Wednesday Aruba Update
Well last night after the semi finals a small group of us went out for a mini celebration party of the great showing of the blackjack players making it to the final table a true example of skill as the BJ players only consisted of 20 % of the entire field and 4 of the 12 Finalist are "Skilled" Tournament players . With every thing being equal we should have had only 2 players make it.So we did 50 % better than expected
Keep in mind there were 6 semi final tables with a BJ player on 5 tables and 1 table with 2 blackjack players. Out of the 6 tables of 6 with 2 advancing 4 out of 6 advanced. The only blackjack player who didnt advance off his table was David Page. Darrly P was on Ken Smiths table and did not advance also. But still in all advancing 4 of 6 is great and speaks volumes for players who take this game seriously.
The small party consisted of Kenny Smith, Vera , John Ressman,Peter Nathan, Hollywood Dave and myself and Erin who works in the UBT office in Los Angeles.The only Finalist missing was Anthony Curtis but we tracked him down a short time later.Thats where last night gets interesting.
We walked over to the Holiday Inn casino to find a big no limit Texas Hold em game going on with Russ Hamilton, Kenny Einiger,DevilFish,Houston Curtis and Sam Korkis who are the 2 exectuive producers of the UBT TV show along with other players who are involved with UB/UBT.
There were enough chips on the table to choke a horse and the game went on to 7 am
The stakes were a little bit out of my league so I was just an observer for a while .There was a lot of trash talking going on between Kenny and Devilfish as Kenny kept on bluffing Devilfish out of pot after pot showing him the bluffs and had a impressive stack in front of him
I ventured over to the main casino and observed Hollywood ,Mike C and AC playing a 6 deck shoe game with one ploppie at the game.
I joined the game and a short time later AC left knowing that this is going to go down hill quick if we are all there but it was late and its never a good thing for 4 counters to be at 1 table but it was the only game open.
OK so AC leaves and we are playing with this ploppie who now starts looking at the three of us and you can see her mind working and she now says I think I know you guys :laugh:
We say nothing but see thinks for a while and says wait I know where I know you guys from you were all on the WSOB and that's Hollywood Dave .She then tell us she watches all the BJ TV shows
Keep in mind she has one of those BS cards with her and every hand she is checking to see how to play her hand.
We are trying to help her and she starts to realize that when we bet big a lot of 10 & Aces come out and now she has buried her BS card in her pocket and is pretty much betting 20-25 when we have 75- 100 out on 2 hands. Keep in mind prior to us arriving she was flat betting 5 dollars every hand.
When we bet 5-10 she goes back to her 5 bet
She asked us do you guys do this in every casino you go into ,I oh course being the "Funny Guy" tell her no not every casino just the ones that let us play :laugh:
After the 3 or 4th shoe I don't remember which we have a pretty big plus count and the 3 of us have big bets out and Mike C gets dealt a 10-10 vs a Dealers 6 and splits them into 4 hands ranging from 19-20-20-21
The ploppie is now pulling out the card to see if it says to do that
Shortly after that shoe the game went 75 % to 3 decks being dealt out of 6 . We left but she wanted us to stay and didnt understand why we left.
I'm sure we may have created a new player who is now going to try to learn to play with an edge
We all stayed out way to late last night but we had the day off as the Sit & Go's didnt start until 6 PM tonight
There were 11 held tonight and one of them was a 1,000 Sit & Go which Russ organized and announced in the poker room if anyone wanted to knock off Phil Hellmuth that there were 2 seats available the seats were quickly filled and the table looked like this
Seat 1 Unknown Poker Player
Seat 2 Unknown Poker Player
Seat 3 Big Chuck Gorson
Seat 4 Russ Hamilton
Seat 5 Joe Pane
Seat 6 Phil Hellmuth
Seat 7 Mansour Matloubi 1990 WSOP Champion
First paid 5,000
2nd place 2,000
On the first elimination hand I was in seat 5 betting 5th and was BR 4 Seat 1 Br 7 bet 10 K seat 2 Br 6 bet 9000 Chuck Br 3 bet 5,000 Russ Br 2 bet next and match bets with Chuck now it was my turn and I have a 250 lead over Hellmuth and I'm not prepared to use my secret bet in this spot its to powerful to waste right now. So I bet enough to beat Br 6 -7 if they win their hands .Phil betting after me bets 1000 less than me taking the low from me and now taking away my surrender . He learns quick as have most of the poker players ,what you are seeing on line is not how the poker players are playing here in Aruba for the most part they have learned the betting patterns it just the hand playing that they need to work on but they are good enough to keep us on our toes
Here is how the hand plays out seat 1 DD 0n 44 vs 9 seat 2 has 19
Chuck has 19 Russ has AA and splits and its face down so I cant see his results and I have a hard 12 vs a dealers 9 . I hit here as Phil who is behind me has 6-3 and Mansour has a 10-10. My thinking here is that seat 1 has a 44 DD which should be a loser and I can afford to try to make a hand and avoid the dreaded elimination right on the spot and if I bust I will still have more than seat 1 and Phil is yet to act . Russ also with his AA split has given me a low.I hit my 12 and BUST Phil is now safe and Im starting to second guess my hit now as I make Phil a lock to advance . The dealer did her job and ........... Busted I had you there for a second by saying that and you thought I survived but she busted and I was the first to "Stand Up" as my good friend Sirklas from Germany says when it's time to go. He actually says "So we should stand"
So with only playing 8 hands with a entry fee of 1,000 thats works out to $125 per hand man oh man does that hurt.
The Tournament was won by the way by the unknown poker player
Big Chuck got 2nd
The 540 event will be played tommorow starting at 12 noon and Anthony Curtis and I will be providing live up dates over at LasVegasAdvisor.com
Well until Thursady I hope you enjoy this Update from Aruba
See ya
Joep