Crawfish Dinner

So, Victor Ramdin arrives in the second blind level and greets his fellow players at our table. He immediately begins moving chips around and busts one of the underling pros and builds his stack up very quickly. His fast play and friendly demeanor appear to be recreational in nature but also at odds with each other.

In between hands he pulls his phone out to text Chau Giang because they are to meet for dinner and have crawfish. Since he is directly across the table from me I query whether or not these crawfish will be served Cajun style like in New Orleans. He says yes, that Chau knows of a place where they serve it boiled in a bag and spread it out on the table in front of you. He invites me and another player to join them for dinner- I accept.

The only problem is that the dinner break is still at least 3 hours away and there is much danger between now and then. For instance, in one hand, I am dealt AJo in middle position and am facing an early position raise by Jonathon Little. I consider calling in position and announce "I think I'll wait for the crawfish." Little appears amused but actually more closely resembles a statue wearing sunglasses.

Contrary to his amicable nature throughout the tournament thus far, Ramdin announces for some reason that he will defend his big blind against whoever raises regardless of his holding. Actually, what he says is that he will go over the top of the preflop raiser with nothing. I am UTG +4 and look down at TT. I decide to push aside the ominous threat from the big blind and decide crawfish are really messy to eat anyway. With the blinds at 100/200 + 25 ante I make it 700 to go. I think I had about 4K stack (covering Ramdin). It is folded around to Ramdin and he says, "OK..." and calls. The flop is 743cc. He checks and I bet 1,100 into the pot of 1,750. He moves all in and I call. He shows J8 of clubs for the flush draw. He air balls the turn and river and is out of the tournament.

No crawfish dinner for me...

Event #39 WSOP $1500 No Limit Hold 'Em

So, I get to my table in the Brasilia Room and am seated next to James McManus, author of Positively Fifth Street and a very bright individual. Several players are seated at the table and speaking among each other. Great- some of them know eachother- that means they are professional players. As it turns out, one of them, a late arrival is from Europe and has played with Peter Eastgate so much that last year, 2008, when he won the Main Event, he offered this guy a swap of 10% of each other. He didn't play in the event and missed out on a $910K pay day.

Another guy at the table was talking to the other guys and was busy accumulataing chips. Turns out he got 6th place at a WPT event in Aruba. His name is Frank Ruskin I think. He played against Jonathan Little at that final table. Jonathan got moved to our table a couple of hours into the tournament.

We played 9 handed for about one and a half hours as seat one remained open for that whole amount of time until its occupant arrived: Victor Ramdin. (Mr. Aggression himself)

After trying a three barrel bluff at seat 7, a lower ranked pro, and getting called down by third or fourth pair by him, I decided to wait and be patient. So, I played my cards for a while. *After re-reading this, I am compelled to update the the lower ranked pro in Seat 7 here won a bracelet in 2010.

There were no less than 5 pros at the same time at my table.

Sit N Go Tournament at the Rio

The day before my $1500 NLH Tournament (event 39) I played in a few single table satellites. You start off ten handed and play down to a single winner. It is typical for a deal to be made once down to a few players but usually it is divided among the final two.

In one SNG we were down to 3 players and I was the short stack when they made a deal to pay 3rd place the buy in back. We all agreed and I proceeded to chip away at the two larger stacks. Eventually, I climbed into and out of the lead and was in 2nd place when another deal was proposed to split the winnings 3 ways evenly. While considering the deal, I looked down at KTc in the small blind and decide to conceal my strength by limping. The big blind raises preflop and I make the call. The flop is QJx. I bet, he raises all in, and I call. He turns over AQ for top pair, top kicker. I have an open ended straight with a backdoor flush draw and have him covered. The turn is an A giving him top two pair but makes a straight for me. He groans and I beam. The river card is a Q giving him a full house, Queens full of Aces.

Moral of the story: Take the deal when presented if you have scrapped your way into bargaining position.