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Archive Sep 2007: Bond18
The Zpaceman Venetian Story (Ghostwritten by Bond18)
by Bond18 on 09/12/07
For some reason I was browsing pocket fives today. I encountered a thread which described Ram Vaswani slow rolling Action Jeff in London. Moderately famous online player Zpaceman came on and commented with the story posted below. After having read the Zpaceman story I felt inspired. The story was so completely over the top and absurd that I was left wanting more, more detail, more eloquence, a completeness to the story if you will. I decided that someone really ought to ghost write and elaborate on that story. So hey, why not me? I present to you, written in first person, The Zpaceman Venetian Story, ghostwritten by Bond18. Enjoy.
Here’s the original:
something could have happened at the table too.
i remember playing at the venetian in the summer, broken down to 3 tables i get moved to UTG at a new table and raise the first hand i'm dealt. it folds around to the button and this big fat older guy with terrible dress sense and the biggest stack at the table grumbles to himself then puts out a massive reraise - more than half my stack. i reluctantly folded AQ. later that orbit i'm in the BB with TT and he raises the button, i reraise, he grumbles to himself again and shoves all-in.
both times it really got under my skin the way he didnt even look at me, or give me any respect and just shoved me off my hands. a couple of orbits later he'd lost some of his chips to others at the table and i'd gained a few chips here and there. our stacks were nearly even. he's on the button again and raises my BB like he's done every fkn time. I peek at my cards and see AA.
it was part acting, but i just blew my top with him and started to rant "you've raised my blind every time, you re-raised my UTG the first hand i came to the table, you're giving me no respect, who do you think you are!!!? anyway i'm sick of this! no respect!" and I quickly stacked my chips all on top of each other real strong really smashing down on the stack and slammed the single stack into the pot
he insta-called with AQ and i totally crippled him, but i was so hot from his behaviour (including his continued lack of respect to insta-call me with AQ) that i couldn't stop ranting at him. i bust him 2 hands later and berated him all the way to the rail, telling him to enjoy his vacation and stop trying to play with the pros, blah, blah, blah.
in hindsight it was wrong, it was classless, but i just hated the guy for everything he'd done to me, his image, his mannerisms, etc...
knowing AJ's rep it would be easy to see how he might have irritated ram in a similar manner.
And here is my elaborated story:
…As I settle into my new table I scan my new set of adversaries. The table is not unlike most Las Vegas tournament line ups, a number of tourists, a couple younger semi professional looking types, and of course the occasional world class hot shot, a position at this table that was vacant up until my arrival. I peer down at my first hand and am elated to find a hand befitting a player of my excellence, AQ UTG. I make a standard 3X raise and watch as the table folds around to the button.
The seat in question is occupied by a copulate and grotesque looking man wearing shorts and an “I heart NASCAR” T-shirt. He looks disheveled and disorganized, with the massive stack in front of him sitting in moderate disarray. Clearly he had not spent the same 3 hours I had that morning perfectly everything aesthetic detail of my appearance.
From spending 30 minutes arranging every follicle of hair to laying out a number of clothing combinations on the bed and creating a list of the pros and cons to each, I certainly had it going on today. After thorough consideration I had settled with a teal button up shirt from Prada, with designer faded jeans to match. I elected to go with a pair of brown Gucci loafers, resulting in a Euro trash ensemble that my idol Patrick Bateman could truly appreciate. But I digress from the action.
The aforementioned oaf on the button sits in contemplation, then lets out a queer grunt like noise and slams a mass of chips onto the table, totaling over half my stack. The blinds fold and I stare at him only briefly, but then am forced to look away. My god, how could anyone be so apathetic about their appearance?! And who does he think he is reraising me? I take a last longing look at my AQ, and reluctantly fold. This offense shall not be forgotten.
Only moments later I find myself again in engaged with the oaf. He enters the pot raising on the button, and sitting with TT in the BB I quickly and proudly 3 bet him. Again the man begins grumbling, then slides his entire stack into the middle! Of course I am forced to fold, as no player on the button would ever risk his entire stack verse a BB reraise with a hand worse than TT, but I must say I am very nearly at the end of my patience with this nuisance. This man is clearly attempting to get under my skin and has taken some offense to my presence, perhaps the half bottle of cologne I showered with has become bothersome to him? Who knows, but now, it’s personal. Nobody shows me that lack of respect and gets away with it!
A few orbits later my Machiavellian plot finally comes to fruition. Sitting with AA in the BB it folds to the oaf on the button who but of course, raises my BB again. Now it was time to lay the trap with a ploy no poker player would ever see coming, acting!
“You sir! You’ve raised my blind every single god damn round! Do you think I’m going to just sit here and let you get away with this travesty!? Well no way, no FUCKING way! Do you know who I am you fat ass piece of crap?!”
”No, I don’t”
”Well you fucking ought to! My face doesn’t look familiar? No? On the cover of cardrunners perhaps!? HUH? THAT’S RIGHT! THIS IS Z FUCKING SPACEMAN YOU’RE FUCKING WITH!! I’M THE MOST AWESOME FUCKING POKER PLAYER SINCE STU UNGAR! I’M SO FUCKING AWESOME THAT I MASTURBATE IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR TO MYSELF EVERY NIGHT! NOBODY DISRESPECTS ME LIKE THAT! I’M ALL FUCKING IN!!!”
And with that I smash my entire stack of chips into the middle. Of course, after the vicious verbal ass kicking I gave my opponent, he couldn’t call fast enough with his AQ.
“HA! I tricked you! I knew you’d fall for it! Behold, I have pocket aces!! HAHAHA take that you stupid fat fuck! I have bested you!”
“Sir, I don’t see how your shouting or insults are necessary, I was just playing my cards.”
“Playing your cards!? That’s not all you were doing, you were showing me a lack of respect! NOBODY DISRESPECTS ZPACEMAN AND GETS AWAY WITH IT! NOT YOU, NOT YOURTIMEISUP, NOT ANYONE!”
The dealer fails to produce two miraculous queens for my opponent and he’s now crippled, sitting with a disappointed and defeated look on his face. A few hands later, I completed my decimation of him and knocked him out completely. As he was heading to the rail I gave him a parting shot.
“Hey Fatty now you’ve got some time to go get a gym membership! Enjoy your vacation and stop messing with the pro’s, and remember NOBODY DISRESPECTS ZPACEMAN! DON’T WASTE MY MOTHER FUCKING TIME!!!”
So ended my encounter with the oaf. Unfortunately, that’s all the time I have to tell stories for now, I’ve got a hot date with my mirror.
The Man With no Seoul
by Bond18 on 09/11/07
The Man With no Seoul
After thorough consideration, it turns out I won’t be going to Seoul. The expenses involved turns out to be in the area of about $5000 US. Since the tournament is only a $2500 buy in, and my ROI is perhaps 100%, I’d basically be expecting a loss on the trip long term. Even though I’d certainly the vacation aspect of the trip, there’s one much larger problem; the WCOOP.
For some brilliant reason, Pokerstars decided to schedule the APPT Seoul event right during the WCOOP and, in direct conflict with the WCOOP main event. This despite there being no other APPT event until December, and no technically announced poker event in the Pacific region until possibly November. Of additional difficulty with attempting to do the WCOOP is the absurd time it’s on in our region, which is something like 4am. This means if I attempted to do a little of both, I’d be forced to throw my sleep schedule back and forth, resulting in the inevitable onslaught from my stomach. The same stomach which was supposed to be swimming with Helicobacter Pylori, but upon calling the Medical Center today, it turns out “everything’s completely normal.”
Shit, why can’t I just have the bacteria. I wanted the fucking bacteria. The bacteria would be an easy to answer to my dilemma, a weeks worth of antibiotics and problem solved. Instead I have to go back to the doctor, who will be required to do further examinations and tests, likely resulting in my being diagnosed with some obscure monstrosity of a disease like tumorsyphillisisisosis. I’m pretty sure it starts with stomach and digestive problems and results in your face falling off.
So instead I’ll be adjusting my schedule in order to get up for the WCOOP at an appropriate time and harassing Nath to do a coaching session. While I would have loved to see Korea and decimated their Bulgogki supply, I guess live poker will have to wait until October.
Meanwhile, I had a +$20,000 Sunday and yet went to sleep extremely pissed off. At the final table of the Full Tilt nightly 150+12 when holding AT on a 68TT board with the chip lead the person second in chips also moved all in on the turn over my large raise. As I clicked call Full Tilt crashed for several minutes and folded my hand, rewarding the full pot to my opponent who also had AT and giving him a sizeable chip lead. I wasn’t the only player who disconnected in the hand or at the final table, so clearly the technical problem was on Tilts end. The result being with 1.5 million chips in play, 438,000 was rewarded to my opponent, 219k of which was mine, causing a full 438k swing. Of additional interest I later got heads up verse the same villain and he got disconnected, though I used my time bank to allow him to get back online. Unfortunately I lost the heads up to my villain despite coming in with a chip lead, but so many of his chips going into the match were the result of that hand I wrote an email to support letting them know I feel their technical difficulty cost me thousands in equity, and am owed some form of reparations.
Over/under on Full Tilts investigation of the matter and response is sitting on 3 weeks.
After thorough consideration, it turns out I won’t be going to Seoul. The expenses involved turns out to be in the area of about $5000 US. Since the tournament is only a $2500 buy in, and my ROI is perhaps 100%, I’d basically be expecting a loss on the trip long term. Even though I’d certainly the vacation aspect of the trip, there’s one much larger problem; the WCOOP.
For some brilliant reason, Pokerstars decided to schedule the APPT Seoul event right during the WCOOP and, in direct conflict with the WCOOP main event. This despite there being no other APPT event until December, and no technically announced poker event in the Pacific region until possibly November. Of additional difficulty with attempting to do the WCOOP is the absurd time it’s on in our region, which is something like 4am. This means if I attempted to do a little of both, I’d be forced to throw my sleep schedule back and forth, resulting in the inevitable onslaught from my stomach. The same stomach which was supposed to be swimming with Helicobacter Pylori, but upon calling the Medical Center today, it turns out “everything’s completely normal.”
Shit, why can’t I just have the bacteria. I wanted the fucking bacteria. The bacteria would be an easy to answer to my dilemma, a weeks worth of antibiotics and problem solved. Instead I have to go back to the doctor, who will be required to do further examinations and tests, likely resulting in my being diagnosed with some obscure monstrosity of a disease like tumorsyphillisisisosis. I’m pretty sure it starts with stomach and digestive problems and results in your face falling off.
