Yesterday was the satellites for the main event. At the time the event not only had its original 250 seats sold out, but apparently they were very much expecting to have 50 alternates and a full lock out. I decided to play one of the satellites, got deep, then failed to suck out AKs with 75o all in pre flop and missed out on my seat.

After the satellite I went back to my hotel room and found a PM from Timex, who said he’s three floors above me. I gave him a call and told him to swing by the room. I finally got to meet the man who (at current standing) ~$80,000 dollars I’ve lost. Whenever people up to this point had asked me about the WSOP and where I came up with the money I’d have the opportunity to say, totally lacking in sarcasm
“Yea well, I lost $61,000 of an 18 year olds money”
…pause
“but don’t worry, he’s not angry or anything.”
The expressions were worth the $61,000 alone, especially considering it wasn’t mine.

Timex and another 2+2’er (Frank, whose 2+2 name I can’t stop forgetting) came downstairs and we decided to hit the Venetian together. The casino is of course very similar to it’s Vegas sister casino, but the gaming floor is no immense it truly must be seen to believe. Rumor has it standing on one side of the main floor you can’t actually see to the other, and though I didn’t think to test it at the time I certainly wouldn’t have trouble believing it. Inside the casino is a river with gondola rides, not to mention theatres, luxury shopping, and all the assorted other amenities of a world class hotel.

The taxi line outside the Venetian looked at least half an hour long, so we elected to walk back. The Cotai strip is still heavily under construction, so the hotels are very much so spaced out. It will likely be 10-15 years before the strip is fully developed and looks something like Vegas, and at the moment walking from the Venetian to Grand Waldo (which according to some are “next to each other”) is a good 30 minute walk.

When we got back we went to the 2+2 meet up (which managed to attract five 2+2’ers in total) then hit the welcome party where we found several more. Earlier that day during the satellite I’d given the woman who does the Stars video blog interviews, Ali Lightman, who I’ve known from tournament poker in Australia, a quick interview. I told her that if she found me during the party I’d give her a truly ridiculous interview to remember. I think it speaks for itself pretty well. My bit is a little before half way through, select this link and choose video 5:
http://www.appt.com/news/apptlive/

Ali’s got a great sense of humor and loved the Chapelle show reference, and the party overall was pretty good for being in a loud club atmosphere mostly devoid of seating. I made sure not to go overboard on the alcohol since I needed to play the next day, then drank a couple glasses of water that night just to make sure.

I woke up today feeling refreshed and ready. I met a group of guys down a the lunch buffet to grab some food before the tournament, then headed down with a couple minutes to spare. It turned out that was largely unnecessary since the organizers spent half an hour giving speech’s about the event, then unleashed four Chinese dragons (so I thought, the Chinese guy next to me pointed out that they were in fact Lions) onto the crowd with a chorus of drums as they ran about through the rows of seats, bobbing, weaving and leaping into the air, with costumes that had moveable eyes and tongues just in case you needed an extra dash of mind [censored] in the morning.

Play gets underway somewhere around 1pm with our noon start time, and my table (which has 10 stacks dealt into it) contains Scotty Nguyen on my right, as well as my online friend Alex (Garage13.) We started with 10,000 in chips at 25/50 blinds.

Play at my table early was incredibly tight. Nobody gave up anything, and for the first few rounds there was maybe one or two flops per 10 hands. Scotty is up walking around for over 50% of hands, and when he’s seated spends a lot of time joking around. Of all the live pro’s out there, he’s very probably the most fun to have on a table. I actually got a few good hands to start off, but completely failed to get any action on them except maybe one call and a check fold post. Most my hands were very straight forward, and unfortunately didn’t get anywhere near enough hands to flat call people in position and make them uncomfortable post flop. I lost about 1500 chips on a K high flush draw in a multi way board that missed and an AKs that got 3 bet pre flop and had to fold to the C bet on the flop when my first interesting hand came up.

Villain in the hand was a young German kid who for some reason was dressed like a very much toned down lil’holdem. He had three bet one of my raises earlier when I had AKs and lead a QT7 flop that I folded to. I had a fairly agro image, mostly the result of having some good hands.
Effective stacks: ~8500. Blinds 25/50, I hold AsQs in MP1.
Preflop: Folds to me, I raise to 150, button (German) calls, SB calls, BB (never showed) folds.
Flop: 9s 8c 7s
SB checks, I bet 350, button calls, SB folds.
Turn: 2c
I check, button checks.
River: 6s
I lead 1250 hoping if he has the bottom straight he won’t fold, and if he has the top straight he’ll make a very bad committing raise. Instead he folds.

The interesting hand came up between Scotty and I, as well as a very straight forward player behind me. Blinds 50/100, effective stacks about 9000. I hold 44.
Preflop: Folds to Scotty in MP2, Scotty raises to 325, 1 fold, I call, CO thinks about folding for a bit then elects to call, 3 folds.
Flop: Ah 7d 5d
Scotty checks. I’m pretty sure CO wasn’t thinking about calling with an A pre flop since it seems more automatic unless he has a weaker one. I decide to lead 700. CO quickly folds and Scotty check raises to 2400. I fold.

