April 23
WPT day 4 and the day after
My chase to the championship is over. I was eliminated with 14 minutes to the end of the day.
I had a really bad draw. Three players of my table won a tournament over 500k in the last 6
month. Phil Hellmuth, Arnold Spee and Tuan Le. That's never a good thing; the main reason
is because in a big buy in tournament a big edge for the best players is that others feel the
preassure and play very tight. This guys however are the one attacking all the time so I
figured the smart tight approach was the way to go. Tuan Le busted Phil Hellmuth after
about 2 hours of play and was lucky to do so. Once we got to 101 he took a big lead at our
table and kept raising and winning pots. Danny Dang was the unlucky bubble at 101. Once
in the money, it was obvious players would loosen up. Unfortunately I went card dead and I
finished 48th. Very disappointed I have not feel good since. I think for the first time in my
poker career stress did some damage to my health. I have been very weak and dizzy since
and still feel that way.
When I feel better I will go back to work starting at the Plaza.
April 21
WPT day 3
I started the day at a easy table. At least I tought so. The only superstars at the table was
Johnny Chan. He was unlucky and was eliminated early. I started very badly lowering my
stack from 81k to 50k. The table was playing tight and several times I raised, players were
moving in with huge stacks against my hands. "Stay calm" I was thinking, eventually
someone will make a mistake. I slowly brought my stack back up to 90k and I was happy to
finish the day around 100k if I could. The last hour, however I caught fire. First I eliminated
Steve Z, with JJ against his AQ (A flop and I rivered the J) then a player tried to push me off
the pot with A3 and I called his big rere-raise with AK. I told one of my friend watching that
guy was the one I was planning to bust since I had a excellent read on him. I did with a 150k
pot. At the end I proudly counted my chips to 223k in 24th position with 165 players left.
So far so good, but still a long way to go.
Jack today changed the sitting rule, common sense prevaled.
April 20
WPT day 1b
My first day is finally over. It was not an easy session and that was caused more by the
Bellagio staff then the other players. At one point of the tournament Jack McClelland called
my hand dead because I had my knees on the chair istead of my behind. I did not even left
the seat but for some idiotic reason Jack and the Bellagio have this unclear rule that by
sitting they mean that both cheeks need to be on the chair. What is the reason for it? No
explanation. The moron that created that rule has not come forward yet. Please email me if
you know who it is.
Anyway, my table was tough; only one player was eliminated: Matt Matros. He's the young
kid that finished 3rd in last year WPT Championship. Matt played well and when I eliminate
him he did not get upset and wished me good luck in the rest of the tournament. I end up the
day around 80th position with a little over 81,000. Not bad considering the bad draw. I think
there are around 330 players left. A long way to go.
April 18
WPT Championship underway
The long wait to the Championship is over. Today is the start of the event with half of the
field. I will be playing in the second heat, tomorrow; that gives me one important extra day for
recovering completely from the weird allergic reaction to penicillin. In the last few main events
I did not finish in the money but I’m sure I played as well as ever. In Tournament Poker
sometimes results just do not come no matter how well a player is performing. And I had my
nice share of results this year with a WSOP ring (even with a very short field) a 3rd place in
the Player of the Tournament at the LA Classic and several other cashes. That’s not
enough; it’s time to do something special. Hopefully this is it.
One particular thanks to the nice encouragements words from the management and
members of an internet game that I play daily: Digiturf. If you never heard of it, I have an
explanation page of what the game is about.
April 16, 2005
The WPT Championship is getting closer and I'm worried I'll have problems playing well. Until
yesterday mourning I was taking an antibiotic "Amoxicillin". That caused a reaction and now
I'm itching on my feet and elbows like I never been in my life. Bad timing to have something
like this happening, but I’m hoping to make a recovery. Just a slight improvement will make
me happy and ready to perform.
Today it was the second day of the PPT; I will post odds for the final table tomorrow.
Pinnacle updated odds; some of my picks have actually better prices now:
Billy Gazes at 190-1, I'm at 175-1 (probably they found out of my illness, if not it would make
no sense raising my odds :-), Jennifer Harman lower by few points to 137-1, Daniel
Negreanu at 60-1, Ram Vaswani at 110-1, Harry Demetriou 170-1; Todd Brunson also a little
lower at 93-1. They also posted odds to make the final 9. I'm at 20-1. Check yourself for
current odds. This is what's really cool about pinnacle: they are not afraid to raise odds
when they have little action on a player.
