As many of you know, we joined forces with Pokernetcast.net (the old Live at the Bike team) to put together a single table tournament for the ages. The tournament was filled for later broadcast both here on on the pokernetcast site complete with hole card cameras and commentary from most of participants. We had a great table including:

Todd Brunson
Layne Flack
Jose Conseco
Shaundeeb
Adanthar
Nath
SirWatts
Thayer
Shaniac
Vivek

Edmond and I started the live commentary and were soon joined by each participant once they were knocked out. The broadcast is being edited as I create this blog, and we should have some great clips to post in the next few weeks. The entire broadcast will be made available on the Pokernetcast.com site soon thereafter. We'll be sure to post more details in the coming weeks. Below are some pictures from the event. Stay tuned!


Poker players are happy people, obv


Thayer invites Jose to ValueTown


What makes you think Vivek likes his hand?


SirWatts wonders WTF Edmond is talking about


Ok, that blue screen is a problem.


Edmond sizes up Nath's head


Shaun reflects on the 15 MTTs he missed tonight

David, out friend from the Commerce, sent me a text message informing me that he had 5 tickets to the Commere’s private suite at Staples Center. This would be the first game back for the Lakers from a their longest road trip in team history (and most successful). Plus it was Gasol’s first game at home for the Lakers so this was no ordinary game. David… you’re the man!

I invited a few of our Featured Bloggers. The Commerce was nice enough to send a limo to take the guys over to Staples. Sirwatts, Thayer, Vivek and their buddy and Adam’s roommate Ray (exitonly4) joined me.


Sirwatts and Vivek


Dave and Thayer grab some treats


Exitonly4 enjoys watching the Lakers crush the Hawks



Oh, did I mention that Norm MacDonald from SNL weekend update fame showed up? As many of you know, Norm has the poker bug and plays quite a bit. He was featured prominently during this year’s WSOP telecast. I believe he had the chip lead after day one of one of this year’s events.

A sick prop bet, and bad beat for lakong!

With about a little over a minute left in the first half the Lakers were leading 64-28 and it looked like the Lakers would easily double the Hawks’ score. Norm wanted to bet that they wouldn’t so I suggested we make a $20 prop bet on this. The Hawks could not make a basket and the lakers went up 69-28 with 53 second left.

Norm took out $20 and tried to hand it to me, but I wouldn’t take it. I didn’t want to jinx the bet. The Hawks hit a 3 with 42 seconds left to cut the lead to 69-31 and then Kobe makes it 71-31 with 31 seconds left so now it seems certain I will win until Richardson hits his second 3 point shot to make it 71-34 with 19 seconds left. The Lakers can now run out the clock, but Gasol gets fouled with 2.9 seconds left and makes only 1 shot. Everyone in the booth is now into this and we all realize that the foul might just cost me the bet.

The Hawks take it out under the Lakers’ basket, the guy throws it down to half court to Childress who takes a few dripples and throws up a three point shot. We have the perfect angle and it looks like it just might… maybe, who knows… oh, no… swish!!!

Final score at half time 73-37!!! We were all cracking up. It was hysterical. The best bet I ever lost.



I’m not sure what the fingers are supposed to mean. Dave wanted me to make the loser sign, but Norm suggested something about us doubling our fingers. Not sure, but heck, I just follow orders!

Here’s the

score breakdown if you want to see this for yourselves.

We didn’t really watch much of the second half. Norm and his friend Lori Jo were great fun and we discussed poker, politics and all kinds of other subjects. Everyone had a great time and of course the Lakers went on to win. What more can you ask for? A perfect night all around.



After the game the limo came to drive the guys back to the Commerce and Norm, Lorie Joe, David and me went to the Pacific Dining Car for a late dinner. Didn’t get home until 1:30-2am, but it was well worth it!

I made it out to the Commerce last Friday night (February 1st) for the $545 NL event #8 of the LA Poker Classic. Approximately 550 runners showed up for the event and they paid 55. We started with 2500 in chips, 40 minute levels and a 25/25 starting level. The structure was pretty good for a preliminary event. You can download all of the structures at the Commerc's tournament page – just click on the event name to access a word file with the structure.


I got to my seat a few minutes after the start time and missed one hand. I wish I missed two! On the second hand I’m on the button with 78 and two limpers to me. I make it 100 to go and they both call. The flop comes K75r and they both check so I make it 200. One guy checks. Great start, Scot. I decide I’m going to shut down until I see an A on the turn and my opponent appears to be very uncomfortable with it. He checks and I decide to give it another shot with a 300 bet. He calls. I’m probably drawing dead and the blank on the river doesn’t alter my opinion. My opponent fires and I muck after pretending that I have a decision. Great start!!!

