I've been back over a week now, and as you may guess, I'm not in the November 9! For those that read the last post I was buzzing for it, as any poker player should be, especially those partaking in the Main for the 1st time. I was in Day 1c (Saturday) and 'cards went in the air' at midday, I was preregistered and all set. Party Poker had arranged shuttles for players at 11am, but being the baller I am, I decided to pie it off, and get a taxi at half past. I don't travel the loser cruiser at home, so i'm not going to on holiday! Joking! Just made more sense as Craig was coming with me. I turned up sat down at my table in the 'Tan' section of the Amazon room. I was early enough to be there whilst a couple of players were awarded their bracelets in a brief ceremony, bot not keen enough to be the first at the table. It looked good. All other tables around me were full, or had one or two spare seats. Ours only had 5 players! By the time the announcement of "shuffle up and deal" was announced (by Annie Duke i think) we were off at 50/100, 30,000 starting stacks, and half the table was empty. I had 2 older guys to my right, seat 1 being a 65+ year old called spike, I was seat 3, seat 4 was a 30-40 year old Australian, and seat 9 was a South African (I think) who was over 40. I was rubbing my hands. The first 'bad beat' came immediately though. Having had a little introduction with the rest of the table, I grew tired of hearing the dealer say the same joke to whoever was next to sit down, as he handed them their free pair of slipper coupon (they were an official sponsor) he'd say, "That must be the most expensive pair of slippers you've ever bought!" (implying the $10,000 buy-in was for the slippers). I raised a smile the first time, by the 6th time i reached for my ipod! It wasn't there! Great.. I'd left it in the Suite. Craig kindly offered to go back for it, but it seemed like too much hassle. (SPOILER ALERT! >>) This kind of set the tone for the rest of the day. It was lucky I had a pretty good fake laugh for when the other 4 or 5 players arrived at the table!
1st hand I got involved in was when it was folded to me on the button, I look down at AQs. The bb is not there, just the Aussie in the SB. I make it 250, he makes it 650, I call. I obviously didn't want to get into 4 or 5 betting wars this early, and because there was no BB, he could easily have a wide range and feel he has to protect it. Flop comes down 9TJ. He led around half pot, I called. Turn was a 3 he checked, I checked back, and the river was a 7. He again checked after a little thought, I repped it and bet between 1/2 pot and 2/3 pot knowing it'll get AK AQ and a couple of pair hands to fold. He folded and I was headed in the right direction.
The table started filling up, and what seemed like a nice easy table at first turned into a bit of a nightmare. Apestyles (John Van Fleet, a very strong established online player) sat down 3 to my left. An aggressive Asian lad sat on his left, and Jon Tabatabai (A Betfair Pro) sat on his left! Pretty rough! I had the advantage of knowing who they were though, and them thinking I was just some internet kid, who 'luckboxed' a package playing on some Euro site! (uh-humm!) I'd played with Tabatabai a little a year or 2 ago, and Apestyles a little more over the past 2 years. Both knew what they were doing.
The blind levels were 2 hours long, I was in heaven. Not much changed until the 1st break and I was sitting with 32k. I was happy how with it was going.
The table was now full playing 10 handed. The blinds had gone up to 100/200 and after whiffing flop after flop, and continuation bets failing to go through I had fell to 24.5k. It was annoying, but it happens. I was waiting for a nice rush, and to connect with a board or two. There were spots out there that could pay me off.
Seat 10 was new to the table, he hadn't said a word, and looked European to me, could have been wrong though. He hadn't been involved, and i had him down as tight. Under the gun i open JJ to 500, it folds to him on the button, and he 3bets me to 1400, the blinds pass and I flat it. Flop comes 8 hi, a good flop for my hand, but of course, I am not going to go spazzing out vs him, I check/call his C-bet. The turn is an Ace. Terrible card for me, I check and he fires out the same bet he did on the flop. I don't beat much of his range, so i took the safe route and let it go. That knocked me down to 20k and change.
I grinded back up to 27k after flopping a set of 2s on a super dry T42r board against Tabatabai, leading the flop, getting tricky and checking a J turn (felt I could only get 2 streets of value and it may allow him to try and take it away from me) which he checked back, I then fired a pot on a rag river. He snapped me off so quick, and his face was like, oh, I just got owned by the euro-donk haha. He probably had a medium pocket pair.
The rush didn't last long though, with blinds at 150/300 I got in a pretty sick spot. I was in the SB. UTG, a player I have yet mentioned made it 750, he was tight, and had not got out of line at all. I wasn't overly worried about playing pots with him, but he didn't seem to be the type to go and do anything stupid. It folds to me, and i have 33, and decide to call to set mine, i flick in the 600 extra, and the BB folds. The flop is a sexy AJ3. I check with the intention of check raising, he checks back. The turn comes a K I lead for 950 into 1800. He calls. The river is ugly. It comes another K making the board AJ3 K K. I have a full house, but its a super scary board. I lead the river for value, considering how passive he had played the hand so far. I was still confident I had the best hand and bet 2150 into 3700. I felt he would probably pay me with an Ace, definitely with KQ or QT maybe a hero call with JQ. He didn't call. He raised. He made it over 5k more. I was sick in my mouth a little bit. Considering the label i assigned him, competent, yet relatively tight I came to the conclusion that all I beat that is raising that river is A) a bluff, which vs him is pretty unlikely B) QK which I doubted he even raises. I folded with a big sigh. I was back down to 20k chips.
