I have been incredibly tired lately as I have been feeling a little under the weather and have had the most jacked up sleep schedule of all time. I have pulled a couple of double all nighters due to playing on the Party Poker Big Game as well as commentating for the show for 24 hours straight!! It has been a crazy and unforgettable week.
I have badly wanted to get home to see my wife and my baby girl, but am unable to come home because of the massive volcano eruption in Iceland that grounded pretty much all of the flights in Europe. I will have to admit I am pretty sad right now because all I want to do is get home and see my family, but when I get home is completely out of my hands at this point. It looks like I can leave on Saturday and get into Portland, Oregon on Sunday afternoon. That feels like 3 lifetimes from now though. Very frustrating…
I will do a full trip report soon, but for now I just wanted to give some quick updates. Basically I played on the Big Game for about 7 hours and ran into some tough luck. I actually was a card rack preflop in getting TT twice, JJ-AA once each in about 100 hands. Unfortunately I lost about $10,000 pounds on those hands combined which makes it tough to win at poker when that happens, of course. My biggest pot came when a weaker player at my table decided to ship all in after several raises in front of him with AQ off suit. I had KK and the flop brought an ace which is pretty much what I expected after I saw his hand pre flop…lol. Figured there was no way I could dodge that and I was right.
Doing commentary for 24 hours straight in the booth with Jesse May was an unforgettable experience. First off, I think I will improve my game immensely simply by getting to see 24 hours straight of all the hole cards and watching many of the great LAGish players play their hands. I think it was quite an education for me and it was a heck of a lot of fun for me as well. I was only supposed to go into the booth for a couple of hours, but apparently the producers thought highly of my commentary and 2 hours turned in to 24!! So hopefully my commentary enhances the show in that I was able to really go in to great detail of what I thought of the play of each hand and going through the thought process of what I think the players were thinking and what some good strategies might be.
I did commentary for 24 hours which should mean I am co hosting 8 episodes when the show airs. I do know that I was fading at a few points towards the end of the broadcast and my commentary was tragically bad at a few points lol. I actually fell asleep in the booth and was getting woken up by Jesse when critical situations were arising. I remember at one point he woke me up and asked me what I thought of the Unabomber’s turn play and I mumbled something about how I thought he should check raise here and Jesse said, “Well, he has the button in this hand so that might be pretty difficult!” It was actually not bad that I said stuff like that because when we are running a 48 hour cash game, we were all fading big time at points and in some ways that is part of what makes the show so awesome and so unique. Some of the pros made terrible plays late in the session and so did the commentators at times haha.
One play that woke me up and actually gave me a second wind was when I virtually fell out of my chair at the terrible play that Barney Boatman made towards the end of the show. Barney was fresh as could be since he started the game 42 hours into the show, presumable well rested. This hand is already being discussed on the <a href=”http://thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34675&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0.com”>The Hendon Mob forum</a> and I can’t believe Barney is defending it. The play gained some attention because I was fairly critical of it in the booth and my commentary made it onto the Party Poker Blog that was issuing live updates.
Basically just about the whole table limped in to the pot. Barney had 64s and limped the button. The flop came down J44. Phil Laak had AJs and lead into the field. Barney called. The turn brought a 7 which gave Phil a flush draw. Phile bet just under the pot and Barney tanked and tanked. I was in the booth saying Barney is deciding when, if ever, he should raise Phil. Barney tanked it some more and then FOLDED!! That’s right. He folded!! Presumably when you call on the button with a trashy hand like 64s you are hoping for some type of miracle flop like 3 of a kind or a flush or something. Barney hit the flop in a major way and didn’t even make it to the river! It was about the most incredible fold (not in a good way) that I have ever seen in my life and I suppose I had a little trouble not expressing my disbelief in the booth, but I do feel the criticism is warranted.
Anyway, I am pretty surprised that Barney didn’t just admit that he made a bad play or was on scared money. In fact it was pretty obvious that he was on scared money (although he denies this in the Hendon Mob thread) given the moment he sat down he tried to lower the stakes of the game (he cited his contract which said the game would only be $25/50 pounds) and the entire table became upset at him and asked him to leave the table. It even resulted in a delay of play. Barney ultimately decided to stay at the table and agreed to lift his demands to lower the stakes at the table.
Honestly I felt a little bad after the show that I was tremendously critical of his play on air, but after seeing him deny that he wasn’t scared money and that his fold was a good one, I feel glad that I was more critical of his play now. There is simply no excuse for such a play other than to simply say, “You know what, I messed that play up.” I have messed up tons of hands and will freely admit that. I am not perfect, but when I make a clearly tragic play, the last thing I am going to do is publicly defend it with some ridiculous reasons that were obviously untrue.
I look forward to getting home and seeing my family. I absolutely love London, but being away this long is simply not fun anymore as I deeply miss my family. I hope the volcano calms down and the ash is no longer a factor to the planes and I can get home. I miss my girls!
EDIT
Barney is out of town now and wasn’t able to accept my heads up challenge. If you see this Barney, I will be at the WSOP and will give you all the action you want, if you still want it then.
Also, I saw Barney’s play for all hands and it is true that he did make some aggressive plays and did move some chips around. It was just odd that he moved chips around when he had nothing and kept checking and folding when he had big hands. I guess truth be told I have no idea what to make of what was going on in his head. Anyway, no hard feelings. You are defending the job you did as a player and I am defending the job I did as commentator, which I think is perfectly reasonable. My commentating on folding three 4s being a weak play was based 0% in part on knowing the hole cards and 100% on understanding poker and game theory.