Things were quiet for some time and I continued to get good starting hands that couldn’t get action. At 100/200 I finally had an interesting hand develop:
My stack: ~9000
SB: ~7000
I hold Ad9d in the BB.
Preflop: Folds to SB, SB completes, I raise to 600, SB calls. SB is a 30ish Asian guy from Hong Kong who seems mostly straight forward though is a bit more TAG than most of the newer players.
Flop: Ah 7c 5d
SB leads 1000. I call.
Turn: 7d
SB leads 3000. I go into the tank. Leading this flop and betting so large by the SB has really been unlike him so far, but I’m almost 100% positive he’s raising AJ+ here pre flop. I think the only A he shows up with that beats me here is AT, and if that’s the case I’ll suck him out a good % of the time anyway. I look over at his stack and find he’s left himself with about 2400, and move in. He taps the table and folds.

The very next hand I get involved again. The UTG player is a young Australian who seems tight and decent but is more so a live cash games player. I hold AKo in the SB.
His stack: ~11k
My stack: ~14k
Preflop: UTG raises to 525 (he wasn’t opening too much, especially not in EP) folds to me in the SB,I call, BB folds.
Flop: Kh 8c 4s
I check, UTG bets 600, I call.
Turn: 6c
I lead 1600, he thinks it over and calls.
River: 7s
I lead 2600, again he thinks and calls, then tables AKo. Fair enough. I think in live that line gets more value then going after him on the flop, since he’ll always fold without a K on the flop and often check behind on the turn without one.

A few hands later a hand develops with Scotty Nguyen. Blinds 100/200
My stack: ~13.5k
His stack: ~15k
Scotty has been mixing it up a fair bit, open limping pre flop, raising 3X, raising 4X etc. He has yet to min raise. I hold 8c Tc
Pre flop: Folds to Scotty in MP, he raises to 400, 1 fold, I call with, guy behind me calls, folds to SB, he calls, BB (never showed up) folds.
Flop: 2s Td Qd
Everyone checks around. The SB seems disinterested and the player behind me is very straight forward and would always bet here with some sort of hand.
Turn: 7s
SB checks. Scotty starts laughing and bets 1600. I can’t figure out one hand in his range that a good player would check on this board into 3 players that beats me, except maybe something like JTs. For the most part I think he just sees two players that are always folding, and since he knows I’m agro mostly thinks I’ll be betting my decent hands on the flop. I call, and both players behind fold.
River: Th
Scotty checks. I bet 3000. After about 3 seconds he check min raises to 6000. Oh god this is so gross. I’ve seen Scotty 4 bet pre flop with 83o in the main event and pull some sick moves, but he’s also totally sober so far today and hasn’t really been getting out of line. He seems capable of putting me on a missed draw and trying to raise me off it with some missed hand of his own, and I’m not sure how much credit he gives me for a T. I call and he quickly tables 22.
“Haha!! All you have to do is check to them Baaaaaaby!!”
I rip my wallet out of my pocket and open it up.
“Hey Scotty you want what I got left in here as long as I’m gonna pay you off all day?”
“You know it baaaaby! Hahaha!”

After that I have to hang mostly tight due to my stack size and fail to get a lot of good hands. I flat call my friend Alex with KK once and jam over his flop bet on a 39sJs board and he quickly folds 88. Outside that I try to take advantage of the players stacks who never showed up, but the SB’s and buttons in front of those stacks act difficult by flat calling and 3 betting me with a decent frequency.

My stack has dwindled to about ~4200 at 100/200 with a 25 ante when I peer down at 44 in the BB. I have yet to three bet anyone pre flop. The player on the HJ is a middle aged Australian guy who seems to open at least once a round in LP and always raises a full 4X. It folds to him and he makes it 800. It folds to me and I jam in knowing he’ll snap fold 77 and down, and maybe even 88. He thinks it over for a moment, asks how much it is, looks over at my stack, and says “okay I call” then tables JJ. My 44 fails to suck out and my tournament is over.

Ali Lightman catches me as I walk away and says we have to do another interview (at this point it looks like it hasn’t been uploaded yet since the internet here is really slow.) When I have a link I’ll put it in the thread or next trip report, but basically I stood there and told her I was very shocked to find out I was, in fact, not one of the badest mother [censored] of all time, and that I’d be in my room crying and eating ice cream.

It was a strange tournament overall, and pre flop I really did run like god. My pre flop hands included; AA twice, KK twice, QQ once, 99 once, AKo once, AKs once, Aqs, all in the span of about 3 hours.

After I bust I found both Timex and Frank have long since busted, so we find Tufat and go over to a local Korean BBQ. I come back to find Bondgirl still in with Elky sitting on her left with a massive stack. She tells me some of her hands and it sounds like she’s played very well all day.

When play ends for the day she's got 29,800, good for about 70% of the average and has lucked out with a really great table draw for the next day. The entire day tons of people kept coming over to tell her how huge it would be if she won and how enormous her endorsements would be. The fact is, as a trilingual attractive Asian girl who was born in China and raised in Australia, she’s got huge marketing potential. The annoying part is figuring out which guys come over with legitimate goals for everyone to make money, and which are Captain Tom’s in wait. I’m mostly staying out of it and just hoping she runs super good and can buy me a balla ass house and Xbox room. Gogogogogogo Bondgirl.

