A Good Story
I figured since I am taking some time off from playing this week I would tell a great story from this year back during the 2004 WSOP. I may not actually take off all week as one of my good friends from LA is in town again to help out Aaron in Seattle as he re-opens the Hideaway cardroom in north Seattle. This is going to be a tough task as he needs players to come back to the room. If anyone can do it Aaron can. This story centers around Aaron.
Aaron is a high limit cash game player. I actually got him hooked on the game about 6 years ago, funny enough at the Hideaway, which he now owns. He did not even know the first thing about poker. He is a super smart guy however and great with math as well as is a super risk taker. What I did not know was his skill at reading people. He put in thousands of hours the first few years and then started taking trips to LA to play in bigger games. He just kept stepping up the cash game ladder quickly until he was playing the white chip games at the Commerce, which is where you will find him these days when in LA. He is my first choice in the world for short handed pot limit or NL hold-em or omaha games. I have watched him just destroy some of the best players supposedly in the world at these games to the point now where they will not play him heads up.
The story starts with me in LA for work the morning of April 26th. I got into town on Sunday night and played at the Commerce $40/80 game for about 8 hours. I got to sleep late and was sleeping when my phone started blowing up. Aaron was trying to reach me. He had played all day on the 25th in the $1500 buy-in limit event at the WSOP. He went through 598 players and was going into the final day as the chip leader and wanted me to come out and watch the final table. I was excited and decided to blow off my meetings for the day and called up Joe, who is the guy in Seattle today, and we caught the first flight out of LA to Vegas to get there for the final table. We showed up just as it was beginning. His first three hands were AK suited, AA, then AK off. Won all three, wow a super start. The final table had only a few recognizable names. Miami John Cernuto, Carlos Motensen's wife Cecilia and Jimmmy Tran. After that great start he went card dead. He started to get really frustrated that he could not find anything to play, and then started to get down on himself. The good news is he had chips to wait it out. The bad news was that he went from chip leader to the middle of the pack over that stretch which went for about 4 hours. They lost of few players and right before the dinner break it was 5 handed and he was 4th, ouch. We went to dinner, I tried to pump him up, and he decided to have a drink. I told him that he is the best shorthanded player in the world and now we are short handed. Let it show.
He started after the dinner break much the same. Then we lost one more and were 4 handed and he just took over the table. He started bluffing, running over people, making great reads, and making good laydowns. It was a clinic. At one point he won 17 out of 20 hands and eliminated two more players. He got it down to heads up with an enormous chip lead and pummeled the guy in about 5 hands. All over at midnight, and Aaron had his first WSOP bracelet plus $234,940 in cash. He had to do interviews and pictures for a while, then we got to go to the back room and get the cash. We piled the $234,000 into a duffel bag and I got to carry it out to the front circle where we had two security guards ride back to the Bellagio with us in a Limo. I tell you what $234,000 in hundreds still weighs a ton. My shoulder got tired from carrying all that cash through the Bellagio. We went into the safe deposit private rooms and put it all out on the table. Four stacks of shrink wrapped 100's in $50,000 stacks and a loose $34,000 and change. What a sight. I then had to catch the 6am flight to LA and get back to work. What a great 24 hours. One of the best poker experiences of my life. I hope the next time it is me at the final table. SJ
Aaron is a high limit cash game player. I actually got him hooked on the game about 6 years ago, funny enough at the Hideaway, which he now owns. He did not even know the first thing about poker. He is a super smart guy however and great with math as well as is a super risk taker. What I did not know was his skill at reading people. He put in thousands of hours the first few years and then started taking trips to LA to play in bigger games. He just kept stepping up the cash game ladder quickly until he was playing the white chip games at the Commerce, which is where you will find him these days when in LA. He is my first choice in the world for short handed pot limit or NL hold-em or omaha games. I have watched him just destroy some of the best players supposedly in the world at these games to the point now where they will not play him heads up.
The story starts with me in LA for work the morning of April 26th. I got into town on Sunday night and played at the Commerce $40/80 game for about 8 hours. I got to sleep late and was sleeping when my phone started blowing up. Aaron was trying to reach me. He had played all day on the 25th in the $1500 buy-in limit event at the WSOP. He went through 598 players and was going into the final day as the chip leader and wanted me to come out and watch the final table. I was excited and decided to blow off my meetings for the day and called up Joe, who is the guy in Seattle today, and we caught the first flight out of LA to Vegas to get there for the final table. We showed up just as it was beginning. His first three hands were AK suited, AA, then AK off. Won all three, wow a super start. The final table had only a few recognizable names. Miami John Cernuto, Carlos Motensen's wife Cecilia and Jimmmy Tran. After that great start he went card dead. He started to get really frustrated that he could not find anything to play, and then started to get down on himself. The good news is he had chips to wait it out. The bad news was that he went from chip leader to the middle of the pack over that stretch which went for about 4 hours. They lost of few players and right before the dinner break it was 5 handed and he was 4th, ouch. We went to dinner, I tried to pump him up, and he decided to have a drink. I told him that he is the best shorthanded player in the world and now we are short handed. Let it show.
He started after the dinner break much the same. Then we lost one more and were 4 handed and he just took over the table. He started bluffing, running over people, making great reads, and making good laydowns. It was a clinic. At one point he won 17 out of 20 hands and eliminated two more players. He got it down to heads up with an enormous chip lead and pummeled the guy in about 5 hands. All over at midnight, and Aaron had his first WSOP bracelet plus $234,940 in cash. He had to do interviews and pictures for a while, then we got to go to the back room and get the cash. We piled the $234,000 into a duffel bag and I got to carry it out to the front circle where we had two security guards ride back to the Bellagio with us in a Limo. I tell you what $234,000 in hundreds still weighs a ton. My shoulder got tired from carrying all that cash through the Bellagio. We went into the safe deposit private rooms and put it all out on the table. Four stacks of shrink wrapped 100's in $50,000 stacks and a loose $34,000 and change. What a sight. I then had to catch the 6am flight to LA and get back to work. What a great 24 hours. One of the best poker experiences of my life. I hope the next time it is me at the final table. SJ
posted by Seattlejohn at 2:18 PM
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