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Hola mon amigo! (Oops, wrong country )

Today, Tuesday, was a free day.  We were able to do whatever we wanted.

Donna and I decided that we wanted to go scuba diving.  The price was $125/each for two dives.  That price was comparable to what it cost in the Bahamas, so we made our reservations.  We needed to be on the beach no later than 8:45.  We got up, made our way to breakfast, then back to the scuba shack.  The dive master was a young gentleman named Roman from Nice, France.  He spoke at least 4 languages.  Joining us from the poker group were pros, Clonie Gowan and Jan Fisher.

We were told that after we boarded a small boat, we would be taken to a catamaran, where we would join up with other divers.  From there, we would take a quick 5 minute boat ride to our sites.  Both dives were going to be reef dives.  We all piled in the boat and the first thing I noticed was how choppy and rough the water was.  The waves were probably 10 feet high.  It felt like we were on a roller coaster.  Yuk.

We arrived at the catamaran, and loaded all of our equipment in the bigger boat and off we went to the dive site.  I rarely get sick, and I have NEVER been sea-sick, but I could feel my stomach churning.  I could not wait to get in the water. 

We all jumped in and I started to feel better.  Donna had trouble getting down, and she had to swim back to the boat to get more weight.  After they added more, she was able to descend properly.  The visibility was very poor.  You could see 30 feet at the most.  We descended and all met up on the bottom.  While down there, the tide and waves were pretty strong.  You would be swimming along and then all of a sudden you would get a “head current” and you would not go anywhere.  You had to kick hard just to maintain your position.  Them 10 seconds later, the water came the other way and you were propelled forward very quickly.  The water threw us around like we were paper dolls.  The reef was relatively boring as well.  However, while down there, I did not feel as sick, so that was a plus.

When our air was low, we ascended to the top.  Upon surfacing, Donna got sick and threw up.  We all got back in the boat, where she got sick again.  I was not feeling too hot either.  Donna said that she did not want to do the second dive (who can blame her), and honestly, I did not either.  As it turns out, there were five people who had enough.  This was too bad of a dive to do the second one. 

The Dive-master radioed to shore and they sent a small boat to get the people who did not want to go on the second dive.  While we were boarding the small boat, I got sick too.  YUK.

After we arrived back at the shore, Donna and I went back to our room where we immediately showered and took a nap.  Two hours later, we both woke up hungry, so that was a good sign.

There was a $300+$30 + $10 (optional dealer tip for 1000 chips) tournament at 5pm.  I signed up to play.  There were about 80 people.  The top 9 were paid, with first getting about $7500.  Two seats to my right was was Lee Childs, the 2005 WSOP Main Event final tablist.  Lee was very personable.  I enjoyed talking to him.  When the dealer started to deal the tournament, he pulled out the jokers and put them aside.  I picked them up and thought, “I can have fun with these!”

Later on in the tournament, I was short stacked and I had pocket 88 in middle position.  There was one limper.  I shoved all-in and it was folded back to the lady who had limped.  She called and showed QJs (clubs).  I reached into my pocket and said, “I have the nuts”, while flipping over pocket jokers.  Everybody at the table got a laugh out of that.  Anyway, the pocket 88 held up and our table was broken up.  I ended up going out in 25th place when I again shoved in with 88.  A guy with a big-stack called with 66 and wouldn’t you know it - he spiked a 6 on the flop.  Game over.

After that, I played some 3 card poker with Donna and won a couple hundred bucks.  I also played some craps, but the dice were not with me.

I wanted to get a good night of sleep.  Tomorrow the Main Event begins.  There is over $200,000 worth of prizes on line, and I needed to be well rested.

After yesterday’s fiasco, Donna and I both slept like rocks.  We woke around 8:30 am.  Our first “meeting” was to get to Orientation at 10:00.  So, off to the breakfast buffet we went, and after eating, we made our way over to the conference room.  We got cell phones and an internet card and all was good.  The debacle from yesterday was now a memory (but recent one).  The Battle for the Season Pass was on.