So instead I’ll be adjusting my schedule in order to get up for the WCOOP at an appropriate time and harassing Nath to do a coaching session. While I would have loved to see Korea and decimated their Bulgogki supply, I guess live poker will have to wait until October.
Meanwhile, I had a +$20,000 Sunday and yet went to sleep extremely pissed off. At the final table of the Full Tilt nightly 150+12 when holding AT on a 68TT board with the chip lead the person second in chips also moved all in on the turn over my large raise. As I clicked call Full Tilt crashed for several minutes and folded my hand, rewarding the full pot to my opponent who also had AT and giving him a sizeable chip lead. I wasn’t the only player who disconnected in the hand or at the final table, so clearly the technical problem was on Tilts end. The result being with 1.5 million chips in play, 438,000 was rewarded to my opponent, 219k of which was mine, causing a full 438k swing. Of additional interest I later got heads up verse the same villain and he got disconnected, though I used my time bank to allow him to get back online. Unfortunately I lost the heads up to my villain despite coming in with a chip lead, but so many of his chips going into the match were the result of that hand I wrote an email to support letting them know I feel their technical difficulty cost me thousands in equity, and am owed some form of reparations.
Over/under on Full Tilts investigation of the matter and response is sitting on 3 weeks.
Fuck You, Nobu
by Bond18 on 09/08/07
Fuck You, Nobu
“Pretension is a dish best served cold.”
So it seems over at the Nobu, which just opened in Melbourne at Crown. My friend Howie invited my girlfriend and me to join him and his friend Melissa there. Dinner with ‘real people’ (that is, people who aren’t poker players or heavily involved in the poker/gambling world) is always interesting for me, mostly because my often inappropriate and taboo conversation leaves them in hysterics, horrified, or both. It’s not that I’m SO outrageous a person; it’s just that the normal social rules of polite conversation rarely seem to apply in poker circles.
Example? It is perfectly acceptable conversation to ask a poker playing “How much did you make today/this week/this month/this year?” Hell, it might be ruder NOT to ask that question.
Poker players are also pretty laid back as a whole. It’s rare to see one get offended unless you say something about the way he plays. Because our work is others recreation, we’re mostly a relaxed and casual bunch. Howie works as a dealer at Crown, which means he’s highly exposed to our type, but because he works for someone else and has lots of other working friends, I’d say he’s about half real. He understands what I’m talking about all the time, but still gets that nervous look in the eye when have conversations with the waiter like “Damn it! You recommended this Saki now are you going to take a shot or not?!”
”No, I really can’t, I’m working.”
”You sell out. Fine, more for me. Christ this stuff is awful.”
Or upon finding out Melissa had just graduated from Law school “Good for you, just make sure not to sell your soul.”
”Hehe, okay.”
”Fuck it, why do I bother, of course you’re gonna sell your soul.”
Lucky for me both the waiter and Melissa seemed to have good senses of humor, and conversation was the only saving grace of the evening considering the restaurant was the worst fucking dining experience in memory. Instead of coming up with a clever way to structure my complaints, I’m just going to make a list and number them.
1. The portions. By far, this is my biggest complaint and would be with ANY restaurant that fucks this up. I may be trying to lose weight, but I’m not looking to leave a restaurant feeling starving. While most Asian restaurants give you chopsticks, due to Nobu’s portion sizes, we were given toothpicks to work with.
2. The price. 4 people with no wine and one bottle of vile tasting saki came to $348. I don’t mind paying that kind of money for a meal, BUT, if I’m paying it I better not leave the restaurant hungry and pissed off. If ever I felt guilty for spending money on my food instead of feeding half a starving African country, this was it.
3. The wait. My god, it took forever to get the fucking food. 3 hours for dinner, THREE HOURS. Is there anyone in this world who really has 3 hours to kill on dinner, especially one for just four? No, this wasn’t on a weekend. Things I would rather do with 3 hours of my time include; watching 1 long movie or 2 short ones, playing poker with an hourly expectation of about $120 resulting in my profiting $360 long term, work out to prevent being a fat ass, write a long and detailed letter to Nobu and Robert Di Nero on why their restaurant is a piece of shit.
4. The lighting. There’s romantic lighting, and then there’s “Shouldn’t you guys get a back up generator in case of this?” lighting. Nobu subscribes to the latter train of thought, which would be all nice and good if I had an ugly date, but I find my girlfriend quite attractive, so turn the fucking lights on.
5. The noise. There’s more or less no walls in the downstairs so the noise of the room flows everywhere. I spent most of dinner yelling “WHAT?!” at Howie and Melissa then deciding losing my voice isn’t worth the conversation.
6. The anorexic looking hostess. This is a restaurant, the people staffing it should look like they eat, not reminding me of the Holocaust. Things have gotten out of hand when my meals size is leaving me highly unsatisfied but still contemplating force feeding half of it to the hostess.
So yea, I won’t be going back there and will instead be giving my Crown restaurant business where it belongs and has earned it, Number 8 and Rockpool.
Meanwhile, I’m still running ridiculously hot in poker. I’ve won 3 tournaments this week and have 4 more days to win another on either Stars, Bodog, UB or Party to win my second triple crown in as many weeks. I’m thinking my next blog entry will be something like taking a tournament I won or went deep in and posting the HH and discussing the important hands and why I made the decisions I made, as well as pointing out the places I decided to suck at poker/life and fucked it up. It seems to me that most players don’t spend enough time in self review and end up repeating their mistakes. I don’t intend on letting that happen to me.
“Pretension is a dish best served cold.”
So it seems over at the Nobu, which just opened in Melbourne at Crown. My friend Howie invited my girlfriend and me to join him and his friend Melissa there. Dinner with ‘real people’ (that is, people who aren’t poker players or heavily involved in the poker/gambling world) is always interesting for me, mostly because my often inappropriate and taboo conversation leaves them in hysterics, horrified, or both. It’s not that I’m SO outrageous a person; it’s just that the normal social rules of polite conversation rarely seem to apply in poker circles.
Example? It is perfectly acceptable conversation to ask a poker playing “How much did you make today/this week/this month/this year?” Hell, it might be ruder NOT to ask that question.
Poker players are also pretty laid back as a whole. It’s rare to see one get offended unless you say something about the way he plays. Because our work is others recreation, we’re mostly a relaxed and casual bunch. Howie works as a dealer at Crown, which means he’s highly exposed to our type, but because he works for someone else and has lots of other working friends, I’d say he’s about half real. He understands what I’m talking about all the time, but still gets that nervous look in the eye when have conversations with the waiter like “Damn it! You recommended this Saki now are you going to take a shot or not?!”
”No, I really can’t, I’m working.”
”You sell out. Fine, more for me. Christ this stuff is awful.”
Or upon finding out Melissa had just graduated from Law school “Good for you, just make sure not to sell your soul.”
”Hehe, okay.”
”Fuck it, why do I bother, of course you’re gonna sell your soul.”
Lucky for me both the waiter and Melissa seemed to have good senses of humor, and conversation was the only saving grace of the evening considering the restaurant was the worst fucking dining experience in memory. Instead of coming up with a clever way to structure my complaints, I’m just going to make a list and number them.
1. The portions. By far, this is my biggest complaint and would be with ANY restaurant that fucks this up. I may be trying to lose weight, but I’m not looking to leave a restaurant feeling starving. While most Asian restaurants give you chopsticks, due to Nobu’s portion sizes, we were given toothpicks to work with.
2. The price. 4 people with no wine and one bottle of vile tasting saki came to $348. I don’t mind paying that kind of money for a meal, BUT, if I’m paying it I better not leave the restaurant hungry and pissed off. If ever I felt guilty for spending money on my food instead of feeding half a starving African country, this was it.
3. The wait. My god, it took forever to get the fucking food. 3 hours for dinner, THREE HOURS. Is there anyone in this world who really has 3 hours to kill on dinner, especially one for just four? No, this wasn’t on a weekend. Things I would rather do with 3 hours of my time include; watching 1 long movie or 2 short ones, playing poker with an hourly expectation of about $120 resulting in my profiting $360 long term, work out to prevent being a fat ass, write a long and detailed letter to Nobu and Robert Di Nero on why their restaurant is a piece of shit.
4. The lighting. There’s romantic lighting, and then there’s “Shouldn’t you guys get a back up generator in case of this?” lighting. Nobu subscribes to the latter train of thought, which would be all nice and good if I had an ugly date, but I find my girlfriend quite attractive, so turn the fucking lights on.
5. The noise. There’s more or less no walls in the downstairs so the noise of the room flows everywhere. I spent most of dinner yelling “WHAT?!” at Howie and Melissa then deciding losing my voice isn’t worth the conversation.
6. The anorexic looking hostess. This is a restaurant, the people staffing it should look like they eat, not reminding me of the Holocaust. Things have gotten out of hand when my meals size is leaving me highly unsatisfied but still contemplating force feeding half of it to the hostess.
So yea, I won’t be going back there and will instead be giving my Crown restaurant business where it belongs and has earned it, Number 8 and Rockpool.
Meanwhile, I’m still running ridiculously hot in poker. I’ve won 3 tournaments this week and have 4 more days to win another on either Stars, Bodog, UB or Party to win my second triple crown in as many weeks. I’m thinking my next blog entry will be something like taking a tournament I won or went deep in and posting the HH and discussing the important hands and why I made the decisions I made, as well as pointing out the places I decided to suck at poker/life and fucked it up. It seems to me that most players don’t spend enough time in self review and end up repeating their mistakes. I don’t intend on letting that happen to me.
Pocketfives Podcast
by Bond18 on 09/07/07
Pocketfives Podcast
Some time last week I received a private message on pocketfives from David Huber who does the pocketfives podcast, asking if I’d like to be on the show. I’m not really very involved at pocketfives outside being on their rankings and looking up players but apparently my being the second ranked player in Australia is reason to enough to justify an interview. I looked back on who else they’d had on the show and it’s mostly guys who are very involved or somewhat famous over at pocketfives, so I can imagine a lot of people there seeing the name Bond18 and thinking “who the fuck?”
Anyway, I fully intend on making this an interesting interview instead of sitting there babbling about how awesome I think I am at poker (which is not very). David has sent me a number of questions for the interview which I am to answer and submit to him in order to give the interview some structure, so I thought I’d share those questions and my responses with all of you. Also, some of the responses to his questions will be things I’ve already written and posted on tworags, so that will seem repetitive. So here’s the email I’m sending back to him:
David, here’s the questions you sent me. I’m not sure how much exactly you were looking for, but I’ve recently found I like writing so it’s going to be lengthy.
