My 2009 BCPC (British Columbia Poker Championship) Experience
Me and a few buddies arrived in BC at the River Rock a few days before the 1k event. We all planned on playing the 1k event and main event ($2700) buy in. I had a pretty good feeling that one of us would make it
really deep in one of the tournaments. We started off playing a super satellite into the main event and about half of us that played got a seat into the main event. I spent $320 to get my main event seat.
The $1k event turned out to be a disappointment. Not a single buddy of mine from Toronto ended up cashing. I thought that the structure and tournament was great.
The cash games that went on during the BCPC were great. I stuck to playing $5/5 nl because the buy-in was $1500 max. This gave a major edge to the more experienced player. The River Rock ran a few $5/10 nl games and the games played much bigger. The max buy-in was $10k. They also spread a $10/$25 game. I really liked the supervisors and floor at the River Rock. They did a fantastic job at running the tournaments and poker room during the BCPC. Some of the dealers were a little weak as they were temps. However, I think that is standard with running a big tournament. For what it is worth the regular dealers were pretty good.
On to the main event. The $2700 buy in was filled with poker celebrities. With the likes of Brad Booth, Gavin Smith, Lacey Jones, Greg Mueller, and the girls from the Amazing Race (Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle). Although the competition was much tougher than the 1k event and there was a larger field I still thought that one of us Toronto kids would make a deep run. After all two of the guys I was with from Toronto had final tabled big events in the past. Ivan Mamuzic made a final table at the WPT event in September at the Borgata. His cash was good for $251,955. My buddy John Nixon also cashed for $177,619 in Atlantic City coming second at the Caesars Atlantic City WSOP Circuit Event in 2009. I introduced the two heavy weights in BC as they never met before.
I doubled up early on in the tournament however I got quite short stacked during the 4rth level when I missed an open ended straight flush draw and got drawn out on when all the money got in and a guy hit a gut shot on me. My image was quite maniacal. I was splashing around chips and looking like a loose agro player. However when I got the money in I had the best of it. I lost an all in when I had 13k in chips with pocket tens. Over all I thought I played a great tournament however I shouldn’t have gotten it in with 10’s. The action dictated that I was losing. However I was tilted from a few bad beats. That is a leak I should really fix.
I think about 4 of us were left heading into day two of the main event. It was my birthday weekend so we partied pretty hard after each day of the main event. Ivan was a trooper. He came out with us to the bar after day one and day two. The only one of us to cash was Ivan. He made it all the way to the final table. He ended up finishing 4rth place bagging $110k. Good showing.
Apparently, Sophon Sek, who won the British Columbia Poker Championship for $364,364, was arrested on charges of manslaughter and breaking and entering in the infamous 2007 “Surrey Six” murders, one of the biggest news stories in the Vancouver area over the last two years. Who would have thought? The guy was silent during the whole final table when I was watching.
Overall my experience in BC was great. Will definitely go back.