For orientation, they explained how things work and what the schedule was going to be.  For today, there were going to be live learning labs (more on this below), and a single table tournament for everybody.  The winner of the single table tournaments were to receive a free “excursion” of their choice.  There were about 10 excursions to choose from.  Most were priced around $100, so it was a neat little freeroll.  During the orientation, Ron Rubens (WPT Bootcamp president) asked who had NOT been to a boot camp, and who HAD been to a bootcamp.  The room was split about 50/50.  Curious, he had the people who had previously attended a bootcamp to stand up.  So, I did.  Then he asked only those people who have been to TWO bootcamps to remain standing.  A lot of people sat down.  Then, he asked only those people who have been to three bootcamps to remain standing.  I think there were maybe 10 of us.  Ron was surprised and then asked only people who have attended four or more to remain standing.  At that juncture, only three of us remained - and I was one of them.  Ron then asked everybody to give us a round of applause.  In actuality, this is my SIXTH bootcamp.  I have attended the 2-day tournament camp, 3-day tournament camp, the cash camp, and now, ALL THREE battle for the Season Pass tournaments.  :)  Anyway, back to the story. . .

After orientation, we all made our way to the casino and settled into our tables for the live learning labs.  As I walked in, a couple friends of mine, who I know from previous camps, yelled out that they saved me a seat at their table!  Wow, how nice was that! 

I knew what to expect in the Live Labs as I have been to many bootcamps before.  I absolutely LOVE these things.  They are the BEST learning tool that I have ever seen.  Here is how they work.  A pro is seated at your table and everybody has chips.  The pro then deals the cards and you play the hand out.  If you fold your cards, you are asked to keep them in front of you.  After the hand is completed, everybody turns their cards face-up and the pro critiques the play.  The REAL neat thing about this is that every 45 minutes, the pros rotate, so you get to hear viewpoints from DIFFERENT pros, which obviously incorporates their playing style. 

Our first pro was the 1984 WSOP main event champion Tom McEvoy.  Tom was a fairly conservative player who corrected you if you played bad cards out of position.  After Tom, came Kenna James.  Kenna is a lot of fun. 

He immediately looked around and said, “I recognize a lot of you from past bootcamps.”  We replied that we had hand-picked this table to be only “good players”.

Kenna responded with, “Good, I will hold nothing back then.  I am going to rip your play to shreads!” (in a good manner).  He did just that.  He held nothing back!  He was downright obnoxious a few times (but that is meant in a good way - he was actually being that way to make a point and trying to teach us a few points).  He re-iterated a few points in my game that have been lacking recently.  This was a great refresher and got me focused on the all-important question of, “What is the situation so far in this hand?”  Along the way, several people (including me) made a side-bet with Kenna.  The bet was simply whether a pro will or will NOT make the final table of the main tournament this week.  I bet him $100 that a pro would NOT make the final table.  I will need to wait until Saturday to hopefully collect on this bet.

Live Learning labs cannot last long enough, but lunch time was here.  After lunch, we were back in the casino to continue with more labs.  First out of the gate for us was WPT Champion Hoyt Corkins.  I did not recognize Hoyt because he was wearing a baseball cap and NOT his trademark cowboy hat.  Anyway, Hoyt was a very soft-spoken and kind man.  After Hoyt came WPT 2005 player of the year Gavin Smith.  If you know anything about Gavin’s play, you know he is pretty loose-aggressive.  His commentary reflected that style in his play….

I picked up several nice tidbits during the Live Learning Labs.  I was again very happy.  These things are so situation-specific and are GREAT learning tools.

After the labs, we were all assigned seats for the single table tournaments.  I looked up my location, and I was at table 3, seat 3.  The pros were also invited to play in the sit and gos.  They were spread out as to have one pro per table.  My pro?  2004 WSOP runner-up Dave Williams - and he was two positions to my left.  All in all, this was a good place to have him.  Dave was a pretty nice guy and personable, so I had to ask him how they paid him after his second place finish in the WSOP main event.  He said that they will give you cash, chips, or a check.  He said that he took a check, and when he got it, the check was HAND WRITTEN.  He then went home and deposited it into the bank, where the teller thought it was a joke.  He convinced the teller to deposit the check, and the teller said, “You do know that there will be a hold on this $3.8 million check!”  We all got a chuckle out of that and he did say that it was a true story.

