Rubbing Shoulders

My travels over the past few years have enabled me to meet a lot of interesting and often very famous people. However this past few weeks has been nothing short of absurd when it comes to meeting celebrities. I’m going to warn you in advance: if you don’t like namedrops then don’t read on – this is a blog that would put Phil Hellmuth’s tweets to shame…

After the Bahamas I was invited to Geneva for IWC’s (International Watch Company) launch of their new “Top Gun” range. As you might expect, the event was themed like everyone’s favourite 80′s Tom Cruise film, complete with aircraft and US Navy personnel. If that wasn’t enough, there was a plethora of A-list celebrities in attendance that blew my socks off, and I was lucky enough to walk the red carpet with them as you can see below!

The pinnacle of the evening however was getting to meet Cate Blanchett. She is just as beautiful in person as you would expect, and seemed genuinely interested to learn about the life of poker players. After that evening I travelled to Los Angeles and got to attend a few pre/post Oscars parties… and if I told you the list of people there you probably wouldn’t believe it. Suffice to say, the best moment was when Bradley Cooper asked “aren’t you the girl that beat from George Constanza from Seinfeld in that Heads-Up match?”. Life complete.

However, the real reason I was in Los Angeles was the WPT tournament that’s held there every year. I ended up busting on day three, frustratingly close to the money in an interesting hand that I’d appreciate people’s thoughts on: I open early-mid position with KdKh and get two callers from hijack and button. Flop is 10d 7h 6d and I c-bet half pot. The unknown player in the hijack calls and the button folds. Turn is the 9d (urgh!) and I check-shove for 65k over his 25k (3/5th pot) bet. He flips over 99 for a turned set, I miss the diamond redraw on the river and I bust.

Regardless, this is an important lesson in board textures. By the turn there is only a very small part of his value range that I am beating as I’m now behind all midpairs and flushes, and am only ahead of hands like Ad10…Jd10. What I forgot to factor in at the time was that there was a THIRD person to still act when he called on the flop, eliminating almost all of his floats/air. Therefore I believe the best course of action against that range of hands is to check-fold to his turn bet, which screamed strength on such a board.

Otherwise, I’ve been mostly dealing with the absolutely ridiculous but very exciting process that is buying one’s first home. I can’t wait to finally have my own place after so much time on the road! For the first time ever my thoughts are filled with domestic things such as colour schemes, layouts and most importantly; where to place the foosball table for optimal gameplay.