Interesting Day 2 Happenings

Ethics for Sale

Some of you may have heard that Phil Hellmuth overslept yesterday morning and was getting blinded off in the tournament. Apparently Mike Matusow called security at Phil’s hotel and got them to enter his room and wake him up. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I was still at my starting table with Russel Rosenblum and Sorel Mizzi when Phil came dashing into the Amazon room, with a floorman shouting after him about whether he knew which table he was going to.

Russel: I wonder if the floor is going to scurry to get me to my seat if I show up late.
Me: I don’t understand why Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke aren’t getting the kind of shit that the Full Tilt guys are getting.
Russel: I don’t want to say too much here, but Phil and Annie are just paid spokespeople, whereas the Full Tilt guys may have been somewhat more that that.
Sorel: That’s… putting it very carefully.
Me: Yes, sorry, I know that. I guess I misspoke. I do understand why they don’t get as much shit as Lederer, but people still put money on UB because Phil and Annie were endorsing them, and those people are never going to see that money. I just don’t think Phil and Annie should be getting invited on stage at the WSOP like they’re the best and brightest in the poker world.
Sorel: But they’re just sponsors. They aren’t on the inside. They don’t know anything more about what’s going on behind the scenes than you do.
Me: Based on what I knew, I wouldn’t have worn a UB patch.
Sorel: But come on, if they are just throwing money at you…

I had to change the subject at this point, because the irony and Sorel’s total lack of self-awareness was getting too much for me, and I nearly said something pretty rude to him.

Security is Called

The table broke not too long after, which was very welcome, though my new table was still pretty tough. I went on a nice little tear and chipped up to 170K while acquiring a relatively aggressive table image. Blinds were 400/800/100.

I opened to 2200 with 33 in the CO. A loose French player called me on the BTN, the SB folded, and the BB, who’d been quietly chipping up with very few showdowns and seemed pretty table aware re-raised to 6800 with about 45K behind.

I wasn’t getting the right odds to setmine, and online I’d just fold this even though I suspect the guy is light. I don’t want to get it in pre, and it’s just going to be too hard to figure out where I stand post-flop. In live play, however, the added information available through tells makes it a little more feasible and call and evaluate, and that’s what I did. The BTN quickly folded behind me.

The flop came 742r. BB bet 7500, and I called. The turn was another 4, and he checked. At this point he had barely a pot-sized bet left in his stack, and I think there are a lot of hands he wouldn’t check, including big draws and vulnerable hands like medium pairs. This was either an elaborate trap with like QQ+ or he was giving up.

I had no delusions of getting him to fold a hand better than mine, but I didn’t want to give him a free card or a shot at bluffing a scary river, so I bet 9000. After a bit of thought, he moved all in for 24,500. Now I had to think.

This is another spot I simply wouldn’t get myself in online. Before I bet the flop I’d have a plan for whether I was going to call a check-raise. Live, though, there is more room to figure out exactly which part of his range he has and what he’s up to. I let him sweat for about 3 minutes and then counted out the chips for a call. He looked uncomfortable. I placed them gently in the pot. He tapped the table. I tabled my treys. He whistled. “Very nice call, sir.” He showed AQ. Q on the river.

Where it gets really crazy is that while he’s still stacking his chips, three guys from security walk up to him. Two of them stand back, flanking a third who taps him on the shoulder. “Finish stacking your chips and then we need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

Naturally the whole table is staring at this scene trying to figure out what’s going on. The player in question looks totally nonplussed. He stacks his chips and then leaves the table with them. “That beat was so bad it was criminal!” I quip after he’s gone, earning me a few groans from my tablemates.

The guy returned after just two hands and seemed unperturbed. Curious about what was going on, I said to him, “I wish they’d come a hand earlier.” He laughed. I heard the player next to him asking him what happened, and he said it was something to do with a friend of his and that everything was fine. He remained at the table until late in the day, when he shoved AJ over one of my raises. I called with 99 to eliminate him and win back about a quarter of what I’d lost to him in that earlier hand.

French Fish

As I previously mentioned, the guy on my left was a loose and generally bad French player. Blinds were 500/1000/100. A tightish player in the HJ opened to 2500, and I called with 77 in the SB. The poisson re-raised to 11,000 with 15K behind. I was pretty sure I was going to fold but gave him the old stare down first.

He’d been watching a movie on his iPad, and when he saw me looking for a read, he pressed play and turned his attention to his screen. I could see perfectly well that he wasn’t cheating, but I wanted to get a reaction from him, so I told him to put the computer away during the hand.

He removed his headphones and looked up at me. “What?”

“You can’t be on your computer during the hand.”

He sneered. “Whatchu going to do? Time.”

“You’re calling time on me?”

“Yes. Time.”

“OK. Put the computer away.” He made a point of putting his headphones back on and pressing play. I looked over at the dealer, who was doing nothing. She hadn’t even called the floor to clock me. Of course by this point I had all the information I needed to fold, but now I was upset that the dealer wasn’t enforcing the rules.

“Player has called time,” I informed her.

She turned to another dealer who was waiting to push her after this hand. “Am I supposed to call the floor if a player has asked for time?”

The floor finally got called and came over. I informed her that I twice asked this player to stop using his computer during the hand. She ignored me and started telling him that he would have 70 seconds to act.

“Time was called on me,” I told her.

“OK then you have 70 seconds to act.”

“Are you going to do anything about the computer?”

“First you need to act on your hand.” I folded without a second’s thought.

“You can’t be on your computer or phone while you have a live hand,” she informed him and walked away.

I thought there was some chance that his reaction was also an act and that he was trying to make me angry to get a call. He said something to me after the hand, though, which made me think he was legitimately upset.

The very next hand I got black Queens in the CO and opened to 2600. I was 110% sure that the poisson would at least call. He angrily threw 7500 chips into the pot. The blinds folded, and after a cursory glance at his stack (he had about 35K behind), I shoved a stack of orange into the pot. He snap-called and turned over TT like it was the nuts, which it pretty much was in that spot. I think there’s a legitimate chance that his angry chip tossing was an act and that he thought he was baiting me. I got no reaction when I showed the QQ.

The dealer went to deal the flop, and there was the Tc in the door. The other two cards were also clubs, so I had a lot of outs, but none of them got there. I calmly counted out an appropriate number of chips and passed them to him.

He finished the day with over 300K. I’ve got 135K, though, so no complaints here.