1. Brief autobiography.
I was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin but grew up in Madison. I went to school at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a theatre major. I did study abroad my junior year and when intending to move back to Australia after a few weeks in the states, instead found I was banned from the continent for 3 years. I went and did another semester in Milwaukee, then moved to China for 5 months with my girlfriend. After the 2007 World Series where I played 30 events and was an enormous failure, I moved back to Melbourne after attaining permanent residency and having my ban lifted. I’ve got one year left of college, which I ought to get around to finishing.
2. One or two funny or informative personal stories that may or may not involve poker.
I’m cross posting these two stories which happened during the WSOP 2007 from my blog at www.tworags.com. I’m sure if I thought really long and hard I could come up with some other hilarious shit, but these are not bad and they're already written:
Story 1:
WSOP Trip Report part 17 Additional
Last night was way too good to pass up writing about. I’m also having difficulty sleeping again so I might as well. It all happened after writing up the trip report last night, hence why it wasn’t included the first time around, here’s the story:
While writing my trip report I get a call from Sirwatts. He sounds a bit drunk and he’s telling me I really ought to come down to the poker room and play 4/8 limit with him and Grafyx since “we’re doing some stupid {censored].” I look at the clock, it’s only about 11:15pm and I won’t be able to sleep for a while. Might as well I guess.
I show up to the table 15 minutes later and unfortunately find it full. Both Grafyx and Watts are moderately drunk and laughing their asses off at every stupid thing. Grafyx says he needs to use the bathroom and to play his stack for him. I ask the dealer if this is okay and he says sure. I begin ordering Heinekens from cocktails and as I’m settling in to Grafyx’s seat the guy in seat 1 smashes his drink onto the table.
“DRINK DOWN ON 147!!!” I yell.
The dealer calls for a towel and the spill is small enough that we don’t have to move tables. I of course run sick hot for Grafyx including flopping quads and manage to get value out of Watts on every street. When Grafyx gets back seat 1 decides to leave and the wet spot on the table is open. I manage to talk the floor man on the board into not really worrying about the two people in front of me on the list and let me in the game. I go to the cage and buy $200 chips in white and $800 in black, all the ammo I’ll need for a game that’s sure to have a [censored] ton of straddles, blind 3 bets, and bets in the dark.
When I sit down I scan across the table to size up the opposition. The line up is as follows;
Seat 1: Me
Seat 2: Some young girl who has like 10 40 year old dudes coming up to her to chat whom she calls her uncles.
Seat 3: A young disabled guy who was by far the coolest person on the table.
Seat 4: Some middle aged guy who was pretty fun.
Seat 5: A pretty drunk Grafyx.
Seat 6: Some 30ish dude who was drinking with us and getting in on the antics.
Seat 7: Some 45 year old woman who is by FAR the biggest cougar I have ever met. She is also drinking heavily and straddling at every opportunity. She was also not above saying “this isn’t the only thing I want to straddle on the table.”
Seat 8: Some chubby 25ish girl who appears to be the cougars friend.
Seat 9: A pretty drunk Sirwatts.
I of course begin drinking quickly and raising in the dark as much as possible. With Sirwatts on my right doing the same, the pot is often 3 bet no look. Also, the cougar in seat 7 introduces the “Mississippi straddle” to the game where the button in fact straddles, so when she was the button she straddles, girl in seat 8 folds or calls, Sirwatts 3 bets dark, and I 4 bet dark. When the action gets to Grafyx he is of course peer pressured into calling any 2.
Early in the game the girl in seat 2 is helping the disabled guy in seat 3 move his chips into the middle. They seem to know each other from around and seat 3 is cracking me up while he hits on seat 2. When one of seat 2’s ‘uncles’ comes over and talks to her about her last boyfriend she mentions that he stood her up once on a clubbing date they set. Seat 3 responds with
”Think about it baby, how am I gonna stand you up when I can’t even stand up at all?”
Boo yah! I tell him “don’t worry, you’ll get her.”
Grafyx then informs seat 2 and 3 that I am an ‘internet celebrity.’
I tell Grafyx “there’s no such thing as a [censored] internet celebrity.”
Grafyx keeps talking it up, 40 something on pocket fives, blah blah blah, clearly enjoying making me look as stupid as possible.
The antics of the cougar also made the game highly entertaining. At one point before she realizes how ridiculous I am playing I 3 or 4 bet pre flop with KQ and bet a 49T59 board the whole way down and she stations me with A8 which is way good. Grafyx and Sirwatts go nuts with Grafyx screaming “OOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!! PWNED!!! YOU GOT SO PWNED BOND!!!”
The cougar explains her logic:
”I just had to call him down, he’s so cute. Hey boy! You single?”
This would be nowhere close to the end of her cougar antics. Later in the game the idea somehow comes up of her and Sirwatts getting married that night, then having it later annulled. As she puts it:
”Lets do it baby doll, lets get married. It’ll be the best sex you ever had.”
I freak out at the hilarity of this remote possibility.
“Do it Watts! I will give you $200, no wait, $250 dollars if you do it! How can you say no to $250?”
“Will you be my best man Bond?” he asks.
“Hell yea, I will walk you down the isle to be horribly molested by your future cougar wife!”
The cougar and I continue to pressure Watts for a while to get married that night, but he seems hesitant. I tell Watts that he is a pussy for not doing it and that I am gonna pull some huge stunt on either him or Grafyx, and probably both. I have a plan damn it.
A round or so later Watts 3 bets someone’s raise. I peek down at 73o and pick up my cards, then reach across the dealer and jam them into Watts cards attempting to get his hand mucked. The dealer chooses to look the other way on this altercation and takes my cards back and mucks them. Damn! My plot foiled by a meddling kid. The girl in seat 8 sees this and begins questioning me.
“Oh my god! Did you just try and muck his hand while he was playing?”
”He earned it.”
”You are such an [censored].”
“Your 3rd grade logic will not work on me, you’re only insulting me because its obvious that you like me.”
“Um, no I don’t. I’m insulting you because my Ipods batteries died and I have nothing better to do.”
”Don’t lie to me woman.”
A round or so later a very old woman sits down on my left. The guy sitting in seat 4 informs her of what a totally crazy game it is and that seat 1, 5, 7 and 9 will be raising and 3 betting in the dark almost every hand. “That’s alright, I don’t mind.” She says.
A hand comes up between the new old woman and I. I Mississippi straddle the button with what turns out to be 53o. The old woman in the SB 3 bets, Grafyx obviously calls, Watts 4 bets, I call, the woman 5 bets, we all call.
Flop: K T 3 rainbow
The woman bets, we all call.
Turn: 8
The woman bets, Grafyx and Sirwatts fold, I decide she obviously has AQ plus I have sick odds so obv=call.
River: 4
[censored], that’s not my out. The woman bets. I turn to her and say “ma’am, are you bluffing me here?”
”Always” she responds.
“Fine, you better not be lying to me, I call.”
The woman obviously flips up AA and I lose it.
“Watts! Watts! She [censored] lied to me dude! She [censored] lied! What the [censored]!?”
“Dude, Bond you got owned.”
”That’s [censored] bull [censored], she’s not allowed to lie. Dealer, is she allowed to lie?”
The woman laughs at me while she rakes an enormous pot.
“I like this game just fine” she says.
With the time approaching 1:30 I tell watts we should get some food and sleep since we have the 5k six max the following day. We hit up ping pang pong, an awesome Chinese restaurant in the god awful Gold Coast hotel and retire for the evening.
Aftermath:
Grafyx: Went on to still be an azzhole
Sirwatts: Still unmarried.
Cougar: Probably went on to molest a 17 year old pool boy.
The End.
Story 2:
WSOP Trip Report part 21, The Perfect Game, ME Day 1B
In all honesty, going into today’s main event, I’m not looking forward to it. In some manner of speaking, I don’t even want to play it. That doesn’t mean I actually wouldn’t, or I’m going to play badly. In fact, I know deep down I’ll play every WSOP ME until the day I die because it’s obviously the most +EV tournament of the entire year, and nothing comes close. It’s also incredibly crowded, noisy, disorganized, long, and miserable.
I head down to the insane Amazon room which is as packed as I can remember it. I’m seated way in the corner on table 153, which will be one of the first to break. My table contains nobody notable except for David Oppenheim, whose a few seats on my right and shouldn’t be a problem, especially since I’m just some unknown donk to him. The rest of the table seems pretty normal for the ME, nervous looking qualifiers and people with to much money who enthusiastically wish everyone “Good luck!! See you guys at the final table! Hehehehe!”
We start with 20k and 50/100 blinds, and at 200 BB’s deep with god awful players I am playing as many pots as possible. I overhear the guy in seat 8 discussing how good Stevepa is and ask if he knows him.
“Yea, I got 2nd to him at the PCA in 2006.” Good to know. The first interesting pot of the day comes up vs Steve’s old friend:
My stack: 18k
His stack: 23k
I hold J
J
in MP1
Preflop: Folds to hero, I raise to 300, MP2 calls, CO calls, button calls, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: A J
3
BB checks, I bet 800, folds to CO (seat 8), CO raises to 2400, folds back to me, I deliberate and reraise to 7500. Seat 8 tanks for quite a while now and considers his options. He more or less has no idea who I am or how I play, just that I seem pretty agro. Eventually, he stacks up his chips and pushes them into the middle, I instantly call. He knows he’s screwed and flips up AJo.
Turn: X
River: X
Boo yah, a very early day double up.
I continue to play very LAG and my stack stays around the mid to high 30’s. Eventually the guy in seat 5 (I am in seat 4) shows up an hour late and is roughly 21 and smells AWFUL. He smells like he has been rolling around in [censored] for 2 hours while smoking weed. Numerous people on the table immediately begin to ask “Is there a skunk in here? What’s that smell? It smells exactly like a skunk.” I am a little tired and very infuriated that some stupid [censored] who shows up a hour late didn’t even bother to shower and I spend the rest of my time at the table distracted by his god awful smell and desperately resisting the urge to strangle him and throw him in the trash. At one point where a floor man I’m friendly with comes over and looks at our table (as we’re about to break) I stand up and start chatting to him, loud enough so that I let anyone at the table whose listening hear me.
“Hey man, we’re breaking next right?”
”Yep, you guys will be broken in a few minutes.”
”Oh thank god. The [censored] on my left shows up an hour late and smells so [censored] awful the people at the table think there’s a skunk in the room.”
