, I limp UTG and I get a call from 2 seats away from my nemesis Kevin Song. Cuttoff or Button position calls and then reraised by the BB. Here we go again?! I push all in. 2 limpers fold and BB takes about 5 mins to make his decision and finally folds.