Authors Note: This first trip report doesn’t actually contain any poker, as none will start until tomorrow. However, it will serve to set up the rest of the series, which will all follow the tournament and happenings here in Macau. If that’s not your thing though, then skip this one.

The Venetian Macau sits outside my hotel window, an enormous gold and tan monolith with no competition for dominating the skyline. Macau has become the world’s largest gaming destination, at least in terms of monetary turn over. Until 1999 Macau was owned and run by the Portuguese, who eventually gave it back to mainland China, tired with dealing of the triad infested island.

Macau is like Las Vegas if Mao Tse Dung and John Gotti took turns vomiting on it. Up until 1999 the Triad influence was so heavy and suffocating there was little room for progress. When the Chinese took over they managed to make the Triads practically disappear with their strict laws and enormous punishments for criminals. In the Chinese justice system, when a man is executed by gun shot his family is sent a bill for the bullet. The histories are somewhat similar, the US government did away with the mafia in Vegas during the 80’s and brought in the corporations, as the Chinese have done now. The growth as a result is startling. The Venetian outside my window is the single largest building in all of Asia, and the second largest in the entire world (the first being an aircraft factory), dwarfing its sister casino in Vegas.

I arrived last night in the early evening. My flight from Melbourne to Sydney was delayed by an hour and a half, and with the check in for my Sydney to Macau flight closing 40 minutes before the flight when Bondgirl and I arrived in Sydney we had mere minutes to sprint to a taxi and then to our terminal. She went first to hold off the counter lady, who wanted to turn us away until a higher up came over and decided to give us a pass. The nine hour flight was uneventful, I switched off between sleeping and playing my Nintendo DS, with some occasional reading.

The Grand Waldo is only a five minute cab ride from the airport, with only the gargantuan Venetian blocking our path. The hotel looks kind of tacky on the outside, but on the inside is actually quite clean and classy looking. The rooms are comfortable but by no means huge and the restaurants in the hotel are quite nice. We spent our first evening at dinner and drinks with friends, talking about how many are expected for the events. It appears the main event will lock out at 300, with 50 of those players being alternates. Estimates for the 15k high rollers event are around 40-60 at the moment, but more and more big name players are showing up, supposedly attracting more and more recreational gamblers.

I woke up this morning after spending nearly 11 hours in bed. I went down to the buffet and found friends, who discussed going into ‘Macau’. As it turns out, Macau (as most people think of it) is actually broken into three parts, Macau, Taipa, and Coloane. The Grand Waldo is situated in Taipa, with Macau being a 10 minute cab ride away, over one of three long white bridges. After breakfeast this morning my friends and I headed towards downtown Macau, a skyline full of casinos old and new. The skyline must be seen to be believed, as all the casinos are jammed into one centralized area, with an architectural style totally separate from what we’re used to in Vegas, yet still glittering and gaudy like it’s American counterpart.

I lived in China for six months. I’m used to the cab drivers who veer and steer like drunken monkeys despite only the front seats having a seat belt. The roads are nowhere nearly as insane as Shanghai, where the drivers would sooner run you over than risk being five seconds late to their destination.

Downtown Macau stinks. The air is polluted and dirty like the banners for whores that litter the streets. Too much time outside leaves one with a hoarse and dry feeling in the back of your throat, with coughing and water being the only recourse. The air smells foul, and feels heavy despite little humidity.

My friends wanted to go shopping, but my friend Darren and I began tiring of the air. I asked Darren (who won a package on Stars into the main) if he wanted me to spend some time coaching him while our girlfriends shopped. We headed back to the Grand Waldo and spent two hours in front of the computer discussing stack sizes, bet sizes, and shoving ranges. When our girlfriends returned they asked about going to dinner, so we decided on the Venetian. As we headed downstairs we ran into Ricky and Eva, who are helping Elton (Ricky’s friend and Eva’s brother) to organize the event. They suggested going to dinner back in Macau. Darren suggested a place with a guy who serves Tea like an extra from an Ang Lee movie, whipping his long barreled tea pot around like a ninja on ecstasy.

“Hey Tony, wanna go to the ‘race course’ after dinner?” Ricky asked.
They’d mentioned it the night before. Apparently the done up whores walk in a lap around this race course waiting for Johns to approach them, and as long as they don’t just stand there they can’t be kicked out for loitering by the security guards, who are everywhere in Macau. In fact, upon entering any casino floor, you have to walk through a metal detector.
“[censored] yea, let’s see the race course.”

I had imagined a literal race course, perhaps a small dog track where the men sit in stands alternating between waving their bet slips in the air and waving over prostitutes. I guess I took it too literally. The race course turned out to be a circle of shops and restaurants in a downtown casino, where dozens of done up whores walked the circle over and over making eyes at you while Johns sat around arguing with them over prices and what they can get.