April 12, 2005
One of the thing I always look to increase traffic on my site, and also for curiosity, is try to
understand how readers got to my page. The majority arrive through a link from another
blogger (and thanks to all of you); the most difficult way to get people to read my blog is
trough search engines. In my site builder I can actually look the exact “keywords” that people
input in their hunt (that’s the correct word to use in this case, you’ll see). Most of the times, it’
s name of players, like Fred Lavassani, a nice guy from La, or other not so talked guys.
During the last weeks, however the most used keywords were “Clonie Gowen nude”.
Hilarious.
That’s exactly what I was writing about in one of my March blog : “…when is Evelyn going to
be featured on the cover of Playboy? It would the best seller issue in the history of nude
magazines…” I guess my mistake was Evelyn instead of Clonie.
The official keyword report:
clonie gowen nude 44.87% hustler women of poker ng 35.88% corey cheresnick 6.05% corey
cheresnick bay poker 3.23% leonidis hellmuth 2.65% danny nguyen 0.71% ng +poker player
+nude 0.43% lavassani fred 0.02% poker professional lavassani twins 0.02% eric sidel 5%
April 10, 2005
ODDS TO WIN 2005 WPT CHAMPIONSHIP
The best bet I’ve seen so far to win the WPT Championship is a proposition bet on
Pinnacle sports book. (FOR NEW CUSTOMERS SIGNING UP PINNACLE OFFERS 10% BONUS UP TO 500$)
Will the winner be #101 trough #237? YES - 105 NO - 105
They list around 130 players and you can bet 115$ to win 100 that the winner will come out from this group.
The entire field should be around 500 players so you are taking around 100 of the best players and around
30 of other famous one against all the rest. Many of the unknown 400 will come from online players and
others will be winners of super satellites. This may be the only event were the field (NO +105) is not a good
bet. Out of the remaining 400, I can think that around 50 or even 80 players are good that’s not enough to
bring the odds so close to even. The bad scenario is if 1000 players show up, but with a 25k buy-in that’s a
real longshot. Even then you can still win.
If you would like betting on single players there is good value on Pinnacle. I will name the
one I think are a good betting value
Jennifer Harman 150-1 (+15000): she’s still underrated until she wins a big one. Runner up in the last
WSOP Circuit at the Rio, cashing for over 300k, she’s playing well and very confident going into the
Championship. Plays in the biggest cash games in the world, Jennifer will not be intimidated if she
reaches the final table.
Erick Lindgren 90-1 (+9000): E-Dog may be the best no limit player around. Even win a great 2004 and
an incredible start in 2005, he does not get the respect he should. For that reason press and players leave
him more time to focus on the game. The hottest player in the circuit.
Marcel Luske 90-1 (+9000): The Flying Dutchman seems always giving a good try in majors. He’s also
coming off a win in one of the smaller Bellagio events for over 200k this week. That should boost his
confidence.
Max Pescatori 165-1 (+16500): great bet. I hope.
Billy Gazes 160-1 (+16000): Great talent, not a great determination to win. However this is the second
most important tournament of the year after the WSOP Main Event, so if Billy gives his best, he surely has a
chance to win.
Other ok bets are:
Daniel Negreanu 60-1 (+6000)
Ram Vaswani 120-1 (+12000)
Todd Brunson 105-1 (+10500)
Harry Demetriou 160-1 (+16000)
Blair Rodman 160-1 (+16000)
Chris Bigler 150-1 (+16000)
Jeff Shulman 160-1 (+16000)
Joe Beevers 160-1 (+16000)
Amir Vahedi 150-1 (+15000)
April 05, 2005
This blog is to remember one of the excellent professional poker players that very sadly died
few days ago: Curtis Bibb. I played with Curtis many times trough the years and we started to
become friends in 2004 during a tournament of Omaha hi/lo at the WSOP. In that event he
was at my table for a long time and I remember thinking he was the most dangerous player.
He end up winning. That was one of the few tournament he ever entered beating a very
tough field (results).
One of Curtis passions was darts and last year we played several times with his best friend
Todd Brunson and a high limit Japanese player Shoun. He was always encouraging, even if
I’m really bad at that game, and made me feel like I was a long time friend.
He will be missed.
It has been a very tough year so far. One of my sisters, Marinella, also died just before New
Years Eve after a long illness.
I even had a scare this last couple of weeks having some problems with my throat. I did see
a specialist today Dr.Mohs in Las Vegas and he reassure me that it should not be anything
serious. He did however told me I may need another visit in few weeks.
Another friend is not well but finally she emailed me some good news. Many players probably
know her, Felicia Lee. She has a blog much nicer then mine. Read it for more updated news.
Good Luck Felicia.
For everyone reading,
Enjoy life.
Poker Blog
by Max Pescatori
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