My WSOP Experience #1

Hi Raillers,

First i would like to give you guy's my apology's for not writting abt the WSOP sooner. Truth is, i really dint feel talking abt it and am still not to enthousiast abt going into it in details, but i feel i owe you guys and Railbirds, it is, after all, because of the Railbirds members and admistration that i had the oportunity to live what so many of us (poker enthousiast) dream of doing.

I landed in Vegas on the 2nd of June filled with expectations, dreams and anthousiasm. After checking into my hotel, i got in touch with Riwaha and Elmseeker. Both came to join me in my room for a little chat and greetings. Riwaha and I decided to head to Ceasers Palace for the 7 pm 150$ Tourney, I have to say that the Ceasers Poker Room and Tournament structure is absolutaly awsome. Around 12 pm it has been abt 26 hours that im up and am very tired, I have a small to mid size stack and decide to ship it in with 3 others all in to either quadruple my stack and give me a shot at the win or go home, well when you ship with 64 of spades chances are youll go home lol so thats what i did. Riwaha got deeper than me so we parted ways for the time being, but we really got along and i entended to see more of him, he is trully a nice guy and gentleman.

The next day Jane (pkrplr4116) gets a hold of me, she wants to hook up but has to move from her home to the home next door where Tom McEvoy lives, so being the good guy that i am (i know some of you dont beleive that lol), I offer to give her a hand with the move. Well, let me tell you that im not in great shape and OMFG does that chick have loads of sh!t to cary LMAO. We end up spending the whole day back and forth from one house to the other, it may sound like im complaining but trust me when i say no good deed is unrewarded, i made a friend for life that day and Jane had been a blast and very helpfull the whole time i was there, i miss her alot and know we will meet again. After the day of moving, Jane tells me that Tom has been eliminated of Event #3 in 25th place and that he is quite mad and doesnt know if we will be able to have dinner together. Tom wanted to thank me for helping Jane to move and took the new tenants, Jane and myself to diner. Wow, how awsome is that, im going to diner with Tom and hes paying lol. Thats where you see the caracter of a man, hes frustrated to have finished 25th of an event and still takes the time to thank other people even tho hes really tired and doesnt feel like talking to anybody. I could feel during diner that he would probably like being anywhere else then there but he stayed very nice and answered all our questions. When he talks you must listen, because Tom is a reserved and soft spoken man, so if you dont listen you simply just wont hear lol. Thanks Tom and Jane, both of you are superb human beings.

After diner Jane takes me down to the Rio to buy in my first Event wich is the Event #7, the 2K no limit holdem. I wanted to go the day before to scout out my battlefield, Wow, im really here, and i see a bunch of pro's at the cage, how freakin awsome is that. I have a suggestion to make tho, DONT BRING ANY TRAVELERS CHECKS LOL, they take forever to process and makes the whole buying in a painfull experience but the people working at the cage where extremely nice and provided me with great service.

Jane takes me home and thats the end of that. Next day i wake up and feel the excitement of living my first WSOP event. I go for breakfest and then take a cab to the Rio. I'm a bit early so i head out to the Pokerroad Radio Booth, I'm an avid fan of pokerroad.com and all their radio shows. Ali Nejad, Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith and Patrick Antonius are there doing the dayly live Radio show, pretty cool if you ask me. And guess what, they had a quiz question for the audience to give away a pokerroad radio t shirt and i answered it right, woooohoooo i won a t shirt but thats the only thing i would win that day lol more on that later. The question they asked me was quite simple, who was the player who had the record of rebuys during the 1K rebuy event, anybody.......... Daniel Neagranu of course. So if any of you want to hear my sexy voice its on the 4th of june show lol.

