From California to Vienna

As you read this column, we are in the middle of the largest poker tournament in the world, the World Series of Poker (WSOP). I hope that everyone is having a good time and doing well. Although I refuse to look beyond any event at the WSOP, looming large on my calendar is the World Heads-Up Poker Championships (WHUPC) June 2-5 in Vienna, Austria, at the Concord Casino. The buy-in for this heads-up no-limit hold'em event is 2,500 Euro (roughly $2,300), and first place is expected to be 250,000 Euro. How good is your heads-up game right now?

The WHUPC tournament will be run like the NCAA basketball tournament; if you lose, you go home! But don't worry, in case you are eliminated early from the WHUPC, there is a full two-weeklong poker tournament wrapped around the WHUPC. Also, you can challenge a "star" to a heads-up match in any game that you choose, and have the match taped with cameras under the table. The uniquely designed heads-up tables were created by TCS in London, one of the world's leading manufacturers of gaming equipment and tables, exclusively for the WHUPC. These heads-up tables are set up so that viewers can see the holecards on camera just in case the Fox network or someone else wants to show the WHUPC on television. At the very minimum, we will make one heck of a video from the WHUPC. The "stars" will be Ted "Da Man" Forrest (who already has accepted a $10,000 match at a game that he has never played before, no-limit five-card draw!), David "Devilfish" Ulliot, Daniel Negreanu, and me (I have accepted a $10,000 match with Christoph Haller, playing Omaha eight-or-better). Catch us if you can!

If you would like to practice your heads-up no-limit hold'em game for this event, the WHUPC matches will start with $2,500 in chips and $25-$50 blinds. The blinds will never go up, and I think that this will give us players enough time to work our chips. Also, satellites will be run online at www.ultimatebet.com. This may be the first time that online satellites have ever been run for a real-world event.

Back here in dot-California, I've been playing a ton of poker recently. One of the better events was Bay 101's annual Shooting Star poker tournament in San Jose, California. The winners of the last two Shooting Star no-limit hold'em events that I attended stayed at my house! In 1998, Huck Seed won it, and in 1999, John Bonetti won it (in 2000, I was in Tunica). This year, no one staying at my house played in the event except me, so I figured that I would win it!

About two hours into the no-limit hold'em event, I managed to play the following hand rather badly and lose all of my remaining chips. With blinds of $100-$200, a player who had been playing a lot of pots limped in (called the $200) from middle position. I looked down at A-J in the small blind and raised the pot to $800. The limper called $600 more and the flop came A Q 2. I bet $1,200, and my opponent made it $5,000. I studied for a moment and decided to move all in for about $9,000 total. My opponent called and showed me 2-2 in the hole for a set. Here I was, two hours into the tournament, drawing almost dead for all of my chips! Wow, could I have played this hand any worse? I knew that my opponent had a hand, yet I put all of my money in the pot anyway! I guess I was thinking that my opponent had been playing too many pots and therefore might not have much. But my "read" told me that he had a hand. I have always done well when trusting my read, but for some reason, I didn't trust myself this time. All around me, I had heard how other "Shooting Stars" had gone out: David Pham with K-K all in against A-Q before the flop, and Young Phan all in with Q-Q against K-K after a flop of K-Q-5. This is the way champions should be eliminated, with superior or really solid hands – not with A-J offsuit after an A-Q-2 flop!

At least there was a silver lining in this cloud. I played the next day in the $500 buy-in Omaha eight-or-better event, which was the last of the Shooting Star events. While keeping a keen eye on the second-day final table of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event, I began to accumulate some chips and to feel a lot better about my play. After Carlos Mortensen won the main event, I was able to fully concentrate on my event and went on to win it without a deal being made ($14,000). I guess that this does continue some kind of streak of success for people who stay at my house during the Shooting Star! Congratulations to Carlos Mortensen, Bernard Ko, and Men "The Master" Nguyen, who all won seats for the WSOP main event by finishing first, second, and third, respectively, in the main event of the Shooting Star.

I hope that you enjoyed this "Hand of the Week." Good luck playing your hands at the WSOP or wherever this week.