The last time I was in a whore house was nearly three years ago in Melbourne, only a couple weeks after having arrived again. Myself, Damon and Charlie had gotten boozed up at Crown casino, then wanted to show me where they spend their free time. The girls were brought in a row and presented by the manager, giving a name and a place of origin. Charlie whipped out a wad of money
“Which one do you want Tony?”
“Whores aren’t my thing Charlie.”
“Too bad, you are getting laid tonight.”
“I told you, not interested, not my thing.”
Charlie stiffened, then in an increased tone repeated.
“You are getting laid tonight my friend.”
Half drunk and annoyed with his stubbornness, I grabbed Charlie stern by the shirt and stared him intently in the eyes.
”Their not my [censored] thing Charlie.”
Despite having nearly a foot in height and 40 pounds on him, Charlie was not intimidated. Quote the Charlie
“You are getting laid tonight my friend.”
He was not to be deterred. I needed a diplomatic solution that didn’t make me look elitist. I reached into my pocket, ripped out my wallet, and grabbed the $120 dollars required for 30 minutes. I walked over to the manager and jammed it into his hand.
“Number 3, for my short friend over there. You’re going upstairs Charlie.”
Charlie didn’t refuse, while I sat downstairs waiting in the lounge with Damon, who couldn’t find a girl he liked.

Some men see a moral dilemma in paying women for sex. I see a mathematical one. The fact is, if you break down that wall, if you go there once, you’re not going to stop. Paying for sex can be a difficult habit to break, and there’s a good reason for it, if you’re not interested in much outside sex it makes perfect mathematical sense. Watch this:

Spending a night with a Macau hooker runs at 500 HK a night. That works out to about $60 USD. It takes as long or as short as you like, but the finding of a woman and negotiation of a price takes only minutes. Every poker player knows time is money. The time sacrifice with a hooker is next to nothing, and the total monetary expenditure (in this case) is $60.

Now, what about with a normal woman? There’s no concrete cost, but most men can agree it’ll end up being larger than $60 dollars. Even if you don’t pay anything for her, the money you spend in activities with her (drinks, dinner, movie, whatever) will likely amount to over $60. But what about success rate? No guy has a 100% success rate, and normal guys who have some level of connection with a woman might bat around .300, about 30%. For some this will be somewhat higher, for many substantially lower. Now, how many hours will it take to get a normal woman in bed? Again, we can’t be concrete, but say you spend a night out with friends or together or whatever, having that number be in multiple hours is of course quite common. Let’s put an average at 3. In my case an hour of my time is worth about ~$150 USD, depending on how many tables I’m playing. Look how the numbers break down:
Prostitute:
Time (opportunity) cost: ~5 minutes ($7.50)
Monetary cost: ~$60
Success rate: 100%
Average cost for sex: $67.50

Normal woman:
Time (opportunity) cost: ~3 hours ($450)
Monetary Cost: >$60
Success rate: 30%
Average cost for sex: ~$1,480

End result: On average, cost with a woman, per sexual encounter costs you (well, in this case, me) over $1,400 more with the normal woman. You’ll also get to do whatever you want with no consideration as to your performance. Then again, if you’re after something more, this is all pretty useless, isn’t it?

We headed over to the Wynn Macau after dinner to watch the fountain show. It was no Bellagio, but for Macau it was nice enough. We went inside the Wynn and found a starbucks. Over coffee Ricky peered over the table at me with a glimmer in his eye
“Bond my friend, I think it’s time for some squeezing.”
I smashed my hand down on the table
“[censored] yea! Let’s squeeze some cards.”

Baccarat is to Macau what every other form of gambling is to Las Vegas, it’s everywhere, in escapable. I have little experience with the game outside watching the high rolling degenerates play for tens of thousands a hand in the Crown Mahogany room while I smoke a large cigar and laugh while mooching as much free alcohol as possible. I vaguely knew the rules of the game, but was mostly interested for my potential to squeeze and destroy cards while shouting “PICTCHA!” and “FO SIDE!”

Darren, Ricky and I strolled over to the lowest stakes table we could find (100 HK dollars minimum bet, about 12 USD) and I borrowed 1000 off Ricky. I began shuffling my chips on the felt while the cards were being dealt, and the floor woman came over and lectured me in Chinese.

Darren was given the option to place the cut card on the new deal. He slide the card once along the side of the eight deck shoe, then slide it back another time.
“NO! One time only!” shouted both the dealer and the floor woman.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Sorry about that.”
As he finished his sentence he raised up the cut card and slammed dramatically into the deck. The card cracked then exploded into pieces onto the felt, entirely by accident. The floor woman looked over at Darren like he’d just stabbed someone and the other players looked at him with pure annoyance and contempt. The scene set me into a fit of laughter, nearly causing me to fall out of my chair. The players then looked at me in annoyance, not understanding what I found amusing in the delay of gambling. Their queer looks only resulted in my laughing harder at them. It took me five minutes to get over it, and ten to get a new cut card.

I spewed my 1000 down to 100, and threw my last bet on the felt. I played banker and banker only, since it’s something like 1% better than player over the long run. I managed to run that 100 back up to 900, and when it looks like I’m about to get out of the whole a new player was dealt in, a grungy looking man of perhaps 50. He played against me on his first hand, throwing 100 on player. He peered down at his cards, then looked up with disgust and threw them face down in annoyance towards the center of the table. The dealer then turned his hand face up, a jack and 9 for a nearly unbeatable natural nine. That mother [censored] slow rolled me, and I wasn’t going to forget it. My stack hung around 700 for a while, deviating within a few hundred each way but never really making any progress. The grungy man only seemed to play one in five hands, waiting for the stars to line up in whatever pattern he imagined inanimate objects might possibly have. Every time he entered a hand as player I made sure I had the largest bet out on banker in hopes of getting an opportunity to slow roll him, but he always won.

