August Poker and More

For me August was a slow month for poker, especially when you consider I played nearly everyday throughout the entire 37th Annual World Series of Poker.

After finishing 953rd of 8773 in event 39, which is more commonly known as the Main Event or the $10,000.00 Buy-in No Limit Hold'em event, I spent the next several days playing in side games and in some satellite events. From what I can tell their is some great ESPN footage of me at the Table on Day 1A with James Garner and on day 2A after most of the well known and named pros were eliminated.

More information on my ongoing dispute with WSOP management and Harrahs Entertainment over chips that were missing from my chip count during the Main Event from day 1A, when I came in to play on day 2A can be found on www.pokerblog.com and on http://pokerati.com/ as well as other incidents of a similar nature. Dan Michalski has discussed this issue and its arbitrary handling by WSOP Management a number of times in his "Pokerati" columns. Despite the confusion and doubts over past events of this nature, one thing for certain is that the Nevada Gaming Control Board is investigating my dispute and has opened a case against the "Rio Hotel and Casino" and Harrahs Entertainment as a result. Since this dispute has little to do with the theme of "Willystyle77", I will provide most of the updates for these events at http://www.pokerblog.com/blog/86

In early August towards the end of the 37th Annual WSOP I was sponsored in Event 41 and Event 43 by Xpresstech.US and Xpress Holdings, Inc., in hopes of promoting their web presence for the upcoming selling seasons, more specifically Back to School and Christmas and based on the website traffic, it appears those endeavors were successful despite my poor results in those events.

In Event 41 I had Doyle Brunson and Jennifer Tilly at my table, Doyle coming in right after a well known European Pro was eliminated in the first hand. In late position I pushed all in after 3 limpers with pocket queens, only to be followed by a re-raise by the big blind and a re-raise by Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer caught the straight on the turn eliminating me and 2 others. Great catch and well played. Normally in the situation she was in, I would have been gone, but she saw the pot odds and had a made hand of sorts and hung in there for the win. Well played!!

I played online for a Championship seat to the Legends of Poker Event at the Bicycle Club on CD Poker and was eliminated early in the online qualifier mostly due to technical difficulties at the site followed up by some incredible suck outs by some crazy players. So much so I would not have believed it had it been a story I was told rather than witnessed it by my own experiences.

Ended up playing in several live Legends events and Satellites and made some money and accumulated alot of buy-in chips , but I had already decided that I was not going to play in the Championship event unless I won the seat outright as I had not felt well enough physically to get into another tournament potentially lasting several days.

While initially it appeared that the Legends Championship Event was going to be dominated by pros, it turned out that the winner Joe Pelton, while a great player was a relative unknown as was the second place finisher Frankie O'dell. In the case of both the first and second place winners, this was their largest ever reported wins. Third place went to well known Pro, Hoyt Corkins and several other pros finished in the top 20.

I know better than to play long sessions of poker when I don't feel well, but often I still do it and as you can expect the results are not good. These "summer cold" symptoms that I had started feeling back in June around the beginning of the Lake Tahoe WSOP Circuit Event, had gone away and returned now for the 4th and most severe time and now I was really feeling ill. Turns out it is the EBV virus and it's life span is 8 to 12 weeks, but hey, the good news is that it won't be back again.

So at the regular games I play in weekly I started experiencing such poor results, that it seemed either I had forgotten or never knew how to play poker. I am happy to say that I have broken that cycle and seem to have returned to my normal playing patterns.

Since the cycle broke and I am feeling better I am playing this week at WSOP Circuit in Lake Tahoe and the Heartland Poker Tour at beginning September 27, 2006 near Fresno, California.