I have positive thoughts on the 2008 WCOOP. I was never much of a mixed game player, but at the end of this entire series I have gone from a complete newbie to a knowledgable player in all mixed games to the point of being able to hold my own in all of the WCOOP fields.
The WCOOP, as Tom McEvoy pointed out earlier in PokerStars Blog article, has every type of poker tournament that you could dream of entering.
My results ended in four cashes, one of which including a win for $125,000.00 inthe $25,000.00 Heads-Up Overflow Tournament. I am very pleased with my success, and the opportunity that was brought my way.
Everyone coming fresh off of the 2008 WCOOP who has had a chance to satellite into the EPT-London Main Event should expect a very big field this year, along with an exciting time in the rainy heart of London.
If you sit at my table, you better run, because I'm going to BULLDOZE YOU ALL!!!!
There’s a lot of stuff going on in the Amazon Room, between the remaining tables. The most notable is a player wandering around, getting well known around the room as the player who went on break with chips and came back to find his table broken and his chips gone. He literally can’t find his chips anymore, causing him obvious stress, and some mild amusement to the players.
On a table in the green zone a player is out of his chair, whooping and celebrating a survival hand. Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan looks over at the guy with a knowing smile. It’s easy for him to remember a time not so long ago.
This time last year it was Hevad’s parade - a high profile contender for poker’s biggest prize. He ran his incredible performance into sixth place and $956,243; a vocally charged whirlwind that had the TV cameras swooning and several cans of nicely packaged and memorable footage for the highlight reels.
Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan
Twelve months later and midway through the first level of the day Hevad Khan was at 380K. This is a pretty sizeable stack for most but he didn’t seem prepared to wait and had soon spun it up to nearly 500K.
It seems one good run is not enough for the Poughkeepsie man. Call it his already natural playing style, temperament or just the fact that his eyebrows add a certain menace to his face, Hevad has turned it up a gear, is controlling his table, and has plans to make it two in a row. As he said himself after my colleague Maria Mayrinck asked him if he intended to do it all again... “Yeah, just watch.”
I’ve seen it before but Hevad goes into a kind of trance when busy in a hand, playing in slow motion period like an old 78 speed LP. His World Series priors mean the cameras are never far away. He managed to ignore the foot long microphone hanging above his head and mucked his hand. He had a set but his opponent was betting big, a factor that took Hevad five minutes of questions before letting the matter go.
Tiffany Michelle is also at this table, another cause for the cameras to stop by. With the mike hanging over her head this time like a scythe she asked Hevad if he had any advice, since he’d been this far before.
“Sit out...” he replied, pausing for effect before letting on that he was kidding.
Hevad’s table presence is unmistakable. He’s a big man; big hands, big arms, and those eyebrows. He’s also a friendly guy, but when he plays a hand, and you’re up against that slow motion trance, you can almost predict what carnage will come. It’s like the slow movements are to save as much energy as possible. He doesn’t waste it at all.
A raise and a call. Both the raiser and Hevad checked the nine high flop to see a jack on the turn. A 30K raise to Hevad who asked for a count just to be sure. He rested his hands on the table and waited. When he was ready he slowly picked up some of the green 25K’s and re-raised, 80K total. His opponent, who now had to stop his massage, counted his stack. He has only yellow chips but calls with Hevad watching him. The river card is a six. It’s checked to Hevad who bets big once more, too big to keep up with, and good for another big pot.
His course is true, his actions strong. Hevad Khan is looking for a repeat, up to 600K.
***
The PokerStars video blog team caught up with a few players this morning, including PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott, who talked about her chances after a few set backs late last night...
Hevad Khan just raised seven out of ten pots. I’d been told this was the way he plays. Really, I stood and watched them.
For many the Team PokerStars Pro is famous for two things. First, the video clip he sent to PokerStars showing himself playing 28 sit and goes at the same time, proving the speculation that he was in fact a bot, to be undeniably wrong.
Second thing on the list of most memorable Hevad moments is his performance at the World Series last year, where the main event saw a talented and spirited Hevad charge his way to a sixth place finish, good for $956,243 and a place in the general poker consciousness.
The contrast between then and now couldn’t be more different. By his own admission Hevad is a calmer player these days, and at table Blue 34 sits as the quiet one at the table, letting his chips do the talking if you like. Whether he’s suffering from a long day or a long Series is unclear. I suspect it’s neither of those, just that he doesn’t need to play in any other way. Instead his movements are slow and considered - at least during a pot. When he wins he can stack chips on warp speed.
Just recently this has been happening a lot.
First a raise from Hevad, re-raised by Steve Weinstein in the nine seat, who bumps it up to 14,500. Hevad moves in slow motion, like he’s playing out the pinnacle action sequence of a low budget movie. He picks off some chips, actually all of his chips, and move them in the middle.
Hevad Khan
That taught them. Another pot to Hevad.
Next hand, Hevad raising again. Nothing fancy, just a straight forward 2,500. No takers, another pot for Hevad.
He raises the next hand, the same process, the same result – another pot to Hevad.
You get the picture... I’d guess it’s still going on as I write this. Quieter than last year but no less effective; Hevad was on 36K. Now that figure is more like 60K.
