AOL World Series of Poker Pro Diaries: Shannon Elizabeth

Shannon Elizabeth, screen beauty turn poker professional has let us in on her poker life for the WSOP 2007, she covers all her hands in detail. Read carefully and pick out her tips.

My 2007 WSOP

Like most poker players, I was really excited about the 2007 WSOP. I felt like I just knew I was going to have a really good tournament. The first event I participated in was the second of the series, as was the case for most players in Vegas. It started an hour late, so by the time it started I was REALLY ready to go.

Before the first hand was dealt, the staff warned us of the similarities between the 9s and the 6s in the deck. “Shuffle up and deal” was announced shortly thereafter, and the cards were in the air. I started in the 1seat -- so I had the small blind right off the bat. As everyone folded that first hand around the table, I looked down at (wouldn’t you know it): 9-6. I triple-checked that I didn’t have some sort of pair that I was misreading, but no -- 9-6 it was. With three limpers in front of me, I decided to limp as well and see a flop. The big blind raised, which accomplished nothing but a bigger pot, as nobody folded. I was ecstatic when the flop came 9-6-rag. My excitement was short-lived, however, as my very pretty two-pair flop provided me with my first ever “out-on-the-first-hand” experience. Someone ended up chasing and hitting a straight. What a fun WSOP this was going to be!!



The next event that stands out in my mind was the 1500 Pot Limit Hold ’em event. This was the first time I had ever played Pot Limit. I didn’t really understand the betting, but it seemed like something I could just figure out as I went along. And figure out I did. Somehow I accumulated an enormous stack of chips! I recall a bluff or two that helped, including a move where I had a Jack high flush and moved in, and a guy with a Queen high flush laid it down because he was convinced I had him beat. Now that was beautiful! Everyone at the table told him he was crazy for lying it down -- I just smiled and kept my mouth shut. It was shortly after this that everything changed. Right before we broke for dinner I was in middle position with Kings. I raised, and a guy in late position re-raised. So I re-raised. We finally got it to a point where I could put him all-in. He thought and thought and thought. He clearly didn’t have aces, so I knew I was golden. We had been playing together for awhile and he hadn’t seen me re-raise like that the whole day. So I obviously had to be strong. He looked at the small stack of chips he had left in front of him at this point and basically surrendered, exclaiming, “Let’s gamble!” as he threw his chips into the middle. He turned over Ace-King. Everyone at the table began to ooh and ahh, knowing he was dominated. But I knew he had outs. I didn’t necessarily want him to call. I would have been extremely happy just taking it down right there. But even if I’d known he had Ace-King to my Kings I knew that I should be getting his money there. It was the right thing to do. With that being said, the dealer lays the flop down and -- wouldn’t ya know it -- an ACE on the flop! Why is it that whenever you hold Kings there’s always an Ace rearing its ugly head? It’s like a weird, unwritten law in the universe of poker. It always seems to happen. Needless to say, I didn’t find that case King, and lost over half my stack.

So I went on dinner break to cool off. I met up with a friend to eat, and we ended up drinking wine, which I never do. Not only am I not a wine person, I never drink when I’m playing poker. But in this case I figured it might help calm me down. Lucky for me, I went on tilt right at break time. So when I came back from dinner I felt better and ready to go. I had built up my chips once, I could do it again. But fate had other plans for me that evening. Over the next couple of hours I had an over pair that lost to an under pair. I called a guy’s bluff with Ace high because I just knew he was weak and was right. He had Jack-5 -- no pair, no draw to the flop on the board. But I’ll be damned if that 5 didn’t hit on the river, making me double him up. No reward for my good call. The player making that bluff was a pro whom I’d been playing with all day. He came up to me shortly after that and told me what great poker I had been playing. I really did feel on my game, or “in the zone.” I was doing everything right, but after that Ace-King fiasco, it seemed that I was going to get sucked out on for the rest of the night, no matter what I did. I basically ended up missing the money by a few spots. Even in my last hand I had something like Ace-rag against 4-6 and a 4 hit. Ugh. Why am I playing this game again?