Not long after, I pick up AA UTG. 1st time i'd seen the aces all tournament, I bump it to 750, and receive calls from seats 8, 9 and 1, Tabatabai, the South African and Spike respectively. Tabatabai had been seeing a lot of flops, and had worked his stack up to 50k at this point. The flop spread 6s7s3h, I c-bet for half pot when checked to, 1500 into 3k, Tabatabai called, South African folded, and Spike called also. The turn was Th. Pretty bad card. 89 now got there, and it made the board even wetter with 2 flush draws out there. Spike checks, I feel I have to bet to protect my hand, as well as gather information, if I check it's going to be so hard to know where I am at if Tabtabai bets behind, and the river is a scare card. There is too many cards I hate to see. I bet again, this time for 3750. Tabatabai ponders for a minute, inside I just want him to fold. He grabs 3 chips and puts them out in front of him, 2x 5k chips and 1x 1k, 11k total. Spike folds, and it's back to me. A decision for my tournament life. And a pretty ugly one. I had under 15k left after my turn bet. I tried to assign him a range. In my opinion, his range here was 2 pairs, sets and combo draws. Spike was sitting on 35-40k to begin the hand, this is important, as if he is semi-bluffing a combo draw, he has to be prepared/worried for what Spike does behind him. I think the fact it was a $10k buy-in had a little bit of an influence on me, he definitely could have been playing on that fact too, eventually I folded. Would I have in a $500? I'm not too sure. Either way, in my view, it was yet another horrible spot that I ended up in. It seemed to be the trend for the day.
I was down to around 11k, things weren't going my way. I was never going to give up though, and confident with my short stack game, I planned on getting a double up, and grinding the rest of the day. My hopes were shot down soon after though. Blinds still at 150/300, Apestyles raised UTG to 750. Spike flatted, and I looked down at
on the button. Apestyles had been opening quite wide from all positions, and was definitely one of the more active at the table. Spike had played few pots, but I wasn't worried about playing post flop vs him, especially in position. I decided to squeeze, to try to take it down now, and also to take the lead in the hand. I made it 2250 on the button. Apestyles let it go quickly after the blinds did so, and the action was back to Spike, who counted out a call. The flop came 
. Super safe flop which I was going to C bet when checked to, knowing it would take the pot down a large percentage of the time. Spike checked, I bet 2375 and he called. He'd played pretty passively, I didn't sense any strength and was confident I could get him off of a lot of his range with a shove on pretty much any turn. It came down 
. Pretty good card to shove, his range would be a lot of mid pairs, considering how he flat/flatted preflop and then check called on a 6 high flop. He checked to me and I pushed my 6500 or so chips into the middle, and was all in. After 10 seconds or so he called. Oh dear. I tabled my AQ, and was drawing dead in my first WSOP main event. He had AK. On reflection I don't mind how I played my bust hand. I think it summed up the whole day up. He could have played the hand differently preflop and I wouldn't have lost a chip, he could have folded the flop and I would have won the pot, that didn't happen though, and the K turn gave him an easy call and sealed my fate. My last 11k in chips went to a very nice old gentleman, but one that had 0 chance of winning or even going deep in the event. I wished the table good luck, shook spikes hand and left. It took me a while to get over how badly it went. I was gutted that it turned out how it did. After having a cigarette outside to try to calm my frustration (Whilst i was playing there was a heavy rain shower, and I ended up sitting in a wet patch just to top it off!) I remembered that this was tournament poker. You can play perfectly for hours and it not be good enough. It won't be the last time I play that tournament, and I'm sure I will get to have a better crack at it in the future.
I didn't play any other tournaments after the Main Event, I decided to just enjoy the holiday. I arrived back in England on Wednesday 20th July and didn't play anything online until the following Monday. I had a friends wedding reception on the Friday and it was my 25th (QUARTER CENTURY!!) birthday on the Saturday. It was a great weekend all round spent with my girlfriend, friends and family. It was back to business on the Monday though.
I was keen to get back playing, it had been quite a while since I busted the WSOP main, and after a break it always seems to do my game the world of good. I tweeted this at the start of the day:
BenSpraggs Ben Spraggons
Back to the Day job, after a top birthday weekend. Usually ship after a break, so expecting a boom for the next week or so.
It took only 2 full sessions before I was back to winning tournaments. On Tuesday (26th July) I was up until 4:30am playing in the Party Poker $99rebuy $30,000 guaranteed (Super Monday). I was able to chip up around the money bubble, and put pressure on my opponents from then on, especially on the final table bubble. I went in to the final table 2/10, sat snug, and in no time it was 4 handed. When 4th eventually bust, I was left playing a very aggressive Brazillian, and an almost as agressive Russian. The play was very tough, and at one point we were all 'bang' even. The russian ended up running 88 into the KK of the Brazilian blind vs blind, and we were heads up. I had chipped up before their cooler, and going to heads up we were pretty even. The drop from 1st to second was $5000 with 1st getting $12,777 so it was very important to try to play my A game and get it won. I was able to win the pivotal pot, having called his 3bet preflop with Q9dd, flopping Q9x, he check called my bet, the turn was another Q, he again check called. And he then check called my river jam when it fell another Rag. He had JJ. Next hand it was all over when my Ax held vs his KT. I was very pleased to have closed it out, and to get straight back to winning ways.
Not much else has happened since I've been back, Just tryin to keep the grind going, and waiting to hear whats happening with the Full Tilt situation. My ranking on PocketFives.com is climbing by the week, mainly because US players are unable to play online, but I hope to keep it up and eventually break into the top 10 in the UK for online MTT players. The site also shows that i'm close to having $1million in online cashes. I'm confident that I have over $1million already, but some cashes from satellites and certain sites aren't tracked by Pocketfives, so the milestone is still not official.
Thats all for now, hope you enjoyed reading about my WSOP experience, good luck at the tables.
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