The big game and no, I'm talking about football - Poker Camp, Day 3

While all this poker business was happening, there was an event happening back in Los Angeles that had captured the sporting world's attention. USC was trying to win its 100th or so straight game and get their ticket to the National championship game at the Rose Bowl. The only thing in their way was their annual cross-town rival opponent, UCLA. This game had been talked about for weeks as both teams had time off to prepare for the game and with UCLA having a better record than expected and having played well the year before, there were high hopes in Westwood that UCLA could even pull off an upset if they played a perfect game.

When I first looked to going to the poker camp, I saw that it fell on the weekend of the game and I even looked the schedule to see if there would be time off in the afternoon to watch the game. In fact, the second tournament was scheduled to begin just at kickoff so I knew I would miss the game.

Anyways, I woke up and had an omelet in the coffee shop, then headed back to the theaters for our second set of seminars. This time our hosts for the camp, Annie Duke and Howard Lederer were giving the talks. Due to a coin flip or in our case, alphabetical order, Annie gave her talk on post-flop play to my group first. She discussed betting strategies based on your hand, the texture of the flop and your position. She covered a lot of different scenarios, unfortunately, her preventing presentation was misplaced so she did not have any graphics, we did eventually get her written outline.

The final seminar for the camp was pre-flop strategy by Howard Lederer. He went over the three most common problems by players in their pre-flop game, playing too many hands, ignoring your and your opponent's position and limping in. Howard went through a guide that came with his DVDs (All campers received 3 DVDs from Howard Lederer). The guide went through the different hands you need to enter the game.

He went through several concepts including the gap concept, big blind play and stack control. Another highlight in the camp for me was that Howard and Annie's father (They are brother and sister) was at the camp and was a shameless plugger (rightfully so) for his children's products, I ordered my copy of Annie's DVD from him and he promised that it would be signed. (He did have the signed DVD Fed Exed to me a few days after I got back from camp.) So periodically during Howard and Annie's presentations, he would speak up and tell us how good this or that was but it was very sincere and more than one camper told him how nice Howard and Annie were to them during the weekend.

We ran a little behind and as I made my way to lunch, I noted that it was nearly 1:00 p.m. I started to get my lunch (Mexican/Southwestern) when I saw a lady that I knew was playing in the finals of Friday's tournament. I did not know her but I thought I had read the day before that the final table would start at 1:00 even though the rest of us would not start until 1:30. I flagged her down and told her this, she had thought she had until 1:30 but ran out and checked. She came back and told me I was right and she was able to eat something fast and make her start time. I think she finished in the top 5, so she was happy that I told her.

1:30 comes along and I gather with the rest of the tournament participants to start the second no-limit tournament of the camp. I was actually glad that we were in a separate area where I did not expect to be bothered by the USC v. UCLA game. To my chagrin, they were able to broadcast the game on a couple of overhead televisions So, while trying to concentrate on playing good poker, I could not help but look up and see what was happening back in L.A.

Unfortunately for UCLA but fortunate for me, the game got out of hand early, and it was easy to ignore what would be a 66-19 USC blowout. Unlike the first tournament, I was doing better, I won a couple of early hands and then was able to steal some blinds. We started off with around 180 players and as the afternoon went on, I was surviving. When we got down to around 40, everyone started looking at the bubble, where they would start the payoffs, which was at 28.

As the cut got to around 36 or so, I was under the gun with A3, so I went all in, the player immediatedly to my left, called, everyone folded, he turned over 9d8d and the flop came down with 2 diamonds on the board, a 3 on the turn and then another diamond on the river for his flush. So I went out a few spots away from the money. After yesterday's performance, to almost get in the money was a nice comeback.

That night, the camp held a dinner at the Rio for the participants and afterwards, I played my first non-camp poker, a $2-$4 game at the Palms. I played really tight but due to a jackpot I won with quad 7s, I came out rather well and most of all, for the first time, played with a plan. Perhaps, I may have learned something after all.