After an hour of this annoyance my stack hung at 900. A number of other players had joined the table and I’d yet to take my vengeance on the slow roller. The entire table lined up their bets on player, and I threw my 200 out on banker. The dealer dealt the player cards over to their largest better, and he revealed a jack and ace, for a total of 1. It looked great for me. I crumpled my first card in half, then halve it again in fourths, and the dealer looked at me like a lunatic. I unwrapped my card and revealed a 2, and the second card was a queen, giving me a 2. The dealer slid the next card over to the player side, and he flipped up another 2 for a total of 3. I needed an ace to tie, or a 2-7 to win. I looked over at the slow roller and made a mental prayer.

The dealer slid me my last card and I crumpled it up excruciatingly slow. I peered down at a 7, way more strength than I ever needed. I stared at the card for a while and feigned annoyance and disappointment then in an instant tabled the card face up, collected my bet and left.

We headed back to the hotel and made arrangements to play the mega satellite the next day. Now I sit in my hotel room, with the enormous Venetian looming outside my window, illuminating the night sky.

For those wondering about the back story that lead up to this, here's the link: http://www.pocketfives.com/EF71C218-6816-4BC3-9C9F-3E34759E135F.aspx

Here's the article i posted on pocket5's spoofing it:
Authors Note: I’ve got nothing against either of these guys and hear nothing but good things. Still, the skewed angles of truth in this story are way too good to pass up spoofing, plus I have like three hours to kill before a flight, so what the hell. I present you ‘He Said He Said; The Karam/SCTrojans WPT story’, enjoy.



Karam: …After pulling a big semi-bluff against the table fish, an interesting hand comes up a well known internet player, Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman. Apparently the guy has played like three million tournaments this year. Anyway, he plays like the typical online player, extremely spewy aggressive, using a hammer to smash down the left mouse button over the raise icon. Every other hand the guy is raise/folding, and I’ve been biding my time waiting for a spot to put the kid to a decision for ALL HIS CHIPS. There’s nothing online players fear more than being put a decision for their tournament life.



When the hand comes up we’re down to 37 players, with 36 being a $15,000 pay jump. I can assure you that any online player who makes half a million a year cares an absolute ton about a $15,000 pay jump in a live tournament, that’s bragging rights after ll. The blinds are 3000/6000 and Scott looks to have a bit under 100,000. We’re 7 handed and Scott opens UTG to 16,000. It folds to me in the BB and peer down at Ad8d. Now, in theory, Scott needs a huge hand to call me here so I reraise to 55,000. He quickly moves all in and I call for his last 30,000 and he flips up KK. I flop a flush draw which gives me 12 outs to win, then hit my flush on the turn to knock him out of the tournament.



His eyes immediately tear up and he starts breathing heavily like he’s holding back tears, a mix of hyperventilation and seething anger. He looks over at me like I just told him I’ve killed his parents and gets up to leave. I move towards him and extend my hand hoping to keep things friendly. Instead, he spits on my hand, throws his hands into the air and yells “IMBICILE!” then storms off. Okay, he’s upset, I know the feeling, I’ll let him cool off.



We go to dinner soon after that, and I see him in one of the hallways with a couple of guys I know. I walk over and slap him on the back like a denim wearing good ol’ boy.

“Hey there buddy! Gee golly, you sure played swell today! It really was great to meet you and tell ya what, you played just super. Sorry bout the beat!”

Scott keeps his eyes on the floor, with his fists clenched and shaking, then suddenly explodes with the enthusiasm and zealotry of a Jerry Yang prayathon.

“GOD DAMN IT! YOU IMBICILE! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!”

“Now hold on just a gosh darn minute there Scott, I really find your tone unnecessary.”

“Shut up Karam. Christ, don’t you fucking understand anything!? Don’t you know with a 15-20 BB stack I’m almost never opening light in early position? Don’t you realize how poorly your hand does against my calling range? Aren’t you supposed to be the god damn professional!?”



I chuckle meekly and walk away. Wow, for one of the top internet pro’s you’d think he’d understand that he wants to get it in vs my A8, but I guess he just doesn’t have the experience in tough situations to get it. Meh, oh well. Lucky for me, I’m still really rich, so I slept just swell that night.



Freeman: … I’ve been raising quite a few pots as we get deeper and deeper into the tournament, sometimes folding afterwards and sometimes taking down the blinds uncontested. The table’s now 7 handed and we’re down to 37 players, just one player from the pay jump. The jump is $15,000, but I can’t say that really factors into my decisions since I’m playing for the final table and more importantly, the dubya.



My stack is sitting at about 90,000, and I peer down at KK UTG with Mark Karam in the BB. I open the 3000/6000 blinds to 16,000 and watch it fold around to Karam, who lays a chip on his cards and starts reaching. Boo yah, shit’s about to hit the fan. Karam grabs out a couple stacks than announces “reraise to 55,000”. Immediately after he slides his chips in the middle I announce all in. Karam asks how much more, and with it being only about 30,000, makes the obvious call, then flips up Ad8d. If I can just dodge a three outer I’ll really be in contention here.



