Miika Puumalainen Eliminated in 59th Place ($108,047)

It took two hands to eliminate Miika Puumalainen from this year’s Main Event, but they came in rapid succession. It was the first hand that was most damaging.

Action folded to Puumalainen in the small blind. He limped into the pot in front of big blind Francois Balmigere, who raised to 150,000.

Puumalainen’s response was to shove all in for about 2.3 million chips. Balmigere gave the matter a few moments’ thought and then called all in for slightly less, about 2.15 million.

Puumalainen: {A-Spades} {3-Diamonds}

Balmigere: {J-Clubs} {J-Hearts}

The board rolled out {8-Diamonds} {4-Spades} {8-Spades} {k-Clubs} {2- Diamonds}. That was no help for Puumalainen, crippling him to about 105,000. Those chips went in on the next hand with {7-Diamonds} {6- Clubs} after Craig Boyd opened for 125,000 with {K-Diamonds} {9- Hearts}. Once again the board was no help for Puumalainen, and this time he was not left with any chips. He’s out.

Congratulations to Miika on a great deep run!

Today saw the end of Mike Sexton, who cashed for $27,469 after finishing in 420th. This comes the week he was announced as one of the ten candidates for the Poker Hall of Fame.

Congratulations to all those qualifiers that made the money and those that live to fight another day. Full details below:

647th – Staffan Fogelberg $21,365
447th – Randy Armitage $25,027
420th – Mike Sexton $27,469

Through to Day 5:

Miika Puumalainen 1,492,000

Aaron Coulthard 502,000
Ashley Cheung 220,000
Remy Biechel 130,00

Also still in is Maurizio Saieva (Italian Poker Team) 412,000

The players started arriving at our fantastic Mike Sexton suite in the Rio Hotel and Casino at about 11am ready for the 12 o’clock start. Our suite is an oasis of calm in a very busy and congested arena of excitement. All credit should go to Sinead and Mike Sebour & his team for setting up a very comfortable room featuring a relaxing chill out area with comfortable sofas, massage chairs and a full time masseuse if players want to de-stressed. We also have a video games area with a Wii, large screen TV and selection of films to keep players and their guests.

Day 1A is being played out in a couple of different rooms here at the Rio and our players are scattered far and wide. About 20 players have started their tournament today and trying to find all of them proved tricky to start with but we got there. Walking around the main Amazon room I spotted players like Miika from Finland and Rory from Ireland who were both picking up small pots where they could.

When the players had their first break after two hours of play, they came back to the suite to get something to eat and drink and a game on the fuseball table. I think that there will be a lot of competition and possibly some fast betting action around that fuseball table this week. The guys love it.

Because the suite is called The Mike Sexton Suite rather than the PartyPoker Suite, we are getting a lot of interest from Americans passing by who want to see or meet Mike. These guys have been inventing lots of good and imaginative reasons (“I’m Mike’s best friend….but I haven’t seen him in 10 years” was one of our favourites) why they should come in and say hi to Mike or why they should be allowed to simply come in and help themselves to our food and drinks.

It is the’ Mike Sexton Suite’ not the ‘Mike Sexton Walk in Buffet’ but some don’t seem to get that so we have told Mario and Andreas to act as bouncers and politely explain that the suite is for PartyPoker players only. Mario is too nice for this job and has to harden up a bit.

Standing outside the suite we got to see plenty of well known players walk by including the great Doyle Brunsen, former WSOP main event winner Joe Hachem and the popular Daniel Negreanu. I’ll get some pictures next time – promise.

We left the Rio once the players had their evening break. I had a quick look around the tournament rooms before I left and all our Day 1A players seemed to be doing alright. This year there are only four 2 hour levels being played each day which means play will be over by about 10.30 every night in the early stages. I’ll be back soon with some chip updates.

The boys from Norway in some new clothes. (the cases have still not arrived)

Andreas welcomes Katja from Norway and Pia from Denmark to the party.   :)

The Poker Italia Team make a very quiet entrance and pose for a team photo

Ian Frazer, His charming wife, Padraig Parkinson and Eddie Hearn seem pleased when I ask if they would like another drink.

The new PartyPoker Grassroots team of poker professionals,
Ian Frazer from England, Bodo from Germany, Remi Biechel from France, Mike Sexton, Felipe ‘Majave’ Ramos.

Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott gets friendly with former Chelsea and France footballer Frank Leboeuf.

Our beautiful waitresses for the evening.

31st June 2009

Thanks to the jet lag I only got about 4 hours sleep last night and so at 5am I was out of bed staring out of my window at the view of Las Vegas and the mountains beyond. I wasn’t just awake, I was so wired, I felt I was ready to conquer the world. If Mount Everest was across the street I would have climbed it without any trouble. This is in direct contrast to the usual me. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I break into a light sweat just thinking about exercise.

So I decided to see if there was any action downstairs in the casino. Even at 6am there was no shortage of people sat glaring almost zombie like at the slot machines as they gambled away their children’s inheritance.

Later in the day I went out for a look around the strip. Las Vegas gets very hot in the summer and it is easy to forget that if you spend a long time in a nice air conditioned building. When you step outside, it is like being attacked by a hair dryer on full blast.

I walked into the casino at the MGM Grand which is absolutely huge. I walked past probably the strangest sight I have ever seen in a casino. Sat in front of a slot machine was a very old man in a medical wheelchair. He was in his pyjamas and had a saline drip hanging from a hook going into his hand and clear tubes going into his nose and throat.

Never before have I seen such dedication from a man who looked like he had escaped from the operating theatre at the nearest hospital. Somewhere there was a surgeon running around the streets of Las Vegas looking for that man.

In the evening, our boss, Mike, took the whole team out to dinner in a great restaurant at The Wynn. One thing I like about America is that they do really great steaks and this place was no exception.