Ok people, its cruunch time and im nervous as hell, i sit down at my table wich is Blue 36 if you guys want to see pictures of the players I had at my table (worldseriesofpoker.com/photostore). First hour i was a reck inside, i dint show it on the outside but i had tornadoes going inside of me, i keep a steady pace and still have over 4K in chips. A european dude (scandinavian) raises to 150 in the cut off (blinds 25/50), the button calls and i look down at so i call. Flop comes , i bet out 300 in a pot of 475, cut off raises to 1350 and button folds. Im thinking what the hell does that guy have, its possible he hit a str8 but not likely he raised with 79 (who knows with a young scandinavian lol) did he flop top set? Wow, im really thinking abt this but i come to the conclusion that he has an over pair and try's to push off the draws, i tell myself i dint come all the way here to be a chicken and reraise him all in, i dont know if it's because i took my time to make my move but he insta called me, Oh sh!t!!!! Insta call is never good, i turn up my cards and he then turns up his . Woohoo!!! only 2 outs and both turn and rivers where blanks. I took out my first player, boy does it feel great, even tho i sucked out a bit but all action was post flop so i dont feel to bad. With my stack up to almost 8K the tournado's inside me quite down a bit and i have a boost of confidence. Unfortunatly it was all down hill from there, i kept hitting top pairs but having to fold on turns and rivers because of 4 to str8's or flushes, flops where good to me but the turns and rivers kept killing my hands so i had to fold to big bets. Tom's table is right next to mine and gets broken up, guess what, they sit Tom on my right, AWSOME!!!! Dint last to long tho, abt 15 minutes later and a few chats with Tom, they brake our table up and we go our seperate ways(Alex Melnikow whas also on my table, hes a Poker Stars Pro). I get to my new table and right away i see its not gonna be an easy one, John Murphy is at the table and hes Ubber agressive so is Anthony Lelouche and they are both on my left. I keep bleeding chips, I had to make a big fold when i was on my BB, I had K10 and flops comes 10 high, i bet almost pot and Lelouche calls me, theres a flush draw and str8 draw out there, the turn is a blanks so i again shoot out a bet of 3/4 the pot and Lelouche reraises me for all my chips, i had abt 2800 left. WTF was that all abt, he limped UTG and now on turn he puts me all in, all kind of hands went thrue my head, maybe he wanted to limp raise a big pair but no one raised, did he hit a set or had A10, its very hard to have a good look and read on a player directly to your left and in the middle of table, i hate that spot, you cant see anything, I call the clock on myself and it honestly took me that whole minute to decide to let my hand die. Of course after the hand he asks me if i had A10 and i honestly told him i had K10, he then told me i made a good fold but who knows if it was really a good fold or just a great bluff? Im a bit steamed after that hand, i been folding top pairs after top pairs, pretty confident they where the right moves to make but still frustrated. I keep folding hands and now im in the BB again with a very agressive french guy that raises UTG + 2, theres 2 callers, he clearly dint earn any respect from other players but he had quite a big stack, the raise was 2 1/2 the blinds so i call with , a good hand in a multi way pot. Flop comes, i have a bit less then 2 K in chips and theres abt 2600 in the pot, i have a gut shot with 2 overs and a back door flush draw and decide to try and take the pot right there, im not to scared cuz its all low cards so i push the remainder of my chips all in. The French dude calls me and the other 2 callers fold. He shows , the turn is now giving me a str8 flush draw, the or any clubs and any 8's would give me the hand, allas a blank came on the river and i was out. Just like that, my ego bruised and seconds before the diner break. Dam it hurts getting busted and it also hurt because i could of been a bit more patient. Oh well, let it serve as a lesson and give me the drive to do better on my next event.

I called up Jane to give her the bad news and like a big sister she gave me the moral lol, i know, i know Jane, thats all i could answer.

I was so pissed that i took a cab and told him to Bring me to the Gun store. I chose a MP5 assault weapon that most SWAT teams use and a Taurus 9mm to unload my anger and disapointment. POW! POW! POW! Now that helps a bit. Tomorrow will be another day i told myself.

A busy weekend was ahead with quite a few Railbirds coming to town for the Private tourney I organized at the Tuscany. Lots of fun story's coming up in the next blog so stay tuned for blog #2.

Tc Birds,

Manny