Unfortunately, Karam flops a flush draw, then turns the nut flush. Karam leaps from the table shouting “OH HELL YES! THIS SHIT IS MY DESTINY! CAN’T NOBODY STOP THE MARK TRAIN! HOO-HA!!!” Blegh, live poker is so rigged. I get up from the table and start shaking hands with the other players. Karam comes over and jams his hand in my face, and I reluctantly shake it without saying anything then walk off after tapping the table and saying “good luck everyone.”



Obviously I wasn’t going to be as chatty and jolly as a yuppie on a coke binge after taking a sick bad beat in the money of a 10k WPT event, but I feel like I handled the situation as well as most would of.



I go to dinner with a few friends to try and clear my head, and the good company of Roothlus and Gobbo help me clear my head, though Gobbo can really be a freak and a weird dude sometimes. As we’re standing in the hall after dinner I suddenly get punched in the back of my shoulder with a Tysonesque right hook. I turn around and find myself face to face with Karam.

“Hey pussy, decide to try and eat your sadness away?”

“Um, yea I guess.”

“That’s what I thought. So how ya doing in the tournament…oh wait that’s right, you got ooooooooooowned by the Mark train.”

“Look man, your attitude is just way overboard. You played that hand really bad, I’m like never opening a 15-20 BB stack light in early position. Just so you know, k?”

“Yea whatever, that’s what anyone who got thrown onto the tracks of the Mark train and taken on a one way trip to pwnage town would say. Besides, I had to call, it was only like, 30k more. Like duh obviously.”

“Fine, whatever. Good luck, I guess.”

Mark puts his hand to his head in the shape of an ‘L’

“Later loser, don’t step in front of this train again. Ya here me boy?”



Karam storms off and I look on with confusion. You’d think a live pro with that much success would be more mature and humble, but meh, whatever. At least I’ll still probably make 100k playing online this week, I should sleep alright.



What really happened: …Karam made a bad reraise vs Freeman and sucked out. Freeman got a little annoyed, shook hands, and walked off. Later on the two exchanged mostly incomprehensible words, both unsure why the other wasn’t thrilled to see him. Karam writes an exaggerated blog post and all of p5’s gets a major hard on at the thought of a potential E-fight. Everyone gets blue balls when they resolve it maturely.

Authors note: Since Zpaceman was good humored enough to supply details to his latest story of social misanthropy it seemed only appropriate to continue the ghost writing saga. I give you part 2, The Zpaceman Holland Casino Story, enjoy.

Today I ran hotter than Jamie Gold with a horse shoe jammed a mile up his ass, which upon further consideration would mean he also couldn’t talk. In order to celebrate my dominating performance in the 100R I called up my blacker than night friend to make plans for the evening
“Theo, don your most metrosexual of apparel, tonight we are painting the town lavender!”

I meet Theo at the casino and we approach the VIP lounge. The enormous security guard eyes me suspiciously and stands in my way as I try to enter.
“Sir, may I see your membership card?”
I laugh in his face.
“Membership card? Oh, I don’t think I’ll be needing one of those. Now quit obstructing my path you dim witted behemoth, I have gambling to do!”
“Sir if you don’t have a card there’s no entry. We make no exceptions.”
“Now you listen and you listen good you monkey suit wearing pathetic excuse of a rental cop, this is Z fucking spaceman you’re fucking with, don’t make me take off my Gucci jacket and bitch slap you!”
The security guard reaches for his microphone.
“I need assistance at the VIP entrance, I have a disorderly.”
Within seconds we are surrounded by a pack of guards who seemingly appeared from nowhere, but I have an ace up my sleeve for them.
“WAIT! The reason I started shouting is because this guard called my friend the N word! He said ‘We don’t let N words in a place like this’! Tell em Theo!”
Theo nods in agreement “Yep, it’s true, this guys a bigot! He called me the N word and I’m more offended than Jesse Jackson at a KKK rally!”

Suddenly the guards turn on their own and grab him.
“NO! THEY’RE LYING YOU FOOLS! I’M NOT RACIST AGAINST BLACKS! HE’S LYING! I ONLY HATE ASIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS!!!” but his protesting is an effort in futility, and the others carry him off to a back room as we sneak into the VIP during the confusion.

We move towards the baccarat tables so I may have the simple pleasure of crumpling the cards into pieces as I gamble my money away like a Macau degenerate. I look for a waiter and wave him over
“What can I get you tonight sir?”
“Bring me two bottles of your most pretentious and self congratulatory champagne!”
“Very good sir.”

Theo and I take a seat next an older gentleman and his wife. The man is dressed in a bland but expensive looking black suit and his wife is wearing a ring large enough that I’m considering mugging her on her way out of the casino. She’s draped in an expensive black dress that tastefully matches his suit, but her face is obscured by a heavy pair of glasses. I notice he’s playing nothing but banker and decide to take an opportunity to ruin his shit by betting heavily on player. For a while things are uneventful as Theo and I chug down champagne and rack up a nice series of wins on player while the guy betting banker plunges further and further into misery. The more he loses the larger his bets become, as does his infuriation with my betting player. When I hit my third straight natural nine I exploded into a raucous celebration with Theo, smashing down a full glass of champagne and screaming “EAT IT BITCHES! I GOT MORE NATURAL NINES THAN A COPY OF PLAYBOY!”

