I discovered pokerforum.ca last night through an ad in Canadian Poker Player and was happy to find a nice Canada-focused poker forum. Still not firm info on some of the local tourneys I was hearing rumours about, but more than I’ve been able to find elsewhere.
I also discovered Dave Scharf’s (editor of Canadian Poker Player) WSOP journal posts. A great read for anyone interested in a first hand account of the big game. He got a few of the facts wrong (he said Chris Ferguson busted out on Day 1) but with all the trouble the media is having getting a clear picture, it has to be even more overwhelming for someone in the middle of it. After I posted this the first time, I realized I should include a little teaser to whet a reader’s appetite. Here’s a sample from his day 3 report on a hand he played with Annie Duke:
Two hands later it is my big-blind. Annie raises on the button. I call in the big blind with Q-8s. The flop is A-J-8 and the A-J are spades. I have bottom pair and a flush draw. I have A LOT of outs. I check. Annie bets $4K. I check-raise to $16,000. She thinks for a while and re-raises me ANOTHER $37K. I believe she is capable of making that bet with a lot of hands… She could, I think, be bluffing. She could have an ace. I re-re-re-raise all-in. The combination of “annie might be bluffing” plus “I have at least 9 outs and probably 14 outs” was enough for me to put the pressure back on her. Annie thinks for a long while. She has about $25K in front of her. So, she is facing a call of $25K into a pot of about $110K. I think she had an ace. She counted down her stack and was, I think, trying to figure out if she had enough chips left to carry on or if she needed to call and hope I was bluffing. Eventually, she folded.
I tossed my hand face up in the middle of the table and said, “Make sure you tell Gus about that hand too.”
I feel bad about it today. It is not my style to talk trash but I just sort of snapped. Maybe I am feeling more of the pressure than I realize.
Of course the Gus he mentions here is Gus Hansen, whom Annie had been bragging to earlier. A good read if you still can’t get enough WSOP, and with the final table starting in not too long, I imagine everyone is pretty excited. I know I am, and I’m nowhere near Las Vegas.
– May 20 (arrival)
– May 21
– Day 1 (early)
– Day 1 (recap)
– Day 2 (Dave’s first day)
– Day 3
– Day 4