Cory Albertson

I played in the Dream Team event at the Rio today. This event has a really cool format. Teams of three register for $560 per person. The prize pool is split 50% individually and 50% based on team performance. I was on a team with two nice young ladies, Brianna Bramer and Suzie Matzura.

The tournament had 366 players, many of which were recognizable names in the poker community. I had Justin Bonomo, Jimmy ‘gobboboy’ Fricke, and Jerry Yang at my starting table. Justin and I played $100 per question ‘What Lodden Thinks‘ using Jimmy and Jerry as our Huckleberries. We came up with some pretty cool questions such as “how many humans does Jimmy think will populate the earth in the year 2040,” and, “how many people in this year’s Main Event does Jerry think identify as being a born-again Christian?” All told, Justin took two bets off of me before he busted out of the tournament leaving me actionless.

At first break, myself and Suzie were on a paltry 4,000 chips (from 10k starting) while Brianna sat on a tournament-leading 43,000. In the fourth level, Suzie got Ace-Queen all-in against Ace-Jack which unfortunately didn’t hold up. At second break, Brianna and I each sat with 19k after I doubled up with pocket Deuces against Jimmy’s King-Deuce and again with pocket Aces against Jack-Nine of diamonds after having to sweat a sick flop of Queen-Eight-Six, two diamonds.

Brianna caught some unfortunate luck and I found myself as the last remaining member of Team Bulletproof at a table with Tom McEvoy and Pauly from Tao of Poker.

I re-raised all-in for 8 big-blinds against an aggressive young guy. My Ace-Jack was no match for his Ace-Queen.

Despite losing money, this was a really fun event that I enjoyed quite a great deal. The whole tournament had a festive atmosphere to it that one might expect to see in a charity event. Alex Outhred, the actor/poker player who busted me out of the Main Event last year, although Michael Carroll did most of the dirty work, was the emcee for the tournament. He is fantastically gifted in that role and made the experience a great deal more enjoyable.

Tonight is my last night in Vegas. I feel like I’ve been here a very long time. I’ve stayed in four different hotels and spent time with quite a few different people in varying settings. Part of me can’t wait to go home but another very significant part of me never wants the WSOP festivities to end. As they say, there’s always next year.

Poker players say that the day you bust out of the Main Event is the worst day of the year. I guess if that holds true, then you can claim to have had a pretty decent year. However, there definitely is a little spark that dies inside of you when get knocked out of this event. All those thoughts and daydreams of, “hey, maybe I’ll make the final table,” or “hey, maybe I’ll be the next World Champion,” are replaced by the cold hard truth that it’s not going to happen. At least not this year.

I already had one foot in the grave when I showed up to today’s tournament with just 15 big blinds. I still had a little hope though. A key double-up in the early going would have given me enough chips to potentially maneuver my way into a “real” stack. I got that opportunity on the third hand of play against child actor turned poker player Justin Henry who is one of the youngest people to have ever been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Kramer vs. Kramer. It folded to Henry in the small blind who raised my big blind to 3,000. I looked down at a six and squeezed the second card slowly, another six, and quickly moved all-in hoping to look strong enough to get Henry to fold some of the bottom of his range (like King-Nine or whatever). He called with King-Queen and I was put out of my misery on the flop which contained a Queen.

As I walked out of the Rio, I searched for some type of emotion regarding having been knocked out, but I couldn’t muster anything up. My feeling then and my feeling now is a pretty bland sense of “oh well.” Being that I was all geared up to play poker and only got to play three hands, I decided to head to the Venetian to catch their deep stack tournament, a $550 buy-in today. In the fourth level, I made a pretty sizeable re-raise all-in with an Ace-high flush draw on the turn. My opponent gave it quite a great deal of thought before calling with third pair and a different flush draw. I wiffed on 13 outs and am now back at T.I.

I’m staying in Vegas for at least another three nights and will participate in the ‘Dream Team’ event at the Rio on Sunday. I’ll write more about that later. For now, I’ve got to catch a ride to a round of golf.

I made it to day three of the Main Event, but not in the best of shape. I started the day with 44k and ended with 18k. There’s not a ton I have to say about this beyond that I just never really won any nice sized pots but did however lose a couple of medium-sized pots.