Finally the older gentleman’s frustration with me comes to a head.
“Hey! Do you mind?! I’m losing my ass while you dance around like a monkey playing the other way. Show some respect!”
“Respect!? I spit on your paltry little bets you pauper! Why don’t you make a mans wager!?”
“Pauper!? I’m easily worth 100 times your Euro trash ass!”
“Not for long! Keep this up and I’ll make you busto you hopeless old man! I’M Z FUCKING SPACE MAN, AND KING KONG, AIN’T GOT NOTHING, ON ME!!!”
And with that I throw a glass of champagne directly in his wife’s face. She recoils in horror and confusion as she rubs her eyes screaming
“IT BURNS! MY GLASSES, THEY DO NOTHING!”

The husband immediately grabs the champagne glass and throws it at me. It hits me in the shoulder, exploding like a crystal grenade while champagne goes everywhere, soaking through my jacket.
“NOOOO! MY GUCCI! I’LL GIVE YOU A THRASHING TO REMEMBER!”
As I lounge towards the man I am suddenly seized from behind by Theo, desperately trying to keep me from starting a fight and ending up in jail again, where last time I was passed around like a joint at a Phish concert. The mans wife grabs him to, and before we can get at each others throats security swarms us and drag us apart.

Security throws me out the front door like a cheap drunk and tells me not to come back for a year.
“Oh yea!? I’m gonna go urinate on the side of your building you assholes! You haven’t heard the last of Zpaceman!”
The largest guard comes over and stares me straight in the face. “Quite frankly you asshole, we don’t give a damn.”

It seems presumptuous and condescending to tell people how to live their lives. One of the single greatest enemies of poker in our time is the “We know better than you for you” mentality the current US government has decided to perpetrate on its people in regards to gambling, so turning around and writing an article about how to live seems highly hypocritical. So I’m going to try and be specific here, and give advice that I only believe pertinent to improving as a poker player, despite it sometimes branching into other topics.

First and foremost, if you ever want to get truly good at poker, and especially tournament poker, you need to make your peace with variance. I use the term ‘make your peace’ instead of ‘understand’ because understanding tournament variance is very difficult. In fact, I’m not sure I really understand it myself. To my knowledge, nobody on this forum has come forward with numbers that prove how long the long term is in tournaments. I feel pretty confident when I say that it’s very probable that you can’t reach the long term playing live tournaments, that is, you’ll never really be able to ascertain your true ROI in live poker. Even online it’s very difficult to tell how much of results are driven by variance, and how much by skill.

A great example of how far variance can go is in the number 1 ranked player on www.officialpokerrankings.com, ‘vietcong01’ is a player many have written about for his leak ridden play. He may or may not be a bad player (I haven’t seen enough hand histories to pass any judgment) but many seem in agreement, yet he’s won just about every tournament imaginable on Stars five times over. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ansky (a player many consider one of the best online) has admitted to have been losing through the year 2007 up until April. While skill is of course the most important factor in determining whether you’re a winner or a loser in the end, the amount variance can skew the road to that end is enormous.

I wise man once explained that there is no deserve in poker. That’s really just about the best way you can put it. If you follow tournament results you’ll be forced to sit back and watch as awful players rack up tens of thousands, and sometimes hundreds of thousands in wins. I personally can barely watch poker on TV, the players are playing for millions and 95% or more of the players on it are so awful I end up sitting there ranting and screaming “Holy fucking hell how the fuck can every single person in this hand play their hand maximum awful on every street and they’re all about to win more than I’m worth I’m going to fucking kill somebody…” etc etc you get the idea. It’s all in good fun, but thinking about things like this too much will make your head explode. In the end, what everyone else does and wins, no matter how deserving or undeserving, is irrelevant. The only weapon you have against variance is constant self analysis and improvement. You have control over nothing else in the grand scheme of things, so worrying about them ends up being pointless when you could be spending your time learning how to squeeze every cent of equity out of your opponents. So when it comes to variance, I guess the best advice I can give is to be self obsessed and ignore the madness around you.

Finding a balance in life with poker can be difficult. Many players end up having the game take over their lives, with other responsibilities and concerns falling to the wayside. Everyone has different things they consider important in their life, but a few things I recommend all players take seriously outside the game are as follows:

1. Your health. Poker’s a sedentary game, and it’s not hard to see why so many players begin getting out of shape. When playing live poker you’re often pressed for time, and even online if you’re playing tournaments it’s hard to stop and prepare a meal, so many players end up going with fast food. There’s about a million studies proving that an out of shape body begins to pour over into an out of shape mind. I’m not saying you need to go running marathons or start training for a bodybuilding competition, just find exercise wherever you want to take it. Start playing your favorite sport again often, go for runs/walks, join a gym, learn a self defense, or even just do a sit up and push up routine at a home. Just stay active and watch your diet, try to eliminate junk and fried foods, and take it easy on the soft drinks and booze.

2. Get some sleep. Nobody functions optimally on low sleep. Some do better than others, and in my case if I get less than 8 hours I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a table. I know many guys pull all nighters, and because tournaments start at a fixed time you sometimes have to conform your schedule to fit them. Even if you don’t believe sleep is a major factor for you try this experiment, write down how many hours of sleep you got at the start of your sessions. A month later look at your poker tracker results and see how your results differ between the sessions you slept well and the ones you didn’t, you might be surprised.

