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 I
was at the live taping of the World Poker Tour held at Commerce Casino. The whole experience was amazing. I went with Denny Williams, the tournament director at
The Bicycle Casino and we were able to walk right
in because he had tickets for the event. The players were Vinny Vinh,
Adam Schoenfeld, David Benyamine, Bill Gazes, Mike Keohan and
Antonio Esfandiari. I was rooting for Antonio and he was
amazing to watch. The other players were interesting too, but some of the events that took place were not about the hands being played.
The night started out by the players objecting to the structure of the event. Bill Gazes got up out of his chair when they
announced the structures. It almost looked like he might protest the event. Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and some of the
WPT staff huddled to discuss whether they were going to change the limits. They moved the limits down one notch and the
event began. Some of the other interesting things that happened were when Bill asked for a new set up and wanted it to be from
a sealed deck. Vinny Vinh called for a clock
on Bill because Vinny had to go to the bathroom and Bill was taking too long in his decision. Antonio made faces of boredom every time
a player took several minutes to act on their hand. Finally Vinny was asked numerous times to make sure he showed his hand to the
hole-card camera. Approximately four hours into the event there was not much going on in regards to the hands that were taking place.
One memorable hand was when Antonio moved all-in on Vinny and showed his bluff. The crowd started chanting "Vinny's on tilt!".
He was talking to the producers at the time and I could hear what he was discussing. He was telling them they should not interrupt him
during the action to make sure his cards were shown
to the camera. I understood his point. They could have easily asked him after the hand was over or before the action began. However,
an argument could be made that they wouldn't have to ask him at all if he obliged in the first place.
 David Benyamine
was the first person out and Adam Schoenfeld didn't last much longer after he tried to bluff a pot with K3. Mike held pocket
kings and eliminated Adam. When the play got down to four players, the action started moving. One key hand took place when
Antonio raised, Bill moved all-in for approximately $500,000 and Vinny called. Antonio then asked if he moved all-in and
both players got eliminated at the same time, would he get third place? I know he knew the answer to that already, but when
he got the verbal yes, he moved all-in forcing Vinny to fold and show his hand, AJ. Bill turned over A8 and Antonio showed
QQ. Antonio's hand held up and Bill left in fourth. Mike was the unknown at the table, but played great. He moved all-in
successfully so many times that he was the chip leader at one time. His lost a substantial amount of his stack on one hand
and then blinded off a lot of his
chips. He finally had to make a move with QJ,
but he was so short stacked both players called and made it clear to the audience and each other they were going to
check it down and try to get the match
heads up. It turned out both had K7.
Mike's hand did not improve and he left in an impressive third place.
When the heads-up match began they were so close in chips it could have been anybody's game. Vinny made three of a kind on
one hand and took a small chunk out of Antonio's stack and bullied him out of a little more, but Antonio didn't give up.
Antonio held A3 to Vinny's 77 and managed to get all his chips in on a flop with 33. After Antonio won that hand, he had
Vinny approximately 2-1 in chips.
The final hand, Antonio raised Vinny's big blind of $100,000 to $250,000. I told the person next to me, "he has a huge hand".
He commented back, "yes, he is inviting action on this one". As soon as Vinny moved all-in, I started screaming knowing that
Antonio was going to push his chips in faster than I had seen all night. He did as he grabbed one card in each hand and showed the audience
his pocket aces. Vinny turned over his Q4. After the turn, Vinny had no outs and Antonio was the Commerce Casino World Poker Tour Winner.
Windows - Mac
Episode Comments
 The
LA Poker Classic episode was interesting to me for different reasons than usual. I was at the actual filming and was curious
to see how they were going to edit down the actual play during the tournament. The tournament lasted so long and I
knew they were going to cut out a lot of key things. Many of the hands shown were the ones I discussed after I saw the
event, but I was shocked at how they cut out some of the problems they had at the table. The episode did not show how
they had to re-figure out the structure
of the event or how long Bill took to make every decision. On the show, Antonio called for a clock on Bill after he took a minute
to decide on how much he was going to raise. In all actuality, this took a LONG time. On television they did not show the difficulty
they were having in getting Vinny to show his hole cards. The show looked quite different from the actual events of the evening.
Some of the hands that were interesting to see that I did not discuss previously was when Vinny raised to $51,000 with K8 of
clubs and Adam reraised to $151,000 with AQ. Vinny
reraised another $200,000 for a total of $351,000
and Adam moved all-in for a total of $800,000. Vinny folded his hand which gave Adam the chip lead. Bill played one hand interestingly
when he checked his pair of aces until the
river. Antonio finally bet on the
river thinking his pair of eights was good and then Bill raised. Antonio had a difficult time putting Bill on aces
since he had checked the whole way. Antonio finally called and I wondered if this was Bill's strategy to get a little of
Antonio's chips. If Bill had bet on the flop, the hand might have been over without him getting any of Antonio's chips.
There are many people that consider David Benyamine one of the top players at the moment, but he did not have an opportunity to show it
on this episode. He did not have many chips and there was one hand that I thought was really strange. He called with T8 offsuit when he was
shortstacked. If he had made a move with that hand,
I would understand it a little more because he didn't have much time to find a playable hand, but calling with it seemed wrong to me.
He won the hand, but I don't like to judge a hand by the end result. I like to judge it whether it was the right move or not. When he called,
Bill reraised and David was forced to call. If he was going to call the hand, why didn't he just move his chips in and try and steal the blinds.
I certainly don't want to take T8 to a showdown unless forced to.
 There were many hands
that Antonio and Vinny went to battle with, but a lot of them were finished before a flop was even dealt out. On one hand
Antonio raised to $60,000 with T6 of diamonds and Vinny reraised another $110,000 with A2, Antonio reraised all-in and Vinny
laid his hand down. Antonio showed his hand to the crowd and Vinny looked a little upset. After I saw Adam
move in with his K3 and get called by pocket kings,
I figured the audience would think Adam was a moron for doing something like this. Most would think he "blew it". He was making
a move and unfortunately for him Mike had a huge hand. If Vinny had called Antonio's bluff, Antonio would have looked like a moron.
Instead, he looked like a genius and I have to laugh at how most people when watching the show base their opinions of the play based
on the result of the hand.
In person, I thought Mike played great. I had no reason to change my opinion once I saw the show. He did what it took
when he had the short stack and worked his way up to third place.
The heads up battle between Vinny and Antonio was more of a muscle match. They were both trying to outwit each other.
It did not seem that either of them were trying to play poker. They were trying to win the pots preflop. I am
not saying there is anything wrong with that because sometimes that is what is necessary, but it is always more interesting
for me to watch two players trying to outplay each other after a flop is seen. I was pleased when Antonio won because
he was who I was rooting for. I had met him at a party prior to this event and he was a nice guy. I also liked how he played
Phil Hellmuth on his previous WPT appearance. The final hand was
exciting especially since I was in the audience and I could see what Vinny was not able to... Antonio had a huge hand.
Overall the show was average. I do not think it contained great poker like we have seen on previous episodes (especially
Bellagio with
Paul Phillips, Dewey Tomko, and
Gus Hansen). I enjoyed this show though because I was able
to relate it to what I saw in person. I also thought it was cool that I could see myself in the audience (I was sitting behind
Evelyn Ng).
Also see the Season One - LA Poker Classic and
Season Three reports
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