2600 Hurts: UPC II $2600 No-Limit Hold 'Em

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Suck and re-suck

I strutted into the Plaza with my upturned chin and a grin reminiscent of gin and vermouth, having used part of my winnings last night to buy into today's $2600 event. With the stakes going up we were starting to attract more big guns and of the 53 players, three well-known pros were at my starting table. I drew table 16, seat seven, and Hoyt "All In" Corkins was on my left in seat eight; Allen "Knish" Kessler was in seat five, and Jenny Kang was on my right in seat six. Right away I got Jenny to lay down what was probably an overpair when put in the third raise all in on a coordinated flop. That brought me up from my starting 7500 to close to 10,000.

 

Jenny busted and was replaced by the very aggressive Chris Bigler so now I was stuck between him and Hoyt. The ever-dangerous Mike Borovetz took seat one. I didn't get much and was back down to 7825 at the break.

 

When we got back I saw a multiway flop with Six-Four offsuit on the small blind. The flop came Seven-Six-Three rainbow. I checked, Hoyt bet, the other player called, and I decided to move in with my pair and gutshot on a semibluff. Hoyt didn't take long to call with Ace-Seven suited, making him a 69% favorite but I hit a Four on the turn to give me two pair. Now I was a 77% favorite but Hoyt re-sucked with an ugly, ugly Seven on the river to send me packing in 34^th place.

 

Dinner was with Matt Maroon, one of the many Matts I knew who were excellent poker players and/or writers, and in his case both. He had expressed an interest in being corrupted by good wine and I wanted to take him to Mistral at the Las Vegas Hilton but it was closed for the summer so we went to the decent Hilton Steakhouse instead. As usual in Las Vegas the steaks were perfect and we washed them down with the yummy 1997 Heitz Trailside Cabernet, the Maroon's introduction to California cult wines. Heh heh.

 

Tomorrow: $3100!