From: greatbrit Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker Subject: WSOP 2003, Day 15: the power of presto Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2003 17:14:25 -0700 In a radical and somewhat controversial departure from the norm, today's poker trip report is about poker. We at offtopictripreports.com apologize for this inconvenience, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. After an afternoon working in my room I went down to the satellite area to contemplate my next donation when I saw a friend who was just on his way over to Mirage for their $60+$40 rebuy No Limit tournament (every Tuesday at 7 p.m.) I haven't stepped foot in a strip casino since I got here so this sounded like a good idea to see how the other half live. We headed off, signing up around 6 p.m. and by 6.30 they were sold out, they ended up with a near record 107 players. I played a little 3-6 holdem while I was waiting, won $40 which would come in handy for my upcoming rebuy-fest. In cheaper rebuy events a lot of people play pretty loose at the beginning, and today I was no exception, with lots of multi-way pots and people going all-in with sub par hands, it's hard not to join in and try to make a quick score. If you get lucky you have a nice start, if not, well, it's only money. I went through my first 500 chips in no time flat after I raised the second level 15-30 blinds to 100 on the button with 33 and got called by the big blind. The flop was 944 which actually looked pretty good to me, so he checked, I bet 300, he check raised the rest of my chips with his Q9o, I called, I rebuy. Soon after it's end of rebuy time so I do another rebuy and the add-on, for a total of $180. After that it was all uphill, I played very tight, picked my moments and never lost another hand. We got down to two tables and I was moved to another table, but I hit some bad luck that the two massive chip leaders were to my left, this severely cut into my blind stealing and I was getting short stacked. Then it was folded around to me on the button with AJo. Big stacks or not, I had no choice, I raised thinking this would give me some much needed chips to at least survive into the money. But I ran into two big hands in the blinds, luckily they both knew how tight I was playing, and both were not crazy about jeopardizing their big stacks when we were so close to the final table. First the small blind thought for a long, long time, and eventually folded his AJ (he showed it later), then the big blind sat for an even longer time, and folded his AQ! I had dodged a bullet and now had a few chips, do I have a tight image or what! Then a major breakthrough happened. I was in the big blind, there was an all-in raise from up front, followed by an all-in reraise right after him. I had 2,000 in the big blind, another 1,300 of my 5,000 to call. Well how could I resist, I doubted my 43s was in the lead, but it was time for a miracle. We turned over our hands, AJo, AA, and my cute little 43. The 256 flop sent the AA guy running out to the car park for his shotgun, and I had a whole bunch of chips. I got up to 18K, average was 16K, and I was in the money at the final table. But not for long. On the very first hand I get KK, put in a small raise hoping someone will come over the top. Someone does, for all her chips, I call in an instant because I am no David Chiu, and she shows me her AA. I am down to 6,000 chips with 1000-2000 blinds. Very next hand I get 55, 'presto', the hand revered around the world for its uncanny mystical qualities. I raise all in, get called by a shorter stack, his AJ finds an Ace on the flop, I'm down to 3,000. Very next hand I get 55, you know, the hand revered around the world for its uncanny mystical qualities. I go all-in and get called by AK, which also finds an Ace on the flop, and ighn, $200 richer and feeling pretty good about the way I played. Today is the final of the 5K No Limit, an event with an all star cast at the final table including Huck Seed and Johnny Chan, I'm going to watch some of that, maybe give Johnny a few pointers during the break. Bracelet Day T-1 Paul