3. Handling and reducing stress. Everyone has their own method for this. Some tilt uncontrollably and begin spewing, some never seem to get upset. I haven’t had tilt problems in a very long time (unless I haven’t slept well) and I think a lot of this results from volume. The more you play the more ridiculous beats you’ll take in important moments, and eventually you’ll see it all kind of blinds together. This kind of goes back to what we talked about with variance, that in the end it’s out of your control and losing your head over it is pointless. Find your own outlet for stress reduction, for me its writing, for you, it should be whatever relaxes you and lets you vent the stress that builds up over the course of the day. By the way, exercise is a great way to reduce stress.

4. Get a hobby. Unless poker already is your hobby and you play essentially for recreation, you really should get something outside it to occupy your time. There’s a ton to do out there, you just need to find what’s fun for you. The quick answer of course, is Halo 3. Boo yah.

5. Get some. This seems pretty obvious, nobody concentrates well with a distracted mind. If you’re reading this, odds are your pretty young. Don’t spend your life inside in front of the computer feeling awkward around women, and you’d be surprised how many will find poker interesting if you talk confident about it without being a braggart.

6. If you don’t want to play, don’t. When you force yourself to play you end up playing impatient and sloppy poker, so on any day you want to take off and don’t have to play, I recommend doing so. Hopefully if you chose this as a full time occupation, you’ll actually want to play.

7. Make poker friends and connections. This can seem hard sometimes, as people may often appear exclusive in the poker scene. When you first start posting on a place like 2+2 it can be a little intimidating since many of the serious posters seem to have rules and standards in place, and figuring out what’s considered obvious can be frustrating. As recently as 15 months ago I was a complete unknown in the MTT scene on 2+2 and the internet in general. What I found works is asking a lot of questions, posting any hands your confused about, PMing the players you respect for thoughts on your posts, and getting to know other posters whenever the opportunity arises. Most of the guys around do end up being pretty easy going and approachable, and if you show a willingness to learn and understand many will be helpful.

8. Have a social life outside poker. This seems pretty obvious too. Spending your life only talking about the game will make you boring. Nobody likes boring people. See how this could be a downward cycle here?

Lastly, I want to talk about what it takes to get better at poker. A lot of guys ask what it takes to be a great player. I wouldn’t really consider myself a great poker player in honesty, that is if you rated players on a 0 to 100 scale, with 0 being a total beginner, and 100 being Patrick Antonious, I guess I’m somewhere around ~80. It’s hard for me to say what it takes to get from 80 to 100, and part of me imagines that you have to be really naturally smart and talented to attain that kind of mastery.

The people who hang out in the strategy portions of 2+2 are mostly naturally smart guys. Often whenever I ask them what they studied at school, it’s often math oriented or in a field that has real application to poker, at an excellent school that takes enormous talent and intelligence to get into. Me, I’m a theatre major who in the math department is a borderline imbecile. It doesn’t take a background in this area to do very well. What it mostly requires is perseverance and a level head. Here’s the basic process by which I improved:

1. I started off reading books. This is good if you want a foundation in the basics, but I feel like a lot of the information in books these days is outdated. However, Harrington on Holdem is still pretty good for getting some ground work.

2. Then I started reading and posting on 2+2. For quite some time I posted an enormous amount of hands, because I really needed to be guided through most hands step by step. I’m kind of a slow learner, so I needed things drilled into my head over and over to form it as more of a habit before I could understand it.

3. I got a pokerxfactor subscription. I watched a lot of videos to see what the most successful pros did differently to me, what made them successful. I think cardrunners also has an excellent (at this point, probably superior) line up of pros, but both sites have a pretty good line up. The hard part is that even many of these guys have serious leaks and there might be nobody there to tell you what they are. I have a ton of leaks myself, and if there’s nobody better to tell you what they are it gets hard to recognize them. If there’s an interest in that sort of thing, I guess I could Skype with Luckychewy for some of the more popular hand histories in Cardrunners/PXF and identify what we think the mistakes are there to give people an idea of what mistakes other pros make.

4. I got coaching. This part can be hard because there’s not a list of coaches available for MTT’s and many coaches would charge quite a lot of money since their time is so valuable. If you start becoming a successful player and make good money, but still feel like you have serious leaks, seeking out a top player who you respect and know does coaching is a good option. At this point, I’ve done coaching with three HSMTT players and have done hand history review swaps with several more. Finding players you feel are roughly on your own level and doing HH review swaps with them either by taking notes or over the phone/Skype can be a huge benefit.

5. I played an absolute ton. Like they say, there’s no substitute for experience, and the more you play the more you’ll recognize patterns and things will get more obvious to you as you go. Combine this with the other four, over an extended period of time, and you’ll be able to feel the improvement.

6. If there’s one thing I wished I’d done: It’d be learn cash much sooner. I think cash players improve at poker much quicker, and applying concepts you learn in cash to tournaments is much easier than vice versa.

Most of what I do today is play, occasional coaching sessions, and spending a lot of time on Skype with the players I respect swapping ideas back and forth. At any point in my career I can look back at how I played four months ago and think “Wow, I had no idea what I was doing then. I’ve learned a ton.” I imagine it will keep going like that if I keep improving and I hope that pattern keeps up. Well, that’s all the condescending advice I have for today, after this it’s back to more black and white strategy.