BAPT Diary #3

Wednesday November 15

It’s fair to say that Singapore has taken to poker. Every taxi driver I’ve been driven by wants to talk about the tournament, people are stopping me in the street to ask about it, and the $20 spectator passes for the Main Event are sold out. While I’ve been typing this – in the Betfair press area – I’ve been asked if I’d be interested in selling the tournament tables (I’d love to but I’m convinced Betfair wouldn’t be too pleased with me), the Staff t-shirts (ditto), and I’ve been asked to autograph a copy of PokerPlayer. I’ve also taken the liberty of asking several of the locals whether they think the picture of Shelley we used at the front of the Bond issue is good or bad. She hates it, but so far everyone – including Percy ‘No Mercy’ Chen – has given it the thumbs up. She’s still not convinced.

There was no great fairytale story for me in the main event unfortunately. My tournament life lasted a pretty torrid seven hours where I connected with the flop twice, won a few pots and suffered a run of cards akin to George Bush’s recent tarot reading.

I was sat on an ultra-aggressive table early on, where a big Aussie and an Internet kid traded blows and gradually accumulated the table’s chips thanks to some amazing outdraws. Internet Kid played eight out of the first nine hands, rivered a full house when he was pushed all-in with someone holding the nut straight, and tried to out-talk big Aussie who was having none of it: ‘Who’s your teacher? You need to go back to school, son.’ With that Internet Kid put his headphones back on and didn’t say another word until the table was broken up.

My luck didn’t change at the next table, but ironically I was eventually knocked out by an online player called Pusi, whose only other claim to fame is that he beat Shelley Rubenstein heads-up in the Betfair MTT to win his package. I loved him before the tournament when he was telling Shelley he was only playing because he had a ‘high fever, was very unwell and couldn’t leave the house’, and had never played at those stakes ($25!) before. I wasn’t so amused when he took me out as well, when I finally snapped with A-J suited, but as I left the table I told him we’d be sure to write about him in the magazine. He seemed pretty pleased with his new-found fame, which will last up to the point that he gets the mag sent through and sees that he’s been described as looking like an oppressed factory worker in a Lars Von Trier film.

More unfortunately PokerPlayer readers, Colch Kev and ColU_FC both went out on Day One as well. ColU_FC was short-stacked when he found himself in the BB with A-J. With the blinds at 100/200 plus a 25 ante, the button raised it to 600, he pushed all-in and ran into A-K.

Colch Kev was doing pretty well earlier in the day, but hit a barren streak and was eventually ‘caught at it’ with 4-5 on the button. He was forced to call and doubled the small blind up. With 5000 left he put in a raise with A-10, got re-raised by someone holding pockets Jacks, called and didn’t hit his Ace.

But we were in good company. Willie Tann was a fairly early exit, and Gus Hansen didn’t make it to the end of Day One. Hansen was struggling to get chips and eventually made a move with A-9. He was pretty pleased to see that he was up against K-8, but relatively unimpressed when a King hit the board to knock him out. Other big names that dropped included Liz Lieu, Mel Judah and Bengt Sonnert.

Thursday November 16

Playing down to the final table, and at the time of writing this, we’re sitting on 25 players. Jeff ‘Jaffa Cake’ Kimber is still in, with just over 100,000 chips, along with Tony G (a big stack), Harry Demetriou and three local Singaporean players. Bad luck story of the tournament so far goes to ‘Grazza’, who you might remember was pictured in the last issue of PokerPlayer with a big cheesy grin on his face and an even bigger cheque after winning the LEOCOP tournament. He wasn’t smiling here after he lost most of his chips when his Tens were cracked by Fives, and then almost immediately after when another set of Fives sent him to the rail on the bubble.

19.36pm
We’ve just lost Harry Demetriou and the tournament’s down to two tables. Tony G is still sitting on a stack larger than his mouth and Jeff Kimber is in his slipstream, along with Lee ‘Final Table’ Nelson and Mansour Matloubi. The play’s gone very cagey with nobody wanting to make any big moves.

20.25pm
Tony G’s lost a stack of chips but he’s still getting involved in a lot of pots and still getting respect from the table. The current chip leader is Samuel Lehtonen from Sweden with just over 450,000.

20.51pm
Set over set is always bad but at this stage in a major tournament it’s a disaster. Brendan Walls (Ire) flops a set of Nines, but Singaporean Day Trader Ang Pang Leng flops Tens. All the money goes in as quick as they can physically get the chips in and Leng doubles up with the pot worth around 200,000. Walls is still in but severely crippled. It’s the second huge hand Leng’s picked up in the last half-hour, after knocking out Jim Buckley when he flopped a set of Sevens to beat A-J with a flopped Jack.

21.46pm
Lee Nelson calls a 70,000 bet on the end of a 4-J-J-J-K board and mucks in disgust when chip leader Samuel Lehtonen flips K-7 for the full house. Nelson must have had a Four or a pocket pair, and hoping that Lehtonen was making a move on the pot. Lehtonen is now a big chip leader over Ang Pang Leng.

21.50pm
Tony G knocks out Mansour Matloubi with K-J against Matloubi’s 9-2 on a A-4-A-10-A board. Matloubi was extremely short-stacked and forced into making the move.

22.33pm
And predictably it’s Tony G who takes the last person out before the final table starts tomorrow at 4.00pm Singapore time. Calling a raise pre-flop, Tony G moves all-in on a board of 10-7-2. Carl Linderson calls and flips Q-Q against Tony G’s A-10, only to see an Ace arrive on the turn. Tony G, uncharacteristically, starts talking: “That’s the 21st victim today and he’s the only one that got unlucky.”

Final chip counts are as follows:
Samuel Lehtonen: 897, 500
Tony G: 717,500
Ang Pang Leng: 309,000
Lee Nelson: 257,000
Hans Vogl: 250,500
Jeff Kimber: 240,000
Brendan Walls: 183,500
Mark Wheat: 101,000
Nell Yong Henti: 98,500
Henrik Dahlgaard: 74,000

To be continued…

Thanks to: Tony G for keeping us entertained and for the promise of a hilarious final table.

No thanks to: Online player Pusi for killing the BAPT dreams of both me and Shelley.