Poker Articles

LA Trip Report - Part I
By Scott Aigner

I am presently playing on the poker tournament circuit. In March I decided to take a sabbatical from the daily grind of my medical career as a Urologist. I have a fairly successful amateur career with 2 firsts, three seconds, and a fifth place finish in the last 45 tournaments that I played in. I play in tournaments with $500 buy ins or higher. I had a horrible run at the WSOP and the two Bellagio tournaments, despite being a winning player in live games as well as in satellite play. Playing in 20 plus tournaments, I had gone fairly deep in 6-7 of them, only to lose with a big pair v.s. a medium pair or KK v.s. A_Q. A couple of times were even worse case scenarios but I understand that one has to be lucky or at least not unlucky when all of the money goes in. I just happened to end up being unlucky.

I had taken some time off to develop a website and to take care of some personal matters at home. I also spent some valuable time with my wife and children and did some major work at my cabin while contemplating my next move in the tournament circuit. I made last minute plans and went to LA to play in the 1.5k no limit tourney as well as a few other tournaments. I also decided to play in some of the super satellites and try to win a seat for the 5k wpt final.

I won a seat in the $10,200 WPT in January for the WPO and was able to defer it to 2005. I won three seats for the big one at the WSOP, two in single table play and another in a $200 rebuy super. I was pretty confident that I could win a seat at the Bike as well. I was fortunate to do so although it took three attempts this time around. I did make the final table at one of the other satellites but never really had a chance with my chip count.

I did start off well in the $1.5k buy in tournament as well but ended up with a disappointing 8th place finish. Not much one can do when the cards are not helping out. Especially since the final table was filled with a number of strong players including Men Nguyen, Tommy Huffnagle, John Huang, Mark Seif, and Tony Ma. The other players were solid as well. Gioi Luong finished 6th in this tournament and won the 3k stud/hold em tournament. I was definitely happy with my play in this tournament, just not the final result.

The rest of the article is about the 5k tournament. I played smart poker for the most part. I made a few big lay downs to conserve my stack for better situations. I have learned that it is better to minimize the big loss when others might gamble in a similar situation. It does take a considerable amount of effort at times to make these lay downs but in the long run I believe it improves my chance of surviving to the later stages of the tournament. I can wait patiently knowing that a better situation is going to occur where I have a chance to double through as a huge favorite.

LA Trip Report-Day#1

I made it through day one. Talk about a grind for the last three levels. I had laid down trip tens early in the tournament against John Phan when I am certain he sucked out on the river. I had studied him in Tunica when he won the Pot Limit Hold Em tourney. It helped a little, as I had picked up a little information in his betting pattern. He has a similar routine in how he handles himself and tells are not easy to find on this guy. He is very loose aggressive and can make moves with any two cards, especially if he thinks he can get you to lay down a hand. He has one of the best smiles in tournament poker and his personality is so laid back when he is away from the table. When the game starts though, he is as aggressive as one can be. He reminds me of Daniel Negreanu in this regards. Their game just does not fit their personality in so many ways. Almost like a passive aggressive personality and the aggressive part only comes out when they are in a competitive situation. Unbelievable how often they try to take control of a table. Daniel has the ability to add persuasive talk to the situation too. If John can add this aspect to his game, Look Out!

After being down to 6200 in chips, I caught a few playable hands against John. I was lucky enough to pick up a gutshot straight draw on a flop. He made a mistake in his betting and allowed me to see the turn. I caught a flush draw when another heart hit and John didn't have a clue where I was. He only bet about 1/4 of the pot again. I am almost certain he was afraid of the ace on the board, given his betting. I think he felt I would check the river and he would get a chance to try to bluff me off the ace(which is where he put me) if he missed or value bet it or check otherwise. I hit the gutter on the river and bet out about 1/2 of the pot very quickly. I think this perplexed him as I didn't take any time at all in the bet (I had already made up my mind to bet this amount if I hit the straight or flush as John would have to call if he did have 2 pair). He contemplated for a few minutes and then called. He said he hit two pair. I think he had k-10 rather than ace-king. Either way, it was a nice pot to take down as it got me close to even. I don't think John would have called a pot sized bet.

I was able to pick up a few pots here and there when John made a 700 raise UTG. He had lost a pot just a few hands earlier when he had a straight on the turn and another player hit the flush on the river. I had him outchipped at this point. Everyone folded to me on the Button and I looked down at (Kh) (Ks). I was in the tent at the time and it was quite dark. I was attempting to just raise him to 2000 when I accidentally put my 5k chip in with three yellow ones, making the raise 6500 to go. Everyone folded to John and he moved in over the top of me for 4000 more. Well I thought for a second after I realized that I made the blunder due to the darkness and actually overbet the pot. If he had aces, I was dead as there was no way I could fold it now. If it was any other player at the table I would have felt sick as that all in move would represent Aces. With John though, it could be just about any hand in the deck. I called within 20-30 seconds and he turned over Q_Q. Wow! I knocked John out and doubled through.

