World Series of Poker catch-up

I know the November Nine is underway as we speak but I'm doing my best to stay off Twitter and Poker News so I don't hear what happens. I don't have Foxtel which shows the World Series in Australia and have been so busy of late that I hadn't been watching online.

I had a poker weekend, without actually playing that much. I started watching the Main Event on youtube on Friday and pretty spent all weekend catching up on the action. I also had my first "poker wedding" on Saturday. No, not a poker themed wedding, but two poker friends that got married, so the only other people I knew at the wedding were also poker players/friends.

Anyway, as for the Main Event, I'm now half-way through Day 7 so I'm not far from the end. I'm not sure if I should be surprised but the first few days was so focussed on the big name live pros in the field. Despite being a chipleader on day 4, Tony "Bond18" Dunst only got a brief mention in the coverage and wasn't sighted until day 5. Nick "MI_Turtle" Rainey also came in to the coverage on day 5 sitting at one of the feature tables. I didn't realise Christian Harder was still in the tournament as I swear he was first sighted late in day 5 or early in day 6.

Its fair to say that Tony Dunst stole the show over the last few days. Not so much for his play, but for his trademark suit, cool demeanor and his working of the room (read: the ladies near his rail). Bond's charming style won over Norman Chad and Lon McEachern and after his performance on the coverage, it was no surprise that he was picked to be the new correspondent for the WPT. Unfortunately Dunst couldn't make it to the November Nine, but he'll be seeing plenty of face time on poker TV from now on.

I'm off to Longreach (outback Australia) on Wednesday so it could be possible to miss the Main Event winner, if so I can watch it without knowing the result when I get back on Saturday. Let's see how it goes.

Nick Rainey, WBCOOP and VIP update

It was a quiet morning at work so I decided to play in event #3 of the WBCOOP on PokerStars.

In event #1 there was around 1600 players with 153 receiving tickets to the SCOOP. As I do, I finished about 180th, just short of winning a ticket. I played well despite taking a rotten beat early. I raised with queens, flop came 8 high and despite me showing strength someone couldn't fold ace 8 and rivered an 8. That crippled me early but I fought back strong, got back in the game but fell just short. The final hand was folded to the button who raised, I had ace king suited in the small blind and re-raised all-in. After a bit of thought he called turning over 6's and held knocking me out.

Today was a similar story. My first table had someone just shoving every single hand for the first 5 minutes or so. He sucked out on a few people but of course lost it not long after. From there, it was just stupid aggression from a number of players because we had a number of stacks that were sitting out. I was patient and picked my spots, re-raising when I normally wouldn't but my reads/ranges were right and I got paid off. I was shortish approaching the bubble and called from the small blind with 9 10 off vs 1 limper and the big blind who checked. Flop came 9 high so I pushed all-in, small blind folded but the donk who limped called turning over bottom pair ace kicker and of course the river was the ace and I was gone about 10 short of the money/ticket. SOOO frustrating.

There's a really good article about insane MTT grinder Nick Rainey (aka MI_turtle). I think it appeared in a British poker magazine and its well worth a read.

Also, my quest for Silver VIP status on PokerStars is going to be a battle. After playing the last few nights I'm just short of 550, still 200 short of the target. I'll play as much as I can tomorrow but I'm playing in the APL State Finals on Saturday and have an engagement party after that ... so that day is out. Sunday will have to be a mad day-long grind.

Quick bankroll update. I couldn't get any wins tonight and with a number of bubbles and min-cashes thrown in I'm currently around $550. I really want to get back over $600 which I was briefly earlier in the week.

Bond18 runs good

There are a few online players that I rail/follow on PokerStars when I'm not actually playing. Most of them are because I read their blogs or they're well known on the Two Plus Two poker forums. The main ones are Alex Fitzgerald (Assassinato), Tony Dunst (Bond 18), Nick Rainey (MI_turtle) and Shaun Deeb (shaundeeb).

Its been a relatively quiet last few weeks as Alex has been back visiting his family in Seattle and Shaun Deeb is on hiatus from poker for a while.

Most of the focus has been on Nick as he has been grinding like a madman over the last few months in his quest for TLB points and the chance to be the first player ever to win consecutive monthly leaderboards on PokerStars. He's currently sitting in second place behind Simonator who came out of nowhere after coming 3rd in the Turbo Takedown.

Today tho was all about Tony Dunst. He hasn't had the best year on PokerStars being down around 15% according to OPR. Since I'm not on any other sites I don't bother tracking how players do on anything else but Stars. Bond18 has a reputation for running good, whether it be with the ladies, in life itself or at the tables. Today, he ran particularly well taking down one big field MTT and coming second in another.

I was following both Nick and Tony's progress as I watched the NFL and the cricket on TV. Tony tho was on fire final-tabling the 2 MTT's and cashing a few others. The two top results was a 2nd (out of 1250 players) in an $11 rebuy which earned him over $3.5K and then he outlasted 500 players in a $22 rebuy tournament to win almost $6K. The win was no doubt more sweet for him as at one stage during the heads-up battle he faced a 5:1 chip deficit but managed to fight back and take it down.

A spectacular return on the buy-ins paid and even better when you consider I think he played just 9 tournaments on PokerStars and cashed 6 of them. Congrats Bond on a MASSIVE day!