I’m going to jump to the Main Event now. The overview of everything in between sounds very similar to my Pot Limit event – at least the beats do. I even had a reporter friend of mine stop me in the hallway one day and say that if all of the updates on me were true, I had been taking a lot of horrible beats. He said this right as I was leaving a Saturday 1K event where my full house lost to a bigger full house before first break even hit. So yes -- I feel he was right. I am so tired of the bad beats. Aren’t these things supposed to even out at some point?

Ok -- the Main Event. I played on Sunday, Day 1C. I was told to show up late because it’s such a slow structure and the blinds were so low. So I showed up about an hour into it. My table seemed to be all guys that were a little too excited to be playing in the World Series of Poker. You know the type. So this table was perfect, exactly what I wanted. It was the type of table I could dominate. There was no Ivey. There were no big internet pros. No crazy mathematical geniuses. It was great.

One of the first hands I played, I was on the button. I thought it was folded to me so I made a button raise with King-2 of diamonds. One of the blinds called, and oops, there was one other guy who had limped in early position, but was covering his cards a bit. Oh well, I missed him. The flop comes Ace of diamonds, 10 of hearts, and Jack of diamonds. Pretty good flop for my mediocre hand I’d say. They both check so I fire out ¾ of the pot. The blind folds and the other guy calls. The turn brings gold -- the 4 of diamonds. Hmm, how do I play this nut flush glowing in my hand? The guy checks, so I think about it and decide to check. The river comes another 10. The guy bets out, so I raise (which the minute I did it knew I should just be calling since the board had paired), and the guy calls. I show my nut flush. What does he show??? Pocket 4s! Ok -- congratulations on hitting your full house, but can we go back for just a moment? I bet a good sized bet on the flop. This guy calls a good sized bet with 3 huge over cards, a straight draw and a flush draw on the board! Kids -- don’t EVER do this at home!!! And it wouldn’t have mattered if I had bet the turn or not -- that’s where he hit, so he wasn’t going anywhere. Wow.

Well, these are definitely the kinds of people I want to be playing with…the kind that make bad play after bad play. In the long run they will lose. But did he have to get lucky enough to hit a 2-outter during my main event? Not a great start to my day. But I think that pretty much set the precedent for me. I had people sucking out at my table all day long. These people chased everything! What’s worse is that they kept getting rewarded for making bad calls, so they kept doing it. There was a guy sitting next to me that whenever he had a monster hand he would check-call. Everytime. And all day long I watched people fall into his trap. How could they not see what he was doing? I only recall hitting a flop hard one time with 7-10 where I was able to beat pocket Kings and get paid off. Other than that, I lost set over set-pair over pair-straight over flush. But then…I get Kings. Oh boy. Kings! Let’s see if I can manage to mess this up. I raise and get 3 callers. The boards comes Queen-Jack-10, rainbow. Check-check-I bet. The next guy calls, so the two checkers fold. The turn comes a blank. I push all-in. My chip stack isn’t huge at this point, but this isn’t an over bet. I’ve obviously had trouble getting anything started all day. The guy insta-calls. Ugh! Does he have Ace-King and neglected to re-raise me preflop? No. He turns over Queen-Jack offsuit! What? I raised pre-flop and you call with Queen-Jack offsuit with people already in the pot behind you yet to act? Maybe it’s just me, but I hate Queen-Jack. Why? If a Queen flops, are you happy? Are you sure nobody has Ace-Queen, King-Queen or even pocket Queens? I was the original pre-flop raiser. I could easily have any of these hands. I just had to laugh. The whole day went so incredibly bad for me, that was all I could do. The river brought a rag so I gathered my things and left.

The only thing that even remotely helped my confidence was that I played in one of the non-bracelet 1K events following the main event and placed 3rd. I won’t say it helped a lot -- why couldn’t that have been a bracelet event -- but it did help.

Oh well. Off to the next tournament, the next casino, the next country. I’m actually on a plane heading to Melbourne, Australia as I write this, to play in the Crowne Casino Victorian Poker Championships. I feel grounded and happy and ready to play some poker. So bring it on Australia -- I’m ready have a great time, enjoy one of my favorite countries and play some amazing poker! Shuffle up and deal!!!