Apollo1308 – his time in the Dominican Republic

Part II

Recap: Apollo1308, an online poker player at 32Red won a seat on the WPT Boot Camp in the Dominican Republic courtesy of 32Red. After being jetted off the to the Caribbean in stlye and getting used to the poker high life, Apollo gets down to some serious poker:

A Schedule packed Monday started off with the daily breakfast buffet, the best part of which was always an assortment of fresh fruit juices. At 10 am the introduction started I joined it a few minutes late as I was still tired and wanted to relax during breakfast. I thought it would be ok to miss the first few minutes. I then went to the orientation and saw all the pros introduce themselves. That was fun.   

At 11.20 we had the first of the live learning labs. A learning lab comprises of one of the pros tutoring 9 or 10 guests. He/she deals and discusses the action that occurred in the hand, what hands should have been folded etc. Now, someone who has won 3 tournaments in a row to get to this event probably does not benefit so much from these, but Its always nice to hear different pros views on some basic plays.
The first pro to coach my table was T.J Cloutier - he was my favourite for the day, as he hammered home the importance of playing tight and strong raises. I think this is an important aspect of a good basic poker strategy.  I had my picture taken with TJ.

My guest was on a table with Clonie Gowan, I dashed over so I could take a picture of him. The next pro on my table was Karina Jett. She was proposing a looser style of play.  Guess what, I had my picture taken with her too.

Lunch

We broke off for lunch at 1. It was then I realised I did not have to stuff myself with the dessert as their was just as much variety and quantity as the previous day. My thoughts were now much more with the poker than with the food. I got chatting with a few random people who were with the boot camp. Its good fun to socialise with others.

Learning Lab 2.

For the afternoon labs I found myself again on Karina Jets table.  I though about leaving but decided that could be seen as rude so decided to stay, or maybe I was just stalking her. 2 seats to my right was the girlfriend of Jean-Robert Bellande (famous for the US series of survivour), one seat on my right I though I had just a normal girl. Maybe that was another factor that kept me on the table. Later in the week I realised she was a card shark. (Was it her noticeable excitement of winning the pots on the training session, or was it the fact that for a normal girl I just could not get a clue about her style of play. Maybe it was the fact that she was still in the main tournament late in the second day. My suspicions were confirmed when someone said “I don’t know why but that girl looks familiar” someone else replied “Probably cos she went deep in the WSOP” I also saw her around a lot of the pros on later days).

Other people of note on my table were the Microgaming representatives who introduced themselves to me. How good it was to hear an English accent even though it was from the Isle of Man. Hooray more friends.

Rick Fuller another one of the pros was circling our table. His contribution would best be described as Telling off. Yup if Rick would say anything, the smart money would be on him telling someone off. Fun to watch though.

First real tournament

At 4 pm the first real tournament started it was a standard sit and go.  I was drawn against Nick Brancato. First Prize, a day trip swimming with Dolphins. Nothing for second place. I hate tournaments where few players get paid. As the game progressed and the players were chating it was clear Nick was giving me respect for being a 32Red player. Turns out he used to play on Microgaming too before they pulled out of the US. I asked if I could have my picture taken with him later he replied “only if you have your clothes on”. I guess it sounded weird to anyone who had not been listening to our conversation earlier.

I should have a picture of me in my 32Red gear with him, just got to recharge my camera so I get access to those pictures. I did not really get anywhere in that tournament. The blinds rose quickly as was to be expected with the poker tournament scheduled to last under 2 hours, Nick built his stack up and I knew I would have an uphill struggle. My short stack forced me to call an all in after limping from the small blind with J8 Flop Q83 turn Q.  The big blind had a Queen. One of my Lunch friends was in this sit and go. He said I played well till that 1 hand. Nick seemed to see the rationale of my call.

The evening.

That Evening a Dinner for the group had been organised. It was in one of the Restaurants and had grilled seafood. We coincidently met one of our lunch friends here. This is where he told me I had played well till the hand I got knocked out on. It did not really have the feel of  a group dinner L. Both my lunch friends when to the casino that night and made some money on the cash tables. It was already after 10 pm. I don’t like to play poker when I am tired so I gave it a miss.

Day 3.

We had all of Tuesday off. A lot of people had booked excursions. I wanted to enjoy the day on the beach. I played volleyball during the day with a bunch of random people. I told them I was a beginner and they were fine with it. Somehow I managed to score the winning point in the first game. In the afternoon I signed up for a Water polo competition. I’d never played water polo before. My team won our first match comfortably, and made it to the final. The final was a much tighter affair. I sort of played all over the pool trying to find space or upfront coming back to defend sporadically. The opposition had a guy who was twice as big as me in defence. He was a pure power machine. I would not pick a fight with him even if their were 3 of me and 1 of him. He was BIG. The Score fluctuated back and forth and they scored an Equaliser in the last minute to make it 4-4. In the dying seconds the ball came to me I had failed to score from my last 2 attempts but  I figured I had to take a shot anyway. Maybe my shooting had improved and somehow I scored. WOW.
 We win the final 5-4. The Reps ask us to come to some presentation in the evening they say they have a prize for us. On my team I had a poker player. I think his name was Martin Hanitz. I know he is Swedish. Martin ended up on the final table of the second chance event. More on that later on in the blog.

The Evening.

For the evening we had a booking at a Japanese restaurant. In this style of restaurants the chef cooks the food right in front of your table of 10. They ask you to come and try some of the cooking skills. This is very entertaining. On My table we had a lady called Jean (I think), my guest, me, Jean-Robert Bellande, Jean-Robert’s Girlfriend, the girl card shark, David Williams(another pro), his mum, his girlfriend and a 10th person at the other end of the table.  Jean( the lady) cashed in the main event . Thank god it was just a meal and not a cash table, otherwise I would not have sat down. Theirs only so much hammering my bankroll can take, and at their level my bankroll would not last much more than 1 rotation. After the meal I take a break. I didn’t have a watch and with the main even starting tomorrow and so much excitement today I missed the first part of the presentation ceremony. I go to watch it anyway and they are on another part of the daily  evening entertainment. The big water polo defender is participating in the show with his girlfriend, and the show is definitely funny and  very entertaining. What a great day off!