After winning £500,000 at last year’s WSOPE Main Event, John Tabatabai finds it harder in 2008
It’s been 12 months since I narrowly missed out on a bracelet in the WSOPE Main Event and I’d been looking forward to going one better this year. Because of my sponsorship deal with Betfair I’d also been heavily involved in the marketing of what I believe is the best tournament of the poker calendar. It felt strange to see my face on posters and such but it gave me an extra incentive to perform my best.
Unfortunately it didn’t quite work out, but although I didn’t do as well in terms of results, I felt I played better than ever. I accumulated a good chip stack in the £1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event but found it whittled down to below average by the end of Day 1. I found myself on a table with Adam Junglen, who is doing very well, and Shaun Deeb who is on a big rush at the moment.
One of my best friends, Luke Trotman was moved to the seat to my right with a couple of hours to go and he was also in need of a double- up. He accumulated some more chips and I woke up with A-K on the button. Shaun Deeb had made an early raise, with what I presumed correctly was his usual junk, and I moved all-in. Luke also shoved with about 33 percent more chips than me and Shaun, who must have decided Luke was bluff-calling, and made the call as well. Luke showed A-Q suited and Shaun turned A-9 off. I was happy to be in such good shape and Luke was mildly relieved that he could still make chips despite being dominated by my hand. The safe flop was followed by a Nine on the turn and Luke and I were ‘waffle-crushed’. For those of you who don’t play online poker ‘Team Wafflecrush’ is Shaun Deeb’s internet squad.
Nuts
The Main Event was much the same, where I was able to accumulate chips quickly but then had them donked away. I also played the £5,000 Pot- Limit Omaha where I did fairly well considering how inexperienced I am in the game. Then in the EPT I flopped the nut straight with J-Q on an 8-9-10 rainbow flop and managed to get all my money in with two to come. It was clearly not my year when my opponent flipped an open-ended straight draw with A-J and hit a King on the turn and a Queen on the river.
Fun games
An interesting addition to the week was the introduction of the game ‘Johnny Lodden thinks…’. Antonio Esfandiari had been sitting at his table and subsequently explained the rules of the game over dinner. The game is based around betting on what someone else thinks, regardless of the factual truth. For instance, you ask Lodden how much he thinks a cocktail costs in the Sanderson hotel. The real price is £14 but that doesn’t matter. You have to bet on what Lodden thinks, which relies on reading a person’s worldliness, naivety, and more often than not, stupidity. The game works particularly well if you approach people in the street who you don’t know! The game was a real success, with Sorel losing the most for the week, although he did recover some losses by taking $2,000 off Annette and I when he managed to consume 1.3kg of meat in an hour!
It’s been some time since I had something positive to say, but despite not achieving the success I had hoped for it has been a reassuring month for my poker play and a great few weeks for catching up with friends and meeting new people.
I’ve decided that the next few months will be dedicated to improving my game online and getting back into a normal routine. I don’t like to wish my time away but I’m already looking forward to next year when I hope it will be third time lucky.
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