During 400/800, I raised to 2,200 with KQ. A woman in the big blind from Idaho who had been playing quite terrible made the call. The flop was King-Queen-Four, all hearts. She led out for 4,400 and I peeled one off. The turn was a black Five. She bet 16,000. This brought me considerable pause. I decided that I could beat anything she had except a flush and that a flush is the only hand she would bet on the river, so I decided to call with the plan being to fold on the river if she fired again. The river was a brick. When she checked, I like my chances of taking it down and flipped my hand up. I liked my chances of taking it down quite a lot more when she just sat there staring at my hand for 10 seconds.

She turned over pocket Fives.

Later, Jean-Claude Moussa, who had been playing very between the lines, which surprised me quite a bit, raised to 2,500 under-the-gun. I called in position with pocket Eights. We both checked a Queen-Ten-x flop. The turn was a Seven. He bet, I called. The river was a Five. He bet, this time somewhat significantly, and I went into the tank for the only time all day. I couldn’t decide whether or not to call. I was leaning towards a fold about 2:1, so I decided to look at the tournament clock and call if the seconds-digit was 20 or less. It was 16 and I called. He turned over Seven-Five.

That left me with about 22,000 during 500/1,000. In that half hour that followed, I didn’t win a pot and bagged up 18,000. While this is certainly a short stack, the blinds are only 600/1,200. I’m comfortable playing a short-stack and do not yet feel despair regarding my chances in this tournament. A double-up or two and I’m right back in the thick of things in what is a very soft field.

After leaving the Rio, Michael and I grabbed some food at the Grand Lux and then played Blackjack Switch (a very fun, low house-edge pit game if you’ve never tried it) at Casino Royale. I went on a little heater and won close to $2k which will have me going to bed a little more content than I otherwise might have been.

Table draw is very important in any tournament and the Main Event is no exception. I think I can contribute much, if not most of the success I had in last year’s tournament to having pretty sick table draws for the most part (except day four when I had Eastgate, Demidov, ocrowe, and a few other solid players at my table… that was brutal). Anyway, my day two table draw for this year doesn’t look awful or anything, but it could be a lot better:

Mason, Christopher 33825 BR207 1
Hayward, Tracee 52900 BR207 2
Alaei, Daniel 14975 BR207 3
Dyke, Dan 64075 BR207 4
Moussa, Jean-Claude 33550 BR207 5
Le Baron, DJ 9350 BR207 6
Albertson, Cory 44025 BR207 7
Slater, Glenn 59000 BR207 8
McCowan, Randall 72500 BR207 9
Rollo, Justin 36525 BR207 10

I emboldened the concerning spots. Most people have heard of Alaei, a bracelet-holder with tenacious cash game skills. Thankfully he’s fairly short-stacked. Hopefully some donk knocks him out on a coin flip in the early going.

Jean-Claude Moussa is jcmoussa online, a good high-stakes cash game baller that I’m told has lots of tattoos and dresses to show them off in hopes that he comes across as some punk that doesn’t know what he’s doing. Glad I got tipped off about this beforehand!

Justin Rollo is jurollo online, an experienced MTTer and figurehead on the 2p2 forums. He’s the type of guy I’m expecting to play very solid but also not go out of his way to tangle or anything, which is fine. For the most part, I play the same way.

I mostly laid low today. Went to Callaway golf course just south of the strip with Leif Force. For a few reasons, I wasn’t pleased with the experience and probably won’t go back there. First of all, their entire course consists of 9 par-3 holes. However, this doesn’t stop them from charging $55 a person to play (including cart plus we had to rent clubs I guess, but still…) which is just absurd in my opinion. Angel Park has a 12 hole par-3 course called ‘Cloud Nine’ that is awesome and only runs like $30 a person with clubs and a cart.

Callaway just had this air of pretentiousness that was really annoying. For example, there was a guy positioned at the start of the fifth tee box who asked to see our receipt. It’s like… really? Do they think we stole the carts and clubs from the pro shop and are now rolling around the course like cowboys having the time of our lives without having paid the greens fees? It’s incredible to me that they’d pay this guy to check our receipts. Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we really did sneak onto the course without paying. So what? Golf courses are all up front costs. Whether no one plays or hundreds of people play, they still have nearly the same costs. Why spend money hiring some guy to annoy us by checking our receipts at the fifth tee?