”You’re kidding.”
”No, it’s so [censored] bad I can barely concentrate. I can’t really sit at the table.”
”Hmm, ya know in one of our meetings we had discussions about this sort of situation, whether one of the floor persons should inform these people they need to go back to their room and freshen up.”
“You might wanna let this one know. His tables will complain, I promise.”
Finally our table breaks and I get moved to a table full of guys mostly in their young 30’s with about 35k in my stack. I get my stack near 40k when a weird hand comes up. The villain in question was a guy I had been cold calling a lot and taking pots from post flop, it seemed like every time he had a hand so did I, and that I caught better post flop. He had yet to get the best of me in a pot and I sucked him out with 5 outs once when I floated bottom pair intending to take it away on the turn or value him if I hit (which I did, in both regards.) The UTG player in this hand is very weak/honest.
Hero: ~40k
MP2: ~30k
UTG: ~25k
Blinds 100/200. I hold 8c 8s in the SB.
Preflop: UTG limps, folds to MP2, MP2 raises to 900, folds to hero in SB, I call, BB folds, UTG calls.
Flop T
2 T
I check, UTG checks, MP2 bets 1100. That’s a tiny little bet into this pot and I’m fairly sure he’d C bet weak like this with over cards. I intend to call once and give up to further action on the turn. I call, UTG folds.
Turn: 5
Now something really weird happens. The physical button in this hand is kind of between me and the player on my right, making it ambiguous as to who actually is on the button. While i'm staring at MP2 for a few seconds to see if he reacted, he checks out of turn, and from what i can tell, totally honestly. He literally thinks I'm the button. I decide i've likely caught him with overcards and bet 2300. He calls without to much thought. Okay?
River: 3
Now he sorta looks over and goes "wait, wheres the button?" I inform him i'm the SB. He thinks it over and leads out 1000. What. The. [censored]. Okay, fine, i call. He shows QQ. Masterfully played sir.
This pot knocks me down to the low 30's and i try to play aggressively until i get moved tables. I'm sent to a new table that's again a very soft line up, except there is one online player, Polpolpol, who turns out is from the island of Cyprus. We discuss in depth whos good and bad at poker, mostly online players, and become friendly. I am still new to my table (been there a few rounds) when the following hand comes up:
My stack: ~32k
CO's stack: ~20k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold A Q in the SB.
Preflop: 4 limps to me including the CO, i raise to 2700, folds around to CO, CO calls. CO is youngish but clearly not an online player. He seems nervous and unsure of himself but also not clueless.
Flop J 5 5
I bet 3400, CO thinks for quite a while, looks over his stack, mulls it over, and calls.
Turn: 4
I check intending to see him bet most if not all his remaining stack and blow me out. CO thinks over his options. His stack contains two orange 5000's, a few yellow 1000's, some green 25's and a few black 100's. He gathers up all his non orange chips and bets them, roughly 3-4k. This is kind of weird. Why not bet the oranges? Why bet so small? I think it over and decide there is no hand he holds considering preflop/flop action that can call a shove here unless he's bad enough to limp/call JJ. My line will look like a big pair and freak him out, i'm almost certain he'll fold despite having half his stack in. I shove. CO looks totally disgusted and after 5-10 seconds, folds his hand. Polpolpol begins laughing "holy [censored] dude! you just pulled one off!"
"I did?"
"Yea you did?"
I flip up my hand. "Holy [censored]! I totally did."
CO looks like someone ripped his heart out. Polpolpol can't control his laughter, the table freaks in general.
That pot puts my stack to around 40k again. I continue to play aggressive and often c bet, as well as hit hands. I get my stack to around 50k when the following hand comes up vs polpolpol:
Pol: 5400
Me: ~50k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold Ad 3d in the BB.
Preflop: Folds to Pol UTG+2, he considers his options and limps, folds to me in BB, i check feeling very suspecious of him.
Flop: 7 8 9
Well, no getting away now even if he limped aces. I check, Pol bets 600, i make it 4000, he insta shoves, i obv calls. Pol flips up 88 and his set holds putting him around 10k. Fair enough, no harm done.
I continue my absurdly aggressive play and nobody bothers to make a point of stopping me. I continue to rebuild my stack when another hand comes up vs Polpolpol:
Hero: ~50k
Pol: ~10k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold K K in the BB.
Preflop: Folds to Pol UTG+2, Pol raises to 1200, folds to me in the BB. I call.
Flop: K T 7
I check, Pol bets 2000. I grab my stack of yellow 1000's and jam them in the middle. Pol tanks forever. He stares me down hardcore and even tho i'm wearing sunglasses i playfully put my hands over my eyes. He tanks, tries talking to me but i won't respond. He mutters out loud "i've seen you do this twice now with a bluff or semi bluff. Do you know how weak you look?" He tanks some more, and finally, slides his chips into the middle. "Top set" i announce. "Shiiiiiiiiiiiit" he flips over his T 8 and is totally destroyed. Turn/river don't bring his running quads and we shake hands as he walks off.
With Pol gone my table is totally devoid of a player aggressive enough to shoot back. I go berserk. Unfortunately a little while after he's gone our table gets broken up. I mutter to myself about how unlucky this is, that i can't possibly get a table softer than that.
WRONG.
I show up at my new table. The mean age was probably 50. It was just incredible, a bunch of middle aged and old nits and a few very nervous 30 something online qualifiers. Everyone is playing INCREDIBLY weak tight and i absolutely go to town. I was playing roughly 40/35 poker and showing all my good hands just so people might think i was just running hot. I was also friendly and talkative and got everyone on my side of the table to like/respect me so nobody felt like giving me any trouble. My stack goes from 65k to 100k without a meaningful showdown, or having to turn over to weak of a hand. It feels amazing. I feel like an all star major leaguer who's brought in to play 12 year olds at wiffle ball, it was just way to easy. Everyone at the table seems really nice, but they were missing really really basic stuff. The guy on my right's open raise is to 5000 at 300/600 because he's scared to play post flop. Nobody knows what a resteal is. I would randomly 3 bet people with ATC when i felt like taking a pot and am never opposed. I raise the button/CO with around 95% consistency and am only 3 bet once, though often called and check folded to on the flop.
With about 2 or 3 minutes left in the day i have worked my stack up to an almost exact 100k at 400/800 blinds. The player in seat 1 (i am seat 9) is a very old super nit whose blind i have been destroying for hours. The following hand develops between the two of us:
His stack: 65-70k
My stack: ~100k
Blinds 400/800 100 ante. I hold A A in the SB, he is UTG.
Preflop: UTG raises to 4000, folds to me, i raise to 12000, BB folds. It's back to UTG who takes a second to think. Now the oddest thing happens, that at the time, i was completely unaware of. A 30ish player in MP who was the only semi aggressive player on the table assumes that UTG will stall out the remainder of the tournament clock and immediately tells the dealer to clock him. This apparently annoys UTG hardcore who grabs all his orange 5000's and throws them into the middle, making it 49000. I sit there stunned for a moment, i can't believe my luck. I calmly announce all in. UTG calls immediately. The entire table wonders if we both have AA, considering how tight this guy is i kinda expect him to fold AA here. I show my AA and UTG mutters "[censored]" and flips up AKo. I can't believe my [censored] luck. Like 85 BB's with AKo 2 minutes before it ends from a super nit? I pinch myself forcefully to see if i am dreaming, but fail to wake up drenched in my own tears as normal. Looks like this is real.
Flop: K T 4
Oh come on dude, no way. That would be to sick.
Turn: J
No please. No win for him, no chop pot. It's my turn damn it!
River: 5
Boo yah!!! The entire table is floored. I am stunned, a MASSIVE pot is shipped my way. I shake hands with UTG who politely wishes me luck. The table CAN'T BELIEVE he put so much money in with AK. MP2 informs me that he called the clock on him and jokingly says i should thank him for that pot. I ask the dealer if i can tip MP2. The dealer is also stunned.
After this we play one more hand which the aggro player raises and i let him take with Q4o (3 betting would have committed his stack, and i don't think he would have minded getting chips or going home, he seemed pretty smart) and we wrap up the day. Allow me to give you some interesting end of the day statistics:
Starting stack: $20,000
Ending stack: $168,900
Sets flopped: 5
Aces dealt: 2
Kings dealt: 3
Queens dealt: 2 or 3
Jacks dealt: 2
Suck outs i took: 0
It was very possibly the smoothest day of poker in my entire life. Truly, it was the perfect game.
3. How did you get your start in online poker & live poker?
I started playing with friends way back in the pre-Moneymaker days of 2003. I wanted to win money since I was sick broke after being fired from my job so I went to the bookstore to read up on poker. I started looking up more online, and found you could play online. Eventually I deposited $75 into the biggest site of the time, Paradise poker, which back then had up to 4000 players during peak traffic. Everything I’ve made since has been from that $75.
4. What do you consider to be your largest online tournament win or cash game session? Why?
The Sunday Mulligan on Full Tilt for 27k. Because it was for the most money.
5. How many hours of online poker do you usually play per week? How many tables do you usually play at a time? And which online game do you play most-frequently?
I normally play 7-9 hours a day, every day, taking a day off once every couple of weeks or something. I don’t really care for days off, even though I have enough money to do whatever I want, and lots of movies and video games to play, I find I’d rather just be playing poker. I usually play 6-12 tables at a time, averaging 8. I’m buying another monitor whenever I get my lazy ass to the computer store, and I’ll probably start averaging 10-12. All I really play is tournaments, but I’m starting to get coached in cash because I’m god fucking awful with deep stacks and really shouldn’t be.
6. What are some of the things you do in your personal life to relieve the stress from playing so much poker? Do you sometimes find it hard to balance life & poker?
I’ve started working out again, I go out to eat a fair bit, I see lots of movies, read a lot, read 2+2, have a girlfriend, smoke cigars, and when the mood strikes me get drunk and cause some trouble. The hard balancing part I find is in getting little things done, though overall I feel I get a lot done in a day.
7. Please briefly describe the games of 2 or 3 online players whose games you respect. Why?
A. Adam Junglen. He was my first very serious MTT coach back around Aprilish and he really elevated my game and thinking to the next level from where I was. He’s an absolutely phenomenal player who constantly seems to be one step ahead of everyone else. As far as I can tell, his potential is near unlimited if he can find the motivation.
B. Ansky aka Supernova9. Ansky is a huge time poster over at 2+2 and it just seems whenever he answers a strategy question he always knows the right answer and why. He doesn’t play a lot of tournaments (in favor of cash) anymore but when he does he goes deep over and over.