I shut it down for a while and nothing much happens for the next hour or so. I lose a few small pots and blind down a bit to around 1400. At the start of the 3rd level with blinds of 50/100 we’re told that we have one more hand until we move tables. I’m in the sb with 57o and there are 4 limpers to me and I complete. The BB checks and we see a flop of 55T. Bingo! I have 1400 left and there is 600 in the pot. I could check and let some more money in the pot but I feel that a push here would really look weak and I’m bound to get a call by any ten and one of the 5 guys must have a T… right? So I do push and UTG goes into the tank. He clearly has a T and is very confused by my move. Now the fun starts. The CO who has plenty of chips counts out 1400 and puts it clearly in front of him like he is going to call. I’m really pissed off here, because it’s a move to get the guy to fold and I would like to get both of them to call. The UTG guy is not looking close to a decision so I force him to make one by calling the clock. He ends up folding as the clock is counted down and everyone else folds! He says he had KT and didn’t call because of the other player. I am pissed. I tell the guy who counted out his chips that his move was completely uncalled for. What was the point? I had already made the bet, so what is he trying to accomplish if he was always folding. He didn’t think he did anything wrong and I really was in no mood for a fight so I calmly moved on to my new table.

The new table was great. Lots of weak players and the weakest were on my left. Problem was, I was still fairly short stacked and needed some chips. So after an orbit or so I’m in the BB and 5 people limp to me. I look down at ATs and push. The UTG player had been slowplaying AQ and quickly called. Great. Well it was great as the flop came 789 giving me hope and a T on the turn giving me the lead. The river was a blank and now I was in business and could play a bit.

For the next hour, play I did. I raised any two cards from late position in the CO or Button virtually every single orbit, unless of course there was a raise in front of me and then I often RR. The blinds often folded right away. When one of the blinds would call he would check every flop and I would make a Phil Hellmuth type small bet and he folded 100% of the time. Nice. I built my stack up to about 7k when I made my big mistake of the tournament...

I have AA UTG and make it 600 at 100/200 blinds (there was a 50 ante at this point). The button, who had only 1800 called me which I found very weird. The flop comes AQ5 with two diamonds. The right move here is to just check on both flop and turn because he has to bet one of the streets… doesn’t he? Anyway, I did not do that. I felt that if he’s calling a third of his stack he has to have a good A or a strong pair. Doesn’t he? Even with a pair why not push preflop? So I really felt he had the case A and would call a push. Well I misread the situation, because he folded to my push. So I lost his 1200 in chips which I should have easily won, but the worst part was that he doubled up on the next hand and then on the next hand he pushes with 2400 in chips and I find 99 in the blind and call. He has AK and wins the race so I effectively lose 3600 by not slowplaying my AA. Oh, well.

I chip up a bit more and then call a small stack push with A9 and lose to his K5. I then go completely card dead for the next few hours but manage to stay above water with a steal or two per orbit when the situation is right. I also make 2-3 re-steals which all work without showing any cards. I do get AK and a few middle pairs, but never get called.

So my stack fluctuates between a very modest 5000-8000 but I never can get it above the 8k mark. One of the main problems I had was that a guy directly to my right was always at about the same stack size as me and he kept beating me into the pot and I never had a hand I could call him with.

The worst part about being so card dead was watching one particular guy go from 7k in chips to 50k in chips in about 30 minutes. The guy was a machine. He did play well and made a few impressive calls, but he also won about 5 straight races.

It’s now close to 11pm (the tournament started at 3:30pm) and somehow I’m almost at the money bubble. There were 60 left and they were paying 53. 53rd paid about 1100 (it turned out that they paid 54th and 55th too). I just could not find a hand for orbit after orbit and blinds just went up to 600/1200 with a 200 ante and I am now down to 4500. I do the math and realize that if I go through the blinds one more time I will only have 2x the BB and I’ll need to win a hand at showdown. I feel like I must make a move if the situation is even so-so prior to the blinds hitting me. In MP I’m deal T8s and it’s folded to me so I feel this is the time. Turns out, it wasn’t. Everyone folds to the BB who wakes up with TT and I’m out.

Could I have waiting? I guess in hindsight, of course. I might have even folded to the money or just keep waiting for that one hand, but it hadn’t happened in hours so there was no reason to believe it would happen in the next two orbits.

Did I miss any opportunities to steal earlier? I don’t think so. I really played as aggressively as I could given my stack size and my opponents. The AA hand definitely hurt me. If I had an additional 3.5k it really would have allowed me early opportunities to play around a little more.
Anyway, I had no regrets.

The tournament was very well run. They had a nice food/refreshment area set up on the tournament floor level and the food voucher was honored in the buffet restaurant. The buffet was quite good and was about a $25 value. I ate with two guys from the military who had recently served in Iraq. Really nice guys (one of them was the good sport who slowplayed the AQ against my AT). I also liked the 3:30pm start time. I made it quite far, but still got to get some sleep. In most tournaments if you make it that far and get busted it’s probably around 2-3 in the am.