 I finished 4th in the Sit and Go (lasted longer than Dave Williams).

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful.  Donna won $650 in a 25 cent slot machine, then won $500 playing 3 card poker.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) we have completely OFF.  There is nothing going on with the camp.  Donna and I are planning on going scuba diving.  There is also a “warm-up” tournament with a buy-in of $340.  You get 5000 chips with 30 minute levels at 4pm.  I have not decided if I am going to play in this or not.  I guess it depends on what we do in the afternoon.

First, my apologizes to the people who have been checking here for updates.  It was a hectic first day or two, but things are settling down.

On Saturday, Ray and I conducted a charity poker tournament for Berkshire Poker, which benefited The Dalton Lions Club.  That went fairly well, and after getting everything broken down, I went home to pack.  The past two years, the Battle for the Season Pass was held in the Bahamas. This year, they were holding it in the Dominican Republic.  After getting mostly packed, it was 1am.  Donna and I had to leave to get to the airport by 4am.  I decided that I might as well stay up.  I would only be getting 2 hours of sleep.

When 3am rolled around, I woke Donna up, we loaded up, and off we went.  We made it to Hartford by 6am (2 hours prior to an international flight) and had a long time to wait.  Getting no sleep was starting to catch up to me.  Our flight went from Hartford to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we were supposed to board a smaller plane to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.  We got a little late of a start from Hartford, and hence we arrived a little late in San Juan.  The problem was that we only had a 30 minute layover in San Juan, and we were 20 minutes late.

As we got off the plane, we figured out where to go, then ran to the gate.  As we were running, I saw two other people running in the same direction as well.  I asked them if there were going to Punta Cana, and sure enough, they were.  As we got to the gate, we saw that the door was closed and they would NOT let us on the flight even though there turned out to be FIVE of us from the Hartford flight that were going on to Punta Cana - and the airplane was STILL sitting out there. 

We were directed to Customer Service where they politely said that there were not more flights to Punta Cana today.  Great… I am stranded in the Caribbean on the WRONG island.  After some research, they said that they were going to route us to a city called La Romana.  Oh boy!  We will then be on the correct island, but still in the wrong city.  They then explained that they would put us on a bus that would take us to Punta Cana. 

The five of us now had a 2-1/2 hour wait until our next flight.  We were all hungry, so we found a restaurant and I had a BLT.  At 4:30, we were in the air again and off we went.  Upon arrival in La Romana we breezed through customs (they just looked at us, saw that we were tourists, and waved us through).  Our next task was to find the American Airlines desk to arrange for a bus to Punta Cana.  Well, let me tell you, this was an interestesting experience.  Very few people there spoke English.  It was “interesting” to be in a foreign country trying to communicate a problem when you do not know the language.  After a few minutes, the person at the customer service desk went in the back and summoned a supervisor who spoke decent English.  We we able to get the situation resolved and they put us on a van to the actual resort (and not just the Punta Cana airport as originally planned).  The downside was that the ride was 2 hours long!!! 

So, we got the scenic tour of the Dominican Republic.  All I will say is that it was pretty eye-opening, and VERY interesting.  After 2 hours of very nervous travelling, we finally arrived at the resort.  We got checked in and made our way to our room, which was about a 5-10 minute walk to the other side of the complex. 

Donna and I decided that we were hungry, so we ran to the buffet.  They closed at 10pm, and we made it there just in time.  I was exhausted - remember I was running on NO sleep from the night before.  After dinner, we crashed (we did not even get the cell phones or internet card that we paid for - and hence why there was no update yesterday).

The neat thing about the travel fiasco is we made two very good friends from Northampton, MA!