C. Thayer and Shaundeeb. I respect both these guys because they play an enormous amount of tables and poker at a time but keep the level of their play consistently high and are always having results. They also manage to do this and fit in a truly epic amount of weed smoking. I’m not sure where they find the time.
8. Please briefly describe the games of 2 or 3 online players whose games you do NOT respect. Why?
A. Tmay420. Tmay is a pretty high volume player, and almost every time I’m on his table I see him do something that is very clearly a wrong/spewy play. I’m not saying I always know what’s right, but I know when I see a bad play, and I see more from him than any other ranked player who comes to mind.
B. Lilholdem. I see Lilholdems play as capable of crushing bad players in huge fields, but against thinking players he seems really exploitable and spewy. Also his claims that Stars must be rigged just because he had 1 losing month is totally absurd and shows and failure to have even the most basic understanding of variance.
C. Bond18. Seriously, I make so many god awful fucking mistakes on a daily basis it’s not even funny. I do things, then sit back and go “Jesus Christ, if I had thought about that for just 5 seconds I could tell why it’s so bad.” I push to hard in spots where the villain is unlikely to fold, and my play with a stack of 50 BB’s or higher is just atrocious. I’m also pretty bad OOP. Luckily, I’m working really hard to improve a lot of this, but I’m still pretty bad. I see my winning as a result of everyone else being so god damn awful, not my being so good.
9. Briefly describe your experience in big live tournaments,, and compare them to online tournies.
Well, I had some success in Australia in 2006 then went to the WSOP where I went 0 for 9 in pre lims but went deep in the main only to lose AK<AQ for a large pot and finish 198th for like 43k. Then in 2007 I was backed by Timex and played 30 events in the Summer in Vegas and was a total disaster. I cashed 4, made 1 final table, and lost $61,000. I wrote a series of what ended up being 24 detailed trip reports of how it all happened, and that can be found at www.tworags.com Quite honestly, I think online poker is a more pure game because more information is available to you and its cleaner, where as live is slow and vague. There is something so tempting about live, despite it always ending up being so fucking slow and painful and, considering what most good players hourly is online, probably a waste of your time in terms of opportunity cost. However, I guess a life spent in front of a computer all day every day is a boring life indeed, so some live poker now and then is pretty fun.
10. What are you short & medium-term goals with poker?
To make a lot of money and get really really disgustingly good at the game. I’m paying 3 guys to coach me right now, and I post a ton of strategy hands over at 2+2 daily. I find substandard play completely unacceptable, especially coming from myself. I want to know the optimal play in EVERY situation, no matter how much time has to be spent in review. I’d also love it if some site picked me up as a sponsored player. I’d absolutely love to sell out to some site and run around saying something to the affect of “Bodog is the most awesome fucking site ever. I practice poker there every day and that’s why I’m so good.” As long as I’m getting paid, whatever, I’d make a great shill. One beautiful part of being a poker player is we basically spend our life in pursuit of money by taking advantage of +EV spots. In less fancy talk, we sit around all day trying to come up with ways to make money. We’re pretty much sell outs to the normal social system and there’s nothing in the poker world demanding we have a huge amount of a huge amount of integrity compared to say, an actor or politician, who really has to watch what they say and what they stand for. Like Dave Chapelle said, throw enough money at me and I’ll tell you both Coke and Pepsi are the greatest thing ever, and truth is, I can’t tell the difference.
11. Please be prepared to talk tournament strategy during interview.
No problem, it’s basically all I do all day every day.
12. Please tell us what your main interests are... are you a sports fan? have a particular hobby? consider yourself an expert at something? (please provide an in-depth answer to this)
I love football but in Australia it’s pretty hard to get American football. I’ve really started getting into working out and weight lifting again, which before poker was my chief obsession. Poker has a way of turning you into a flabby, noodle armed fat ass, and I don’t intend on letting that happen to me. Among my other poker playing friends I’m considered a pretty fashionable guy, though I’m not really sure I’m an expert, but I have a subscription to Esquire which keeps me at least moderately in the know, at least compared to most poker players who show up to live events in pajamas. Not that theirs anything wrong with that, wear what makes you comfortable. I’m also a pretty big movie snob. The biggest thing I’ve gotten into lately is writing on trip reports on 2+2 and my blog at www.tworags.com To be honest, when I see a lot of peoples trip reports and poker blogs I get revolted at the repetitive and stale writing, so it’s important to me to try and make it really interesting, even if I go off on random tangents sometimes. Finding good material to write about, and a fun way to write about them is on the top of my priority list. At this point, I might travel to a tournament way out of my way just to get the story, which is all fun for me in the end.
Cheers David, hope this is what you were looking for, Bond18 (Tony)
Some time last week I received a private message on pocketfives from David Huber who does the pocketfives podcast, asking if I’d like to be on the show. I’m not really very involved at pocketfives outside being on their rankings and looking up players but apparently my being the second ranked player in Australia is reason to enough to justify an interview. I looked back on who else they’d had on the show and it’s mostly guys who are very involved or somewhat famous over at pocketfives, so I can imagine a lot of people there seeing the name Bond18 and thinking “who the fuck?”
Anyway, I fully intend on making this an interesting interview instead of sitting there babbling about how awesome I think I am at poker (which is not very). David has sent me a number of questions for the interview which I am to answer and submit to him in order to give the interview some structure, so I thought I’d share those questions and my responses with all of you. Also, some of the responses to his questions will be things I’ve already written and posted on tworags, so that will seem repetitive. So here’s the email I’m sending back to him:
David, here’s the questions you sent me. I’m not sure how much exactly you were looking for, but I’ve recently found I like writing so it’s going to be lengthy.
1. Brief autobiography.
I was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin but grew up in Madison. I went to school at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a theatre major. I did study abroad my junior year and when intending to move back to Australia after a few weeks in the states, instead found I was banned from the continent for 3 years. I went and did another semester in Milwaukee, then moved to China for 5 months with my girlfriend. After the 2007 World Series where I played 30 events and was an enormous failure, I moved back to Melbourne after attaining permanent residency and having my ban lifted. I’ve got one year left of college, which I ought to get around to finishing.
2. One or two funny or informative personal stories that may or may not involve poker.
I’m cross posting these two stories which happened during the WSOP 2007 from my blog at www.tworags.com. I’m sure if I thought really long and hard I could come up with some other hilarious shit, but these are not bad and they're already written:
Story 1:
WSOP Trip Report part 17 Additional
Last night was way too good to pass up writing about. I’m also having difficulty sleeping again so I might as well. It all happened after writing up the trip report last night, hence why it wasn’t included the first time around, here’s the story:
While writing my trip report I get a call from Sirwatts. He sounds a bit drunk and he’s telling me I really ought to come down to the poker room and play 4/8 limit with him and Grafyx since “we’re doing some stupid {censored].” I look at the clock, it’s only about 11:15pm and I won’t be able to sleep for a while. Might as well I guess.
I show up to the table 15 minutes later and unfortunately find it full. Both Grafyx and Watts are moderately drunk and laughing their asses off at every stupid thing. Grafyx says he needs to use the bathroom and to play his stack for him. I ask the dealer if this is okay and he says sure. I begin ordering Heinekens from cocktails and as I’m settling in to Grafyx’s seat the guy in seat 1 smashes his drink onto the table.
“DRINK DOWN ON 147!!!” I yell.
The dealer calls for a towel and the spill is small enough that we don’t have to move tables. I of course run sick hot for Grafyx including flopping quads and manage to get value out of Watts on every street. When Grafyx gets back seat 1 decides to leave and the wet spot on the table is open. I manage to talk the floor man on the board into not really worrying about the two people in front of me on the list and let me in the game. I go to the cage and buy $200 chips in white and $800 in black, all the ammo I’ll need for a game that’s sure to have a [censored] ton of straddles, blind 3 bets, and bets in the dark.
When I sit down I scan across the table to size up the opposition. The line up is as follows;
Seat 1: Me
Seat 2: Some young girl who has like 10 40 year old dudes coming up to her to chat whom she calls her uncles.
Seat 3: A young disabled guy who was by far the coolest person on the table.
Seat 4: Some middle aged guy who was pretty fun.
Seat 5: A pretty drunk Grafyx.
Seat 6: Some 30ish dude who was drinking with us and getting in on the antics.
Seat 7: Some 45 year old woman who is by FAR the biggest cougar I have ever met. She is also drinking heavily and straddling at every opportunity. She was also not above saying “this isn’t the only thing I want to straddle on the table.”
Seat 8: Some chubby 25ish girl who appears to be the cougars friend.
Seat 9: A pretty drunk Sirwatts.
I of course begin drinking quickly and raising in the dark as much as possible. With Sirwatts on my right doing the same, the pot is often 3 bet no look. Also, the cougar in seat 7 introduces the “Mississippi straddle” to the game where the button in fact straddles, so when she was the button she straddles, girl in seat 8 folds or calls, Sirwatts 3 bets dark, and I 4 bet dark. When the action gets to Grafyx he is of course peer pressured into calling any 2.
Early in the game the girl in seat 2 is helping the disabled guy in seat 3 move his chips into the middle. They seem to know each other from around and seat 3 is cracking me up while he hits on seat 2. When one of seat 2’s ‘uncles’ comes over and talks to her about her last boyfriend she mentions that he stood her up once on a clubbing date they set. Seat 3 responds with
”Think about it baby, how am I gonna stand you up when I can’t even stand up at all?”
Boo yah! I tell him “don’t worry, you’ll get her.”
Grafyx then informs seat 2 and 3 that I am an ‘internet celebrity.’
I tell Grafyx “there’s no such thing as a [censored] internet celebrity.”
Grafyx keeps talking it up, 40 something on pocket fives, blah blah blah, clearly enjoying making me look as stupid as possible.
The antics of the cougar also made the game highly entertaining. At one point before she realizes how ridiculous I am playing I 3 or 4 bet pre flop with KQ and bet a 49T59 board the whole way down and she stations me with A8 which is way good. Grafyx and Sirwatts go nuts with Grafyx screaming “OOOOOOOOOOOOH!!!! PWNED!!! YOU GOT SO PWNED BOND!!!”
The cougar explains her logic:
”I just had to call him down, he’s so cute. Hey boy! You single?”
This would be nowhere close to the end of her cougar antics. Later in the game the idea somehow comes up of her and Sirwatts getting married that night, then having it later annulled. As she puts it:
”Lets do it baby doll, lets get married. It’ll be the best sex you ever had.”