I have very, very thin patience when it comes to the incompetence of businesses. Even if this place was the perfect golf experience, I’d still probably never go back. $55 for a round of golf that takes 60 minutes is ridiculous, especially during a recession. Get a clue, Callaway. What do you say you fire the guy on the fifth tee box and charge me a little less to play your mediocre course?

I guess I kind of got off on a little rant there, but that will happen sometimes, especially in Vegas, a city that can “get to you” pretty easily. Thankfully I’ve got about 8 gigabites of new trance music to groove to in tomorrow’s tournament.

I played day one today of the Main Event. I think the best way to approach day one is to pretty much just be a nit in any medium- to large-sized pot. Of course, it’s fine to be aggro in small pots, but there’s really no excuse not to have the goods when you’re getting all your chips in on day one. The structure is just too good and the competition is just ridiculously bad. It’s really quite amazing some of the people who in one way or another come up with ten thousand dollars to wager on this tournament.

I was at about the cushiest starting table one could ask for. There were four solid, but harmless guys, two total nits, and one guy with spewy tendencies on my immediate right who helped me get off to a good start by paying off my full house overbet with the King flush on a four diamond board. My low point for the day was the starting stack of 30k. High point was 52k. Bagged up 44k which is almost exactly average.

At the beginning of the last level, our table broke. As I made my way to my new seat, I noted the player on my left was a woman. “Oh nice, some chick at my table,” I thought. I sat down to find “some chick” was Jennifer Harman. Karmic bad beat for being a sexist. She won two small pots off of me but laughed at my jokes and genuinely seemed like a good natured person.

In the last level, I min re-raised a guy with pocket Kings, checked behind him on a Jack-Six-Three flop, and called his turn and river bets. He flipped over Sevens and commented that I “won the maximum” off of him with the way I played that hand. Ten minutes later he betrayed where his focus was at by asking me, “how can you ever check behind on that flop?”

“You said I won the maximum off of you, right?”

Poker players can be pretty silly sometimes. There were a lot of them at the Rio today, too. Some 2,800 players participated in Day 1D which sabotaged some under bets I had on the number of participants this year. Breaks were a nightmare. It would have been considerate of Harrah’s to have allowed this flight an extra 5 or 10 minutes for breaks so that those of us in the back of the line to use the urinal didn’t miss a few hands by the time we got back to the table.

I heard rumors that 800-some players were turned away from registering this morning. Ridiculous. Pretty much everyone is talking about it, so I don’t know how much I want to go into it, but obviously it’s an organizational nightmare that Harrah’s had to turn away hundreds and hundreds of players, many of whom flew in from overseas, with $10,000 in hand ready to play this tournament.

Alright that’s enough for tonight. Day one of the Main Event is pretty much about not doing anything stupid. Mission accomplished, day two up next.

The day before the Main Event reminds me of the day before Christmas from when I was a little kid. There is definitely a sense of excitement and anticipation for what tomorrow holds. Throughout the day, I observe that my thoughts consist less and less about things not pertaining to the Main Event. By the time I climb into bed here in another couple of hours, it will likely be all I’m thinking about and essentially remain that way until I’ve been knocked out. I think this focus is a good thing; and for me, knock on wood, it seems to manifest itself with no effort required in this particular tournament.

It’s undeniable that a profoundly life changing experience is in store for some people over the next several days, nine of them in particular. This year, it appears about ~5,900 people will be chasing that dream. Two years ago on the eve of my first Main Event, shaniac said something to the effect of, “it’s just another stupid tournament,” after I shared a sense of anxiety about playing in the event. It’s not often I have to disagree with Shane as usually he makes good sense just about anytime he pipes up, or at least so it seems, but in this case, I’d have to disagree. There is definitely a mystical aspect of the Main Event that grips you and doesn’t let go until your dreams of multi-million dollar glory are definitively erased for the year.

