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Well, folks, I made it a whole year and a half without ever talking about poker, but since this is a poker magazine, and I am a professional poker player, I think it might finally be time to talk a little poker.
I recently had the privilege of being invited to play in the High Stakes Poker cash game on GSN. Let me start by telling you that this is by far the best thing I have ever participated in. Everybody has watched tournament poker on television; it’s an all-in fest at the final table and strategies are so different than those of an actual live poker game. But GSN has decided to take a chance and put a live poker game on the tube, where players are playing with their own real money. The show has had tremendous success, and so far they have filmed two series.
The first one took place at the Nugget a few months back, and I was invited to play in one of the sessions. I bought in for a hundred dimes and we played $300/$600 No Limit Hold’em with a $100 ante. What a beautiful structure! Big no limit with an ante! I personally feel that every poker game should have some sort of an ante. This way the knits can’t just sit there and wait for aces all night long.
This was by far the biggest game I had ever played live. In fact, it was three or four times higher than I had ever played before, and it was against some of the best in the world. But like Doyle Brunson said, you can’t think of it as though you are betting a Cadillac (in this case a brand new Viper). I had decided that the cash was not going to be an issue and I would not be playing with scared money. Instead, I would just go with my heart and let fate take its course.
I ended up losing about 140k in the game, due to a couple of key hands. Now, I haven’t told a bad beat story in over five years, but I guess, technically speaking, writing a bad beat story is not the same as telling a bad beat story. Right? You always have the option to stop reading if you like, whereas when someone is telling you one, you just have to listen and take the pain.
OK, so there were two key hands for me in this session. One was aces and the other was jacks. I am first to go with the aces and decide to try something that I had thought of earlier in the session. I had gotten aces under the gun about two rounds before, and I remember thinking to myself that if this should happen again, I would make a comment about how the book says to raise, but because this game is very big for me, I am forced to just call. Whadya know? Two rounds later, WHAM! Aces in early position. So I make my little speech and limp in.
As people start to fold, I think to myself, oh boy, what have I done? I’m going to have to take a flop with this hand. To my delight, my friend Eli Elezra raises the pot. It gets to Phil Hellmuth on the button, who grabs his entire stack (around 15k I think).
Now I want to just pause for one second and take a moment to enjoy the situation. I’m sitting here with aces, someone has raised behind me, and Phil Hellmuth is about to move in. I mean, this is why we play poker, right? It’s for these moments right here that we sit for hours on end, just waiting and waiting. Well, that moment has arrived: Phil Hellmuth is all in.
It’s now my turn to act and, of course, I reraise. There is about twenty in the pot and I am happy ending it right here, right now! But suddenly, to my astonishment, Eli moves in on me, too. I double-check to make sure I actually do have aces, because he has almost 100k in front of him.
Sure enough, there lay two of the most beautiful aces I have ever seen. Now I have no choice but to call, right? I mean the book does say something about calling all-in before the flop with aces, right?
After losing that pot I had to rebuy. I did not go on tilt or lose patience. I knew that in the end, math would prevail and I would get my money in right again.
A couple hours later, I get into a heads-up pot with Daniel Negreanu. Phil had opened for 2k, Daniel had called behind him, and I am behind Daniel on the button. I look down and find two rather attractive Jackeroos.
I raise the pot to 12k. Phil folds; Daniel calls. Daniel likes to take a lot of flops, so he can pretty much have a wide array of different hands. He is a very good post-flop player, and I am certainly glad that I have position on him. That, and the fact that he has, like, a million on the table! Flop comes out Q-10-rag. He checks; I bet 15k. I wasn’t exactly too fond of the queen and wanted to find out, right then and there, if my jacks were good or not. After a bit of thought, he moves in on me.
I still have about 60 or 70 in front of me. Sixty thousand more with two jacks with a queen on the board? How would you like to be in my shoes now? When the flop came out, I was pretty sure that Daniel didn’t have a queen, but, when he moved in on me, I really didn’t get the sense that he was on a draw, because he actually thought for a while about whether his hand was good or not. With a draw, I don’t think he would have given it much thought before moving me in. I did make a weak bet after all, right?
I am leaning towards folding, but for some reason, something just doesn’t feel right! You know when you get that kind of feeling? I start talking to Daniel and he actually talks back and, after a couple of minutes, I sense he does not want a call; so I do what my gut had told me to do. He turns over Kd 10d and asks if I want to run it twice. I decline.
I like to give the pain or take the pain. I’m not a big fan of splitting the pain! In any case, I end up losing that hand too.
Even though I ended up a loser in the game, I had a great experience. I couldn’t wait until the next series, which we’ve just played at the Palms Hotel. You’ll have to just wait and see if the poker gods were on my side this time around.
I want to thank Henry Orenstein and Mori Eskandani for putting together such a fantastic event.
P.S. For all of you readers out there who want me to write more about poker… go buy my book! WPT: In The Money just came out. You can get it at any major bookstore or Amazon. It’s geared only towards no limit cash games. There is some very good advice, along with many fun extras, including a chip trick DVD. If you do read the book, I would love to get your feedback. I read every single one of my emails at magicantonio. com. Thank you and have a great day!
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