I freak out at the hilarity of this remote possibility.
“Do it Watts! I will give you $200, no wait, $250 dollars if you do it! How can you say no to $250?”
“Will you be my best man Bond?” he asks.
“Hell yea, I will walk you down the isle to be horribly molested by your future cougar wife!”
The cougar and I continue to pressure Watts for a while to get married that night, but he seems hesitant. I tell Watts that he is a pussy for not doing it and that I am gonna pull some huge stunt on either him or Grafyx, and probably both. I have a plan damn it.
A round or so later Watts 3 bets someone’s raise. I peek down at 73o and pick up my cards, then reach across the dealer and jam them into Watts cards attempting to get his hand mucked. The dealer chooses to look the other way on this altercation and takes my cards back and mucks them. Damn! My plot foiled by a meddling kid. The girl in seat 8 sees this and begins questioning me.
“Oh my god! Did you just try and muck his hand while he was playing?”
”He earned it.”
”You are such an [censored].”
“Your 3rd grade logic will not work on me, you’re only insulting me because its obvious that you like me.”
“Um, no I don’t. I’m insulting you because my Ipods batteries died and I have nothing better to do.”
”Don’t lie to me woman.”
A round or so later a very old woman sits down on my left. The guy sitting in seat 4 informs her of what a totally crazy game it is and that seat 1, 5, 7 and 9 will be raising and 3 betting in the dark almost every hand. “That’s alright, I don’t mind.” She says.
A hand comes up between the new old woman and I. I Mississippi straddle the button with what turns out to be 53o. The old woman in the SB 3 bets, Grafyx obviously calls, Watts 4 bets, I call, the woman 5 bets, we all call.
Flop: K T 3 rainbow
The woman bets, we all call.
Turn: 8
The woman bets, Grafyx and Sirwatts fold, I decide she obviously has AQ plus I have sick odds so obv=call.
River: 4
[censored], that’s not my out. The woman bets. I turn to her and say “ma’am, are you bluffing me here?”
”Always” she responds.
“Fine, you better not be lying to me, I call.”
The woman obviously flips up AA and I lose it.
“Watts! Watts! She [censored] lied to me dude! She [censored] lied! What the [censored]!?”
“Dude, Bond you got owned.”
”That’s [censored] bull [censored], she’s not allowed to lie. Dealer, is she allowed to lie?”
The woman laughs at me while she rakes an enormous pot.
“I like this game just fine” she says.
With the time approaching 1:30 I tell watts we should get some food and sleep since we have the 5k six max the following day. We hit up ping pang pong, an awesome Chinese restaurant in the god awful Gold Coast hotel and retire for the evening.
Aftermath:
Grafyx: Went on to still be an azzhole
Sirwatts: Still unmarried.
Cougar: Probably went on to molest a 17 year old pool boy.
The End.
Story 2:
WSOP Trip Report part 21, The Perfect Game, ME Day 1B
In all honesty, going into today’s main event, I’m not looking forward to it. In some manner of speaking, I don’t even want to play it. That doesn’t mean I actually wouldn’t, or I’m going to play badly. In fact, I know deep down I’ll play every WSOP ME until the day I die because it’s obviously the most +EV tournament of the entire year, and nothing comes close. It’s also incredibly crowded, noisy, disorganized, long, and miserable.
I head down to the insane Amazon room which is as packed as I can remember it. I’m seated way in the corner on table 153, which will be one of the first to break. My table contains nobody notable except for David Oppenheim, whose a few seats on my right and shouldn’t be a problem, especially since I’m just some unknown donk to him. The rest of the table seems pretty normal for the ME, nervous looking qualifiers and people with to much money who enthusiastically wish everyone “Good luck!! See you guys at the final table! Hehehehe!”
We start with 20k and 50/100 blinds, and at 200 BB’s deep with god awful players I am playing as many pots as possible. I overhear the guy in seat 8 discussing how good Stevepa is and ask if he knows him.
“Yea, I got 2nd to him at the PCA in 2006.” Good to know. The first interesting pot of the day comes up vs Steve’s old friend:
My stack: 18k
His stack: 23k
I hold J
J in MP1Preflop: Folds to hero, I raise to 300, MP2 calls, CO calls, button calls, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: A
J 3BB checks, I bet 800, folds to CO (seat 8), CO raises to 2400, folds back to me, I deliberate and reraise to 7500. Seat 8 tanks for quite a while now and considers his options. He more or less has no idea who I am or how I play, just that I seem pretty agro. Eventually, he stacks up his chips and pushes them into the middle, I instantly call. He knows he’s screwed and flips up AJo.
Turn: X
River: X
Boo yah, a very early day double up.
I continue to play very LAG and my stack stays around the mid to high 30’s. Eventually the guy in seat 5 (I am in seat 4) shows up an hour late and is roughly 21 and smells AWFUL. He smells like he has been rolling around in [censored] for 2 hours while smoking weed. Numerous people on the table immediately begin to ask “Is there a skunk in here? What’s that smell? It smells exactly like a skunk.” I am a little tired and very infuriated that some stupid [censored] who shows up a hour late didn’t even bother to shower and I spend the rest of my time at the table distracted by his god awful smell and desperately resisting the urge to strangle him and throw him in the trash. At one point where a floor man I’m friendly with comes over and looks at our table (as we’re about to break) I stand up and start chatting to him, loud enough so that I let anyone at the table whose listening hear me.
“Hey man, we’re breaking next right?”
”Yep, you guys will be broken in a few minutes.”
”Oh thank god. The [censored] on my left shows up an hour late and smells so [censored] awful the people at the table think there’s a skunk in the room.”
”You’re kidding.”
”No, it’s so [censored] bad I can barely concentrate. I can’t really sit at the table.”
”Hmm, ya know in one of our meetings we had discussions about this sort of situation, whether one of the floor persons should inform these people they need to go back to their room and freshen up.”
“You might wanna let this one know. His tables will complain, I promise.”
Finally our table breaks and I get moved to a table full of guys mostly in their young 30’s with about 35k in my stack. I get my stack near 40k when a weird hand comes up. The villain in question was a guy I had been cold calling a lot and taking pots from post flop, it seemed like every time he had a hand so did I, and that I caught better post flop. He had yet to get the best of me in a pot and I sucked him out with 5 outs once when I floated bottom pair intending to take it away on the turn or value him if I hit (which I did, in both regards.) The UTG player in this hand is very weak/honest.
Hero: ~40k
MP2: ~30k
UTG: ~25k
Blinds 100/200. I hold 8c 8s in the SB.
Preflop: UTG limps, folds to MP2, MP2 raises to 900, folds to hero in SB, I call, BB folds, UTG calls.
Flop T
2 TI check, UTG checks, MP2 bets 1100. That’s a tiny little bet into this pot and I’m fairly sure he’d C bet weak like this with over cards. I intend to call once and give up to further action on the turn. I call, UTG folds.
Turn: 5
Now something really weird happens. The physical button in this hand is kind of between me and the player on my right, making it ambiguous as to who actually is on the button. While i'm staring at MP2 for a few seconds to see if he reacted, he checks out of turn, and from what i can tell, totally honestly. He literally thinks I'm the button. I decide i've likely caught him with overcards and bet 2300. He calls without to much thought. Okay?
River: 3
Now he sorta looks over and goes "wait, wheres the button?" I inform him i'm the SB. He thinks it over and leads out 1000. What. The. [censored]. Okay, fine, i call. He shows QQ. Masterfully played sir.
This pot knocks me down to the low 30's and i try to play aggressively until i get moved tables. I'm sent to a new table that's again a very soft line up, except there is one online player, Polpolpol, who turns out is from the island of Cyprus. We discuss in depth whos good and bad at poker, mostly online players, and become friendly. I am still new to my table (been there a few rounds) when the following hand comes up:
My stack: ~32k
CO's stack: ~20k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold A
Q in the SB.Preflop: 4 limps to me including the CO, i raise to 2700, folds around to CO, CO calls. CO is youngish but clearly not an online player. He seems nervous and unsure of himself but also not clueless.
Flop J
5 5I bet 3400, CO thinks for quite a while, looks over his stack, mulls it over, and calls.
Turn: 4
I check intending to see him bet most if not all his remaining stack and blow me out. CO thinks over his options. His stack contains two orange 5000's, a few yellow 1000's, some green 25's and a few black 100's. He gathers up all his non orange chips and bets them, roughly 3-4k. This is kind of weird. Why not bet the oranges? Why bet so small? I think it over and decide there is no hand he holds considering preflop/flop action that can call a shove here unless he's bad enough to limp/call JJ. My line will look like a big pair and freak him out, i'm almost certain he'll fold despite having half his stack in. I shove. CO looks totally disgusted and after 5-10 seconds, folds his hand. Polpolpol begins laughing "holy [censored] dude! you just pulled one off!"
"I did?"
"Yea you did?"
I flip up my hand. "Holy [censored]! I totally did."
CO looks like someone ripped his heart out. Polpolpol can't control his laughter, the table freaks in general.
That pot puts my stack to around 40k again. I continue to play aggressive and often c bet, as well as hit hands. I get my stack to around 50k when the following hand comes up vs polpolpol:
Pol: 5400
Me: ~50k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold Ad 3d in the BB.
Preflop: Folds to Pol UTG+2, he considers his options and limps, folds to me in BB, i check feeling very suspecious of him.
Flop: 7
8 9Well, no getting away now even if he limped aces. I check, Pol bets 600, i make it 4000, he insta shoves, i obv calls. Pol flips up 88 and his set holds putting him around 10k. Fair enough, no harm done.
I continue my absurdly aggressive play and nobody bothers to make a point of stopping me. I continue to rebuild my stack when another hand comes up vs Polpolpol:
Hero: ~50k
Pol: ~10k
Blinds 200/400 with 50 ante. I hold K
K in the BB.Preflop: Folds to Pol UTG+2, Pol raises to 1200, folds to me in the BB. I call.
Flop: K
T 7I check, Pol bets 2000. I grab my stack of yellow 1000's and jam them in the middle. Pol tanks forever. He stares me down hardcore and even tho i'm wearing sunglasses i playfully put my hands over my eyes. He tanks, tries talking to me but i won't respond. He mutters out loud "i've seen you do this twice now with a bluff or semi bluff. Do you know how weak you look?" He tanks some more, and finally, slides his chips into the middle. "Top set" i announce. "Shiiiiiiiiiiiit" he flips over his T
8 and is totally destroyed. Turn/river don't bring his running quads and we shake hands as he walks off.With Pol gone my table is totally devoid of a player aggressive enough to shoot back. I go berserk. Unfortunately a little while after he's gone our table gets broken up. I mutter to myself about how unlucky this is, that i can't possibly get a table softer than that.
