NBC Heads Up Challenge
This past weekend was the NBC Heads Up Challenge at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas. I have played in this the past two years and this was my third time. Frankly, I went into it with a really negative attitude. I lost in the first round the first two years and I am ashamed to admit that that really affected the way I thought about the event. Two years ago Scott Fischman plain outplayed me then last year I played Mike Sexton and got seriously unlucky. We were about even in chips when I flopped top pair with 87 on a board of 863. I moved in thinking he would put me on a bluff if I did that. He did put me on a bluff and called with J6 but the turn was a 6 and the river a 6. Oh well. That was the end of me.
So I went in thinking that I was doomed to lose again in the first round which is the worst way you can ever think about an event going in.
Joe and I went to the drawing party at Pure and my old publicist, Heather Krug, was handling the event. We had to do the red carpet and interviews going in and I was remembering when poker was just poker. Everyone asked me who I most didn’t want to play and I told them all Phil Ivey of course. Frankly, that guy scares me!
When we got in I saw a bunch of good friends like Clonie, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, Erik Seidel etc. Don Cheadle was also playing in the event and we got to see Jeffrey Pollack to talk about the Ante up for Africa event we have coming at on July 5th at the WSOP with him (more details will be coming soon).
When it was time for the draw we all sat down at assigned tables and I was seated with Jeff Schilman whose wife, Christie, is expecting. I was really excited for them! Jeff and I started talking and we realized that neither of us has ever one a match at this event. I pointed out to him that we are in good company since Erik Seidel has also not won a match yet but that was only a little comfort to us. Well, wouldn’t you know it, when the draw came Jeff and I drew each other. So we knew one of us was at least going to break our cherry 
After the party, Joe and I went and ate dinner with my brother and his wife, Suzie, at a yummy steakhouse and then we met up with Don for drinks and hung out for a while before heading off to bed. Don drew Phil Ivey which wa obviously very bad luck. I gave him a bunch of coaching on how to play the match,as did Phil Gordon as well. Basically I told him to let the limits get high then force Phil to play for all the chips by moving in a lot. That strategy in this event will get you close to 50/50 against anyone. And we all recognized that that was Don’s best hope. The strategy I gave him is actually very similar to the strategy I would use against Phil as well since he is a much better player than I am too.
The next morning I came down to play Jeff and managed to win my first match in this event ever. That made me feel a lot better. frankly, I made a lot of hands against him so I think with my cards I would have beaten anyone.
After my match, I went up to Don’s suite and we played some heads up to get him prepared for his match with Phil. Don’s wasn’t playing till 6:30 and I was finished with my match around 3 so we had plenty of tim. We got in a lot of play and I gave him some good pointers. Then we went downstairs and Joe and I got a good seat to sweat Don and my brother, who was playing Brad Booth at the same time. Howard’s match was over pretty quickly with Brad victorious. My brother had a really bad sinus headache that day and you could see he was really suffering. It was a bad beat for Bub since Brad is an excellent player and I would want to be feeling well if I had to play him. Bub looked like he was in some serious pain.
Don and Phil’s match went on a very long time but Don managed to grab the chip lead early and then never relinquished it and he won the match! I think I was more excited for him than I was for me because that was a hell of an accomplishment. The great thing about that match for Don was that it was low pressure. If he lost it is what everyone would expect. But if he won he would be a real hero. And he was the hero!
After the match we all went and met a bunch of people at Boa for dinner. Shannon, Joe’s ex, also won her first round match against renee Angelil and she had made the dinner reservations. So we met her and Clonie and Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Andy Bloch, Michael Craig and a bunch of other people up there. It was a really fun dinner and I got to really catch up with Chris, who I don’t get to see enough anymore since neither of us plays WPT events anymore.
The next morning I cam down to play Nam Le. I wasn’t happy about the match up because I have never played with him before so knew little about his style. All I knew was that he is a really good player. We played close for a very long time but then he raised on the button with AQ and I looked at an Ace in the big blind and reraised. When he moved in I was getting almost 3 to 1 on the call so I had to call. Obviously I was in ridiculously bad shape against AQ since my kicker turned out to be a deuce and I was out of the tournament. Boo! Hopefully next year I can improve upon this year and actually win two matches. Heads Up play is definitely not my strong suit so I think I will work on it over the course of this year to improve my chances.
Shannon had won her second match against Jeff Madsen so Joe and I stayed to watch her play Barry Greenstein. She played very well against him and held cards, a lethal combination to try to overcome and she beat Barry. That was a pretty amazing accomplishment. Her poker has gotten very good and she was very poised in the match. I was impressed.
Joe and I had a flight so we couldn’t stay to watch more and we headed home Saturday night. We met up with Hollywood Dave, who just won a tournament at the Commerce btw, and saw Zodiac which was okay. I am really jazzed that dave won a NL Hold’em tournament since i have been coaching him for a few months. I felt pretty proud of myself since the three people I have ever coached have now won tournaments within 6 months of my coaching them. Pretty cool stuff.
On Sunday Joe and I hung out with Lucy and Leo. We took them down to Chinatown for Dim Sum and then Lucy and I played Club Penguin on the computer all afternoon. We all went out to dinner after that and then Joe and I called it an early night. It was a great weekend all around.
