I spent most of May back in my favourite place, Playa del Carmen, Mexico playing SCOOP. It ended up being a great time as several other pros came down to hang and play there as well. I shared a place with my girlfriend, along with Maria Ho and her boyfriend Noah Vaillancourt (Dirty.brazil). Calvin Anderson (cal42688), his girlfriend Kami, and his horse Connor Drinan (Blanconegro) got the condo above us. Amit Makhija (amak316) and his girlfriend were already living there. Even British live superstar Jake Cody came down for a couple days to try his luck in the SCOOP Main Event after deep runs at the EPT Grand Final and The $25k Bellagio main event.
Between the lot of us we were able to put up some good scores. I made a SCOOP final table in one of the most fun events of the series, the $530r 6 max action hour, but ultimately finished a disappointing 6th. Cal finaled two SCOOP events, Maria finaled the last chance turbo SCOOP high event, and Noah made several big final tables including the brawl. It was great to talk poker with some people I haven’t really discussed strategy with too much before and I think we all benefited from that.
From Playa I headed straight to Las Vegas for the WSOP. I got in on the morning of the $5k nl and although I was lacking sleep I soon woke up when I managed to take the chiplead a few hours into the tournament. Unfortunately, though, I peaked too soon and ended up bubbling that first event of the summer. However, to get that many chips in my first event was great for morale.
Sadly the rest of the series continued in pretty much the same vain with a lot of stacks but only 3 cashes to show for it. That was until the last week of the series where I managed to final table Event 45 the $1500 ante only event. I really enjoyed the format of this tournament, as it required a lot of adaption to your particular table whilst also thinking about outside of the box plays.
For anyone unfamiliar with this format the basics of it are that there are no blinds throughout the whole tournament but that the antes increase each level with the bring in increasing when the lowest chip available is no longer required. The player to the left of the dealer button begins the preflop and postflop betting with the button moving around the table as it would in a normal tournament. The first player to act has three initial options. These are to either fold, to bring in the action with the lowest denomination chips which is in play or to raise.
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The above is an interview I gave deep in the event which outlined some basic strategies one might use to progress in an event like this. The final table played out quite crapshooty due to the incredibly high antes, which made for a rollercoaster ending. At one point 6 handed I was the chipleader but after losing a couple of crucial hands and blinding down for the next couple of orbits I ended up getting very short and in the end I busted 5th for $44,227 to make me about break even on the summer at least.
Even though Poker was my main focus on this trip I still managed to have a few crazy Vegas nights out along the way. Two of the most memorable were my girlfriend Katie’s birthday and Matt Perrins bracelet rail/afterparty. For Katie’s birthday we got a couple of tables at Ghost Bar and got most of the poker community to come out with us. Although a lot of the night is a blur luckily a lot of photos were taken to remind us of all of the adventures.
Matt’s final table rail and after party was truly epic. Ash Mason bought custom made Pez t-shirts for all 35 elite railers and Matt was even kind enough to throw in free beers for everyone who came down to rail. As you can imagine things soon got out of hand with countless shoe bombs (chugging your alcoholic drink out of your shoe) and the chants and noise from the thunderdome increasing by the minute.
Matt came through for the rail and managed to win literally every big all in pot he played. Before we knew it he was heads up for his second bracelet, with a monster chiplead, which is the stuff dreams are made of. What happened next was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in poker. Matt and his opponent Arthur Pro took a quick break from the tournament to do unison celebration shoe bombs by the rail. Undeterred the two legends got back to work and battled for the bracelet, however it wasn’t long before Matt was victorious and had his second WSOP bracelet. The party had only just begun though and carried on throughout the night first at Gillys and then at the mirage fountains (but that’s another story!)
After Vegas I made a quick stop in LA for my birthday to go to Six Flags. I love rollercoasters and that location is one of the best for the biggest and fastest rides. I first went to Six Flags a few years back and was amazed by the variety of rollercoasters available. The flash pass VIP ticket that you can buy makes your experience so much better as you get to avoid all of the queues that come with your regular trip to an amusement park. Every year they bring out new coasters which makes me keep coming back for more. This time I got to experience Full Throttle which was definitely a solid ride, however, it’s still no match on my favourite rollercoaster of all time X2.