I haven’t done much the past few days since arriving in Vegas. Earlier today, I saw Public Enemies which was disappointing but not terrible. Before bedding down for the night, I’m either going to watch a movie in my room or enjoy some quiet relaxation at the Venezia pool.

A few people have expressed interest in receiving updates from me during the tournament. I think the most efficient way to dispatch such updates is through status updates on Facebook. Actually, Twitter is probably even better, but that site brings out the grumpy old man in me who wants to wait as long as possible before caving in, creating an account, and thus being one of “those people” who use the headache-inducing verb “Tweet” on a regular basis.

So with that said, if you’d like to track any updates I have from the Main Event, add me as a friend on Facebook. For anyone who cares to know, I’m in the Brasilia room at table 249 tomorrow.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen it already, check out how Phil Hellmuth made his entrance into this year’s Main Event. Say what you want about Phil, but I absolutely love him and envy his level of shamelessness.

Yesterday was a long day. I woke up at 3 am Vegas time in the middle of Illinois, drove three hours to O’Hare, flew to Houston, chilled in the airport for four hours, and then flew to Vegas arriving at 8 pm, 15 hours after I woke up. Of course, the day was hardly over at that point.

During the layover in Houston, I took a seat at the Fox Sky Box next to a couple of normal-enough looking guys. We got to talking and the two of them told me they were on their way to Calgary (connecting in Houston from Boston, wtf, right?) for the ‘Sinister 7‘, a 91 mile ultra-marathon that takes place in the Canadian Rockies. The sickest part of all? There’s no trail! Participants are given 27 hours to complete the race or they are pulled off the course. There are seven different checkpoints that must be reached within a certain amount of time in order to be permitted to continue.

Only one of the two gentleman, his name Kevin Claire, is participating in the race. The other was his coach/confidant who would be there to meet him at each check point and provide much needed support. Kevin said he’s ran five ultra-marathons in the past 12 months to prepare for this race. At 41, he doesn’t look like how you would picture an all-terrain ultra-marathon runner. You can certainly tell he’s a fit guy, but as he sat there with a goatee and rugged clothing, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to you to think he’s anything different than a blue collar type of guy just sipping on a beer.

Sinister 7 participants go between heights of 4,500′ to 9,000′ above sea level. When asked if he has any experience in that high of altitudes, Kevin just smiled and said, “nope.” I couldn’t figure out what could possibly possess him to do this. He said, simply enough, that he just likes testing the limits of human achievement. Pretty awesome stuff.

When they asked me what I was going to Vegas for, I think each of them were equally floored that I would put up, “TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?!?” to play in a poker tournament. Kinda funny how that works. Anyway, best of luck to Kevin whom I believe is the only American competing in the race.

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Last night, I registered for Day 1D (Monday) of the Main Event and met up with a few people for a drink at the Rio, including PokerTips bloggers Dave and Seb. The iBar has these tables that are pretty conducive to prop betting. One application is a satellite map of Earth that you can move and zoom with your hands. We had some interesting props like, “can you zoom in on the Golden Gate Bridge in under two minutes?” While that might sound fairly easy, it’s pretty humbling how big the Earth is and how small all of these famous landmarks are once you finally find them and zoom in on them. If you ever want to hustle someone at this game, challenge them to find the White House in under two minutes. Free money.

Momentarily, Dave is picking me up and we’re heading to Lotus of Siam for the lunch buffet. I mentioned this restaurant in a previous entry, but it’s basically regarded by many as the best Thai restaurant in Vegas, if not the U.S., if not the world. I’m hardly qualified to be able to agree with that assessment, but I do know that it’s really damn good.

After lunch, we’re picking up Leif Force and heading to Angel Park’s Cloud Nine course for some golf in the 105 degree heat. I’m seeing Zumanity with a friend (female, obv) tonight. In the only other attempt I’ve made to see a Cirque show, the stage hydraulics defaulted within 15 minutes forcing the show to be canceled.

Anyway, it’s good to be back and it’s good to have left. I saw a lot of zombie-faced poker players at the Rio last night, some of whom confirmed my suspicion that they were ready to get the hell out of this city. That’s hardly the ideal mentality one could take into the biggest poker tournament of the year.