WRONG.
I show up at my new table. The mean age was probably 50. It was just incredible, a bunch of middle aged and old nits and a few very nervous 30 something online qualifiers. Everyone is playing INCREDIBLY weak tight and i absolutely go to town. I was playing roughly 40/35 poker and showing all my good hands just so people might think i was just running hot. I was also friendly and talkative and got everyone on my side of the table to like/respect me so nobody felt like giving me any trouble. My stack goes from 65k to 100k without a meaningful showdown, or having to turn over to weak of a hand. It feels amazing. I feel like an all star major leaguer who's brought in to play 12 year olds at wiffle ball, it was just way to easy. Everyone at the table seems really nice, but they were missing really really basic stuff. The guy on my right's open raise is to 5000 at 300/600 because he's scared to play post flop. Nobody knows what a resteal is. I would randomly 3 bet people with ATC when i felt like taking a pot and am never opposed. I raise the button/CO with around 95% consistency and am only 3 bet once, though often called and check folded to on the flop.
With about 2 or 3 minutes left in the day i have worked my stack up to an almost exact 100k at 400/800 blinds. The player in seat 1 (i am seat 9) is a very old super nit whose blind i have been destroying for hours. The following hand develops between the two of us:
His stack: 65-70k
My stack: ~100k
Blinds 400/800 100 ante. I hold A A in the SB, he is UTG.
Preflop: UTG raises to 4000, folds to me, i raise to 12000, BB folds. It's back to UTG who takes a second to think. Now the oddest thing happens, that at the time, i was completely unaware of. A 30ish player in MP who was the only semi aggressive player on the table assumes that UTG will stall out the remainder of the tournament clock and immediately tells the dealer to clock him. This apparently annoys UTG hardcore who grabs all his orange 5000's and throws them into the middle, making it 49000. I sit there stunned for a moment, i can't believe my luck. I calmly announce all in. UTG calls immediately. The entire table wonders if we both have AA, considering how tight this guy is i kinda expect him to fold AA here. I show my AA and UTG mutters "[censored]" and flips up AKo. I can't believe my [censored] luck. Like 85 BB's with AKo 2 minutes before it ends from a super nit? I pinch myself forcefully to see if i am dreaming, but fail to wake up drenched in my own tears as normal. Looks like this is real.
Flop: K T 4
Oh come on dude, no way. That would be to sick.
Turn: J
No please. No win for him, no chop pot. It's my turn damn it!
River: 5
Boo yah!!! The entire table is floored. I am stunned, a MASSIVE pot is shipped my way. I shake hands with UTG who politely wishes me luck. The table CAN'T BELIEVE he put so much money in with AK. MP2 informs me that he called the clock on him and jokingly says i should thank him for that pot. I ask the dealer if i can tip MP2. The dealer is also stunned.
After this we play one more hand which the aggro player raises and i let him take with Q4o (3 betting would have committed his stack, and i don't think he would have minded getting chips or going home, he seemed pretty smart) and we wrap up the day. Allow me to give you some interesting end of the day statistics:
Starting stack: $20,000
Ending stack: $168,900
Sets flopped: 5
Aces dealt: 2
Kings dealt: 3
Queens dealt: 2 or 3
Jacks dealt: 2
Suck outs i took: 0
It was very possibly the smoothest day of poker in my entire life. Truly, it was the perfect game.
3. How did you get your start in online poker & live poker?
I started playing with friends way back in the pre-Moneymaker days of 2003. I wanted to win money since I was sick broke after being fired from my job so I went to the bookstore to read up on poker. I started looking up more online, and found you could play online. Eventually I deposited $75 into the biggest site of the time, Paradise poker, which back then had up to 4000 players during peak traffic. Everything I’ve made since has been from that $75.
4. What do you consider to be your largest online tournament win or cash game session? Why?
The Sunday Mulligan on Full Tilt for 27k. Because it was for the most money.
5. How many hours of online poker do you usually play per week? How many tables do you usually play at a time? And which online game do you play most-frequently?
I normally play 7-9 hours a day, every day, taking a day off once every couple of weeks or something. I don’t really care for days off, even though I have enough money to do whatever I want, and lots of movies and video games to play, I find I’d rather just be playing poker. I usually play 6-12 tables at a time, averaging 8. I’m buying another monitor whenever I get my lazy ass to the computer store, and I’ll probably start averaging 10-12. All I really play is tournaments, but I’m starting to get coached in cash because I’m god fucking awful with deep stacks and really shouldn’t be.
6. What are some of the things you do in your personal life to relieve the stress from playing so much poker? Do you sometimes find it hard to balance life & poker?
I’ve started working out again, I go out to eat a fair bit, I see lots of movies, read a lot, read 2+2, have a girlfriend, smoke cigars, and when the mood strikes me get drunk and cause some trouble. The hard balancing part I find is in getting little things done, though overall I feel I get a lot done in a day.
7. Please briefly describe the games of 2 or 3 online players whose games you respect. Why?
A. Adam Junglen. He was my first very serious MTT coach back around Aprilish and he really elevated my game and thinking to the next level from where I was. He’s an absolutely phenomenal player who constantly seems to be one step ahead of everyone else. As far as I can tell, his potential is near unlimited if he can find the motivation.
B. Ansky aka Supernova9. Ansky is a huge time poster over at 2+2 and it just seems whenever he answers a strategy question he always knows the right answer and why. He doesn’t play a lot of tournaments (in favor of cash) anymore but when he does he goes deep over and over.
C. Thayer and Shaundeeb. I respect both these guys because they play an enormous amount of tables and poker at a time but keep the level of their play consistently high and are always having results. They also manage to do this and fit in a truly epic amount of weed smoking. I’m not sure where they find the time.
8. Please briefly describe the games of 2 or 3 online players whose games you do NOT respect. Why?
A. Tmay420. Tmay is a pretty high volume player, and almost every time I’m on his table I see him do something that is very clearly a wrong/spewy play. I’m not saying I always know what’s right, but I know when I see a bad play, and I see more from him than any other ranked player who comes to mind.
B. Lilholdem. I see Lilholdems play as capable of crushing bad players in huge fields, but against thinking players he seems really exploitable and spewy. Also his claims that Stars must be rigged just because he had 1 losing month is totally absurd and shows and failure to have even the most basic understanding of variance.
C. Bond18. Seriously, I make so many god awful fucking mistakes on a daily basis it’s not even funny. I do things, then sit back and go “Jesus Christ, if I had thought about that for just 5 seconds I could tell why it’s so bad.” I push to hard in spots where the villain is unlikely to fold, and my play with a stack of 50 BB’s or higher is just atrocious. I’m also pretty bad OOP. Luckily, I’m working really hard to improve a lot of this, but I’m still pretty bad. I see my winning as a result of everyone else being so god damn awful, not my being so good.
9. Briefly describe your experience in big live tournaments,, and compare them to online tournies.
Well, I had some success in Australia in 2006 then went to the WSOP where I went 0 for 9 in pre lims but went deep in the main only to lose AK<AQ for a large pot and finish 198th for like 43k. Then in 2007 I was backed by Timex and played 30 events in the Summer in Vegas and was a total disaster. I cashed 4, made 1 final table, and lost $61,000. I wrote a series of what ended up being 24 detailed trip reports of how it all happened, and that can be found at www.tworags.com Quite honestly, I think online poker is a more pure game because more information is available to you and its cleaner, where as live is slow and vague. There is something so tempting about live, despite it always ending up being so fucking slow and painful and, considering what most good players hourly is online, probably a waste of your time in terms of opportunity cost. However, I guess a life spent in front of a computer all day every day is a boring life indeed, so some live poker now and then is pretty fun.
10. What are you short & medium-term goals with poker?
To make a lot of money and get really really disgustingly good at the game. I’m paying 3 guys to coach me right now, and I post a ton of strategy hands over at 2+2 daily. I find substandard play completely unacceptable, especially coming from myself. I want to know the optimal play in EVERY situation, no matter how much time has to be spent in review. I’d also love it if some site picked me up as a sponsored player. I’d absolutely love to sell out to some site and run around saying something to the affect of “Bodog is the most awesome fucking site ever. I practice poker there every day and that’s why I’m so good.” As long as I’m getting paid, whatever, I’d make a great shill. One beautiful part of being a poker player is we basically spend our life in pursuit of money by taking advantage of +EV spots. In less fancy talk, we sit around all day trying to come up with ways to make money. We’re pretty much sell outs to the normal social system and there’s nothing in the poker world demanding we have a huge amount of a huge amount of integrity compared to say, an actor or politician, who really has to watch what they say and what they stand for. Like Dave Chapelle said, throw enough money at me and I’ll tell you both Coke and Pepsi are the greatest thing ever, and truth is, I can’t tell the difference.
11. Please be prepared to talk tournament strategy during interview.
No problem, it’s basically all I do all day every day.
12. Please tell us what your main interests are... are you a sports fan? have a particular hobby? consider yourself an expert at something? (please provide an in-depth answer to this)
I love football but in Australia it’s pretty hard to get American football. I’ve really started getting into working out and weight lifting again, which before poker was my chief obsession. Poker has a way of turning you into a flabby, noodle armed fat ass, and I don’t intend on letting that happen to me. Among my other poker playing friends I’m considered a pretty fashionable guy, though I’m not really sure I’m an expert, but I have a subscription to Esquire which keeps me at least moderately in the know, at least compared to most poker players who show up to live events in pajamas. Not that theirs anything wrong with that, wear what makes you comfortable. I’m also a pretty big movie snob. The biggest thing I’ve gotten into lately is writing on trip reports on 2+2 and my blog at www.tworags.com To be honest, when I see a lot of peoples trip reports and poker blogs I get revolted at the repetitive and stale writing, so it’s important to me to try and make it really interesting, even if I go off on random tangents sometimes. Finding good material to write about, and a fun way to write about them is on the top of my priority list. At this point, I might travel to a tournament way out of my way just to get the story, which is all fun for me in the end.
Cheers David, hope this is what you were looking for, Bond18 (Tony)
There's no Such Thing as Coach Bond
by Bond18 on 09/05/07
On a near daily basis, someone PM’s me or IM’s me asking to be their coach. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally flattered at the requests and the fact that people respect me enough to ask, but I need to make one thing clear; There’s no such thing as coach Bond.