After a great meal – thanks Mike, we all went our separate ways as some stayed for a drink at the bar, some moved on to other places and Andreas wandered off to the poker room at the Wynn to try his luck on the cash tables. Tomorrow I’ll find out if he is broke or a millionaire.

The team have safely managed to arrive in Las Vegas but the trip was certainly not without incident. Flying from Malaga, Spain to New York and then onto Las Vegas, the journey sounded straightforward enough. After the million and 1 questions from security at Malaga, I found out that I would be sat apart from my 3 colleagues travelling with me – Mario, Naomi and Andreas.

Whilst they enjoyed the extra legroom that comes from sitting in the emergency row of seats, I was literally wedged up against a window seat next to a couple going on their honeymoon. They obviously thought they had already reached their hotel judging by the amount of XXX rated action (that I usually have to supply a credit card number for) that was going on. I wanted to say “Get a room” but they spent the entire 8 hour flight to New York behaving like they were already in one.

We arrived late in New York and with only an hour to get off the plane, go through immigration, pick up our cases, dump them again and go through security again I knew we would be lucky if we made it. The queue at immigration seemed like it stretched all the way back to Malaga so we had some fighting to do to get to the front. Naomi was excellent and badgered every official there to let us go to the front and at her 4th attempt found someone willing to do so.

We all sailed through with the exception of Andreas who was nowhere to be seen. The remaining three of us still had bag dumping and security to get through and our flight to Las Vegas was leaving in 10 minutes – we would never make it. I arrived at the gate with Mario and Naomi having sprinted all the way there to see the guy closing the plane door. We could see the plane from the window but did not know if we would be catching it.

After some bargaining he let us on but would not wait for Andreas despite our pleading. As we took our seats on the plane and wondered aloud what time the next flight was, we saw a hot and flustered Andreas walking up the aisle to a huge cheer from all of us. Someone behind me asked why we were cheering and I told them it was because Andreas was a famous Swedish poker celebrity. They believed me.

So we all made the plane but what about our bags? Did they make the flight? Well, yes and no. Upon arrival in Las Vegas Andreas realised his case was still sat in New York and would be put on the next flight.

But it didn’t matter because we were finally in Las Vegas.

I wake up late at 11.30am but manage to get myself over to the RIO and in my seat by 12.15 …phew!

Although this year the starting stacks are 3X the buy in and not the pathetic 2X it has been, you still don’t want to miss a level when its 6 handed.

So it’s the $1500 NL my first event and we start with 4500 chips, The table is only 5 handed so far and it’s a very lively start. Apart from the first pot being uncontested the next 12 are all raised and re-raised sort of how I imagined it would be as there is another good tourney on at 5pm and two players are already saying well I’m going to double up early or I’m in the 5pm.

To me I think they are just giving themselves an excuse for when they get busted.

I am in the BB with AJ clubs and get raised 3X, we are still level 1 so I play my first pot and make a call. The flop comes Jh 4c 2c brilliant, I decide that I am going to check raise this guy the minimum and then take a view.

Sure as eggs are eggs that’s what happens. I figure that my min raise can work for me in 2 ways, tell him weakness if he is an aggressive on-line player and should entice the RR and if I am up against an over pair it can be seen as strength and may get me a cheap/free river if I miss my draw.

Although this hand is a standard shove for me early in a tourney, it is the WSOP and I am still a little apprehensive. He dwells up and shoves!  Eeeeek, I start thinking OMG I have got what I wanted, but is he a plum with a worse flush draw say KcQc or even KJ trying to push me off a draw? Because I don’t know who this young kid is I lean more towards the call, I figure if he has set or over pair I still have good outs so I make the call and he shows JJ, Doh! It bricks turn and river and I am out.

Conclusion; My theory and play were good unless the guy had a set. C’est la vie. Lunch around the pool beckons.

Bring on the 5pm Tourney…………lol

My plans for this trip are; arrive on 2nd June and play 3 x 6 handed events and any others I fancy if I get busted early, up until the 11th June when I need to get back in England. Return to Vegas on 24th June and stay until the end of main event or when I get busted. Well that’s the plan anyway!

I arrive in the lounge at Virgin where my mate Greco is having breakfast with a few other British pros, we have the standard, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and exchange a bit of banter about where everyone is staying and then head for the plane, I have booked Encore it is meant to be fantastic. I have booked to sit next to Grec’s thought we could have a good old chin wag about poker as I haven’t seen him for ages, wrong!

Boy can he sleep, I’ve watched 3 films and he’s snoring his head off (lucky sod). We are getting ready for landing and Grec’s asks “what you doing today” as we get there about 2pm and my response was well I think I will chill out at the hotel get some nice food and sleep so as I am ready for tomorrow’s tourney. “yeah your right so am I” he says. We all leave the airport and go our separate ways.

I check in to Encore wow what a gaff; I get asked would you like a tour of the hotel sir? Na just show me my room, after all I am going to chill, eat and sleep remember?

As soon as my bag is unpacked and I swallow nice chilled beer from fridge, I am off! Taxi to the Bellagio I remember there is a $1k tourney every day at 2pm with buy ins until 5ish.

I am like a kid in a sweet shop, you wouldn’t think I’ve been here more than 25 times.

I buy into the tourney look for my seat and low and behold on the next table Greco, ha-ha we have a good old chuckle and crack on. Well the tourney gets 84 runners, we both make final table, I win it $24k in the posh and Grec’s comes 5th what a result, luvvly jubbly.

It is now 4am, we are both at the Rio to buy in for the first tourneys we are playing, as mine starts in 8 hours, and there are whispers of tourneys being sold out.

I was more worried about not waking in time and missing registration.

Lets hope tomorrow is much of the same.

Ian Frazer