Kathy Liebert was also at our table. I did not know any of the other players. We did have a pretty good time playing and were having fun for the most part. There was a player in the 8th seat who played in a very strange way. He limped in UTG or made a standard raise often whenever he was in this position. If someone raised from late position, he would fold or go all in. I folded one time when I raised him from late position with 7-7 and he made this move. He didn't do it every time which made his play very unpredictable. Later on he tried the same thing with the opponent to my Left and the guy called his all in raise. The UTG player had k-10 offsuit v.s. a-k and spiked a ten to double up. The same guy did take a few k off of me later on when he had two bigger pair than mine. I really thought he was bluffing on the river with a busted flush draw. I wasn't the only one who thought this as Paul Wolfe was now at our table in the seat that was vacated by John Phan. As I made this statement, he agreed with me.

Kathy Liebert was never much of a factor at the table but ended up with the dreaded nightmare. Aces against Paul Wolfe who had Aces too. Paul hit the club flush when the board came all clubs on the flop and another hit on the turn. Ouchy! He also got me for 4k in another pot as I tried to represent trips when the top card paired (a jack). I actually had 10's and was a little surprised to see him play a q-j offsuit given my EP raise.

I also had three players try to bluff me off a pair. This is very unusual for me to call the river bet when there are one or two overcards on the board. The last board was actually k-4-4-a-k. If it was any other player who bet on the river, I probably would have folded. He didn't see the other great calls I made though as he had taken Kathy's seat. He had q-3 of clubs and had called my raise. He was the the BB and I was in the cutoff seat. The SB also called the raise as well.I called his bluff pot sized bet on the river with a pair of 6's. The other two bluffers that I called big river bets, had A-Q off suit and a K-J offsuit. They both checked on the turn and their river bets just stunk like they were big bluffs. Both times I had a pair of eights. I hit a high of 28k and change at the end of the third level.

Unfortunately I ended up losing 10k in a few confrontations including the pot against Wolfe. The other one occurred because I reraised the UTG that I discussed earlier. He would have lost all of his money, I think, had it not been for the fact that a shortstacked player moved over my 2k raise with about 2k more. I had Q_Q and after accessing the preflop damage, I decided that this guy could have JJ as well as A_Q and not just KK or AA. He had made a similar move earlier with a pair of tens. He did all kinds of obvious tells on purpose. He even stood up and winked at me. He said "great lay down" as I was getting ready to muck them and that changed my mind. I called and he had KK. DUH! I was getting only 3.5-1 odds here and should have gone with my first instinct and mucked them. If I didn't have the 28k at the time, I would have. I did learn a little on this guys play and won about 3k of it back later. Unfortunately, I went to another table and was card dead the last 2 levels. I ended up with 13.1k.

My new table was finally in the casino. It had some great players including my buddy Jennifer Harman. She is one tough and savvy player. We had only one confrontation towards the end when I tried to catch a flop from the big blind with a decent hand and totally missed the all spade flop. One hand later we were through for the night at 1:25 a.m. Jennifer has 43k. I saw Chris Ferguson on the way out and he told me he has around 48k.

A player to my left who has very little tournament experience has 30k. He was hit with the deck the entire time I was there. He has an unusual betting style and this makes him all the more dangerous. I lost a fairly big pot to him but was able to let go of my overpair on a river bet. He ended up reraising me preflop with the ace-seven of hearts and flopped trip sevens. I had raised in early poition too. I bet this guy ends up giving his money away later on once his luck stops and he has to play against bigger stacks. He doesn't understand tournament strategy and is playing by the seat of his pants. Every time he bet and someone folded, he showed his hand. Every time he had the top pair or a pocket pair. Unbelievable run for him so far. He has not folded a single time without showing his hand. He hasn't bluffed one time but I suspect he will get trapped when he hits top pair and someone catches better.

I liked the table I was at when play ended. I had Charlie "Scotty Warbucks" Shoten to my right. The "Little Orient Express" (as I decided to call him) is to my immediate left. Jennifer Harman is in seat 1 and I am in seat 7. John Inashima (took 9th place in the big one in 2001) is two to my left. Farzad Bonyadi is three to my right ( he won the 2000 Carnival of poker big one) and is relatively short stacked as is Inashima. One other player is to Jennifer's left but I don't think he has any big wins under his belt. He had over 30k when I first sat down and he too had no hands and is down to 17k or so. More than likely, we will redraw.

Today is moving day. The final 63 will make it to Monday and also be in the money. I hope I catch a few hands and have a little luck to make a move early. The chip leader has over 100k. He caught the best possible scenario when he flopped quads, v.s. an over pair, v.s. a full house and another player turned a full house when everyone checked the flop. The player with the overpair was able to get away from his hand without investing another dime in the pot. A good player sets traps. A great player senses them. He was so happy with his play here and I can't blame him. He was in early position too. The guy with the Quads was one of the blinds. This pot had over 46k in it. Talk about timing!

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