There are numerous problems with my trying to be a decent coach for someone. First of all, I’m a busy guy. Outside of playing 9 hours a day I’m pretty active socially, going to the gym again, read for hours, and watch a lot of movies. On top of that, I’m extremely flaky. One of the pleasures of this occupation is almost never having to keep a schedule or appointment, and as a result of this lifestyle over the last few years I often fail to show up for things or remember to get things done in a timely fashion.
When left to my own devices I have difficulty accomplishing the little things in life that aren’t urgent. Take laundry for example. I’ve accumulated in the area of 50 pairs of underwear because over the course of time I would forget to do laundry for weeks on end, and as a result simply jump in a store while out somewhere one day and buy a few new packs and BAM, problem solved. Then there’s getting a hair cut. When I came home from Australia the first time around everyone was constantly asking “So, what made you decide to grow your hair out so long?” Laziness. I just never could find the 60 minutes of free time to run out and get it cut with so much poker to play.
The next problem I’d have with being someone’s coach is the money involved. To make it ‘worth my while’ I’d probably want a truly absurd sum in order to commit my time and brain to it. I think to seriously consider coaching someone I’d have to be offered like $300 US an hour, and it’s just retarded to pay me that when you could get Ansky or NoahSD.
However, my biggest problem is that I feel people are expecting something out of coaching I can’t really give them. I think a lot of people are looking for me to tell them what to do, give them ‘the secret to pwning’. It’s kind of like when I play with a person like Imper1um who destroys poker and I wonder “man, what could that guy tell me to get so sick good.” The answer is likely not very much. The players that are better than me are better in spots where they find equity in places I haven’t known to look yet, or find lines that are more optimal to accomplish what they want in a hand than I do. Overall though, their likely not doing anything THAT different than me.
Most of getting good at poker is massive trial and error. For months I posted hands that I played like a retard on 2+2 until the right moves got drilled into my head. No, you can’t call early position raises in the BB with Axs in the 100r. No, you shouldn’t be raising the flop with a high top pair weak kicker 50 BB’s deep. No, you can’t call off 1/8th of your stack in every situation with a pocket pair before the flop just because that’s roughly the odds of hitting a set on the flop. God it’s still so tempting though, sets are very sexy. Getting good requires an enormous amount of self analysis and review, and a thick skin for criticism. There is an absolute ton of little things and errors that have to be ironed out. Even worse is the fact that I still make so many mistakes on a daily basis, so who am I to coach when I haven’t figured them out yet?
The only person I’ve spent a really high amount of time coaching has been my girlfriend. For a long time she was fairly good but still way to passive. Then recently with my being able to coach more hands on she’s really started crushing it. In the last 3 weeks she’s won the 11 rebuys on Full Tilt 3 times for about 4k each and just tonight got 3rd in the Tilt $150 for over $8000. So I guess yea, eventually I was able to teach her how to pwn at poker, but what that mostly consisted of was my watching her table and as she moved her mouse towards fold screaming “FOR FUCKS SAKE RAISE! GOOD GOD WOMAN THEIR GONNA FOLD! PLEASE RAISE!!”
Still, having a girlfriend who gets poker is pretty damn cool. I’ve probably gotten too used to it, as both my girlfriend and the girlfriends of many of my degenerate friends understand it on a pretty good level. God forbid I have to try dating again and while telling a girl over dinner “I’m having a rough day cause some fucking spastic decided to limp reraise all in pre with ace queen and 3 outed my ace king for 30% of the chips in play at the final table” and having her looking at me blankly and confused, resulting in my storming off yelling “Useless!” half way through my veal (I don’t care, cows were put here for me to eat. Even the little ones.)
Besides, serious online poker is a two person job. I’m always curious how guys out there who 8 table alone find the time to eat, drink, and most importantly, use the bathroom. Last time I tried that I ended up at numerous final tables with my bladder about to explode and urinating in a Gatorade bottle to prevent missing a hand. When my friend Jensen stopped by later I offered him the bottle innocently “Thirsty Jensen, care for some Gatorade?”
”Sure.”
Then at the last second swiped it out of his hand yelling “Don’t! It’s my urine! Hahaha!”
Wacky college kids.
Somehow my girlfriend manages to masterfully play 3 or 4 tables at a time, cover my tables when I have to go, and make lunch while I’m playing. She’s overall learned pretty well, but still doesn’t quite like the idea of doing things that are “scary.” Shoving K4o over a raise is never easy, but often necessary. Like ordering a possibly suicidal charge on a hill, risks must be taken for ground to be gained. Or maybe I just shouldn’t use references after watching The Thin Red Line the previous night, which was much worse than I remember it being. I mean seriously, no soldiers in the history of war ever sat around speaking in metaphor with each other all fucking day. And certainly no war ever had so many highly unnecessary star studded cameos for 3 lines of cliché dialogue. That means you, Clooney.
Coming back to coaching though, I guess if somebody really wanted me to coach them and threw enough money at me, then sure, I’ll sell out. I’m a poker player, it’s not required of me to have integrity. Though, I think people see me making a lot of final tables and get the wrong idea, because I’m not really THAT good, I just play THAT much. So I guess if I had to give you the one secret to MTT success, it’s play like 8 billion tournaments a day, I promise you’ll make a couple final tables eventually.
There are numerous problems with my trying to be a decent coach for someone. First of all, I’m a busy guy. Outside of playing 9 hours a day I’m pretty active socially, going to the gym again, read for hours, and watch a lot of movies. On top of that, I’m extremely flaky. One of the pleasures of this occupation is almost never having to keep a schedule or appointment, and as a result of this lifestyle over the last few years I often fail to show up for things or remember to get things done in a timely fashion.
When left to my own devices I have difficulty accomplishing the little things in life that aren’t urgent. Take laundry for example. I’ve accumulated in the area of 50 pairs of underwear because over the course of time I would forget to do laundry for weeks on end, and as a result simply jump in a store while out somewhere one day and buy a few new packs and BAM, problem solved. Then there’s getting a hair cut. When I came home from Australia the first time around everyone was constantly asking “So, what made you decide to grow your hair out so long?” Laziness. I just never could find the 60 minutes of free time to run out and get it cut with so much poker to play.
The next problem I’d have with being someone’s coach is the money involved. To make it ‘worth my while’ I’d probably want a truly absurd sum in order to commit my time and brain to it. I think to seriously consider coaching someone I’d have to be offered like $300 US an hour, and it’s just retarded to pay me that when you could get Ansky or NoahSD.
However, my biggest problem is that I feel people are expecting something out of coaching I can’t really give them. I think a lot of people are looking for me to tell them what to do, give them ‘the secret to pwning’. It’s kind of like when I play with a person like Imper1um who destroys poker and I wonder “man, what could that guy tell me to get so sick good.” The answer is likely not very much. The players that are better than me are better in spots where they find equity in places I haven’t known to look yet, or find lines that are more optimal to accomplish what they want in a hand than I do. Overall though, their likely not doing anything THAT different than me.
Most of getting good at poker is massive trial and error. For months I posted hands that I played like a retard on 2+2 until the right moves got drilled into my head. No, you can’t call early position raises in the BB with Axs in the 100r. No, you shouldn’t be raising the flop with a high top pair weak kicker 50 BB’s deep. No, you can’t call off 1/8th of your stack in every situation with a pocket pair before the flop just because that’s roughly the odds of hitting a set on the flop. God it’s still so tempting though, sets are very sexy. Getting good requires an enormous amount of self analysis and review, and a thick skin for criticism. There is an absolute ton of little things and errors that have to be ironed out. Even worse is the fact that I still make so many mistakes on a daily basis, so who am I to coach when I haven’t figured them out yet?
The only person I’ve spent a really high amount of time coaching has been my girlfriend. For a long time she was fairly good but still way to passive. Then recently with my being able to coach more hands on she’s really started crushing it. In the last 3 weeks she’s won the 11 rebuys on Full Tilt 3 times for about 4k each and just tonight got 3rd in the Tilt $150 for over $8000. So I guess yea, eventually I was able to teach her how to pwn at poker, but what that mostly consisted of was my watching her table and as she moved her mouse towards fold screaming “FOR FUCKS SAKE RAISE! GOOD GOD WOMAN THEIR GONNA FOLD! PLEASE RAISE!!”
Still, having a girlfriend who gets poker is pretty damn cool. I’ve probably gotten too used to it, as both my girlfriend and the girlfriends of many of my degenerate friends understand it on a pretty good level. God forbid I have to try dating again and while telling a girl over dinner “I’m having a rough day cause some fucking spastic decided to limp reraise all in pre with ace queen and 3 outed my ace king for 30% of the chips in play at the final table” and having her looking at me blankly and confused, resulting in my storming off yelling “Useless!” half way through my veal (I don’t care, cows were put here for me to eat. Even the little ones.)
Besides, serious online poker is a two person job. I’m always curious how guys out there who 8 table alone find the time to eat, drink, and most importantly, use the bathroom. Last time I tried that I ended up at numerous final tables with my bladder about to explode and urinating in a Gatorade bottle to prevent missing a hand. When my friend Jensen stopped by later I offered him the bottle innocently “Thirsty Jensen, care for some Gatorade?”
”Sure.”
Then at the last second swiped it out of his hand yelling “Don’t! It’s my urine! Hahaha!”
Wacky college kids.
Somehow my girlfriend manages to masterfully play 3 or 4 tables at a time, cover my tables when I have to go, and make lunch while I’m playing. She’s overall learned pretty well, but still doesn’t quite like the idea of doing things that are “scary.” Shoving K4o over a raise is never easy, but often necessary. Like ordering a possibly suicidal charge on a hill, risks must be taken for ground to be gained. Or maybe I just shouldn’t use references after watching The Thin Red Line the previous night, which was much worse than I remember it being. I mean seriously, no soldiers in the history of war ever sat around speaking in metaphor with each other all fucking day. And certainly no war ever had so many highly unnecessary star studded cameos for 3 lines of cliché dialogue. That means you, Clooney.
Coming back to coaching though, I guess if somebody really wanted me to coach them and threw enough money at me, then sure, I’ll sell out. I’m a poker player, it’s not required of me to have integrity. Though, I think people see me making a lot of final tables and get the wrong idea, because I’m not really THAT good, I just play THAT much. So I guess if I had to give you the one secret to MTT success, it’s play like 8 billion tournaments a day, I promise you’ll make a couple final tables eventually.
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