Hevad Khan has previous form when it comes to popular video clips on the internet. When he was just a wee slip of an online avatar, known simply as RaiNKhan, he proved to the PokerStars moderators that he was not a pokerbot by filming himself playing 26 sit n goes simultaneously on the site in a clip that soon made its way around cyberspace on the poker forums and discussion boards. Just one posting of the video on YouTube has been viewed more than 80,000 times, and it also appears on plenty of other video platforms.
When he made it to the World Series main event final table last year, playing in the colours of a PokerStars Supernova, he earned himself a good deal of television time through his animated antics around the table, footage that has since been cut and spliced together, then set to music, so that YouTube now recognises the search term "Hevad Khan dance".
This week, RaiNKhan: TV star is back as he became the subject of the PokerStars.tv version of MTV's Cribs. He invited the video blog team to his Las Vegas house where they watched him play online, work out, and saw his private chef prepare dinner for the champion. We posted the first instalment of what will be a three-part documentary on the all-new PokerStars.tv site last night and it had already been viewed 20,000 times. Khan is quite an attraction in the online video community.
"You like it? You think I should do it again?" Khan asked when I caught up with him around the tables moments ago. Sure, if it's not too intrusive, I told him. "No, I love it," he said.
Celebrity is a major part of poker these days, but it's still far more important what happens on the tables than what happens on ESPN or YouTube. And despite what you might think, Khan knows that better than anyone, which is why he's got that chef, why he's going to the gym, and why he's remaining wholly focused on his game today in the Brasilia Room.
It took me about 15 minutes just to grab a word as he was involved in three pots back-to-back, all of which he won. His table image these days is one of intense concentration and measured aggression, and he's the very epitome of perfect etiquette. He still enters a lot of pots, usually in position and usually with a raise. That's the way to do it. Worthy of TV star.
***
So, without further fanfare, here's the second part of the RaiNKhan PokerStars.tv Cribs documentary. One more part will follow.
Remember, all previous video blogs can be found on PokerStars.tv, where you can also find details of a special freeroll tournament to celebrate the launch of the site.
It's a fair assumption that the life of anyone reading this blog has been changed in one way or another by online poker. Not necessarily dramatically, not even especially perceptibly; maybe your style in your regular home game has become slightly more aggressive, or you have a new baseball cap, something like that.
At the other end of the spectrum, someone like Hevad Khan's life has been turned on its head. It's been well documented by now how the 27-year-old from Poughkeepsie, New York, turned to online poker from Starcraft after talking to friends at college. He deposited some money that he earned for graduating school into PokerStars and before long he had to get a friend to film RaiNKhan, as he is known online, playing 26 sit n goes simultaneously to prove to the ever-watchful support department that he wasn't a pokerbot. Once the watchdogs were convinced, he used the PokerStars route to earn his place at the 2007 World Series main event, where he came sixth, for just shy of a million life-changing bucks.
Shortly thereafter, RaiNKhan became a member of Team PokerStars Pro and began travelling the world as ambassador for the site, racking up a succession of other major tournament results, including another $100,000 for a win in a warm-up event at the Foxwoods Poker Classic. But that doesn't mean he forgot his roots. He always travels, be it to Monte Carlo, the Bahamas, or Austria with lap-top in hand, and he still plays pretty much every day online.
Which, sometimes, is just as well.
"How's your series been?" I asked him a few minutes ago, when we caught up as he sat in today's $1,500 event. "Absolutely brutal," was the brisk and honest reply. He explained how he'd played every single one of the no limit events in this year's series but is yet to cash. "But I'm killing it online," he went on. He is too. In various sit n goes, MTTs and major Sunday events in recent weeks, he's cleared about $120,000 in winnings. Enough for a few more buy-ins.
And when you play as many tournaments as RaiNKhan, you know that form is a temporary thing, while class is permanent. The New Yorker also knows the importance of confidence.
"Right," he said. "I'm tough. I don't give up. I'm going to start winning now."
At the World Series, there isn't such a thing as merely getting one's feet wet. If you dip in a toe, there's a good chance you're going knee deep without much more effort. Now donning our hip-waders, we're navigating the Rio and finding a number of people who have been up to their eyeballs in poker for the past three weeks. Today, many of them have chosen to do battle in the wildest of all waters: the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Rebuy event.
The rebuy period has just ended and players are off to take a break from the all-in-blind festival. As the players streamed toward the exit, I found Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan sitting at his table. I asked, for lack of a better question at the time, how his Series had been going while I had been gone.
"Awful," he said, dropping his head to the table.
I already knew the answer. Khan has had an unmemorable World Series. Or, better stated, he's had a World Series that has not been worth remembering. I should never have brought it up, especially after Khan had just taken one of the "that's poker" beats at the end of the level. If there's one thing you shouldn't do, it's remind a guy things haven't been going so well. I thought for a moment that I had just ended our breaktime interview before it started.
Less than one year ago, Khan was on top of the world, earning nearly a million bucks at the final table of the 2007 Main Event. Few things are going to compare to that, no matter how well his Series has been going. I kicked myself and decided to let Khan head off for his break.
Then Khan's head poped up with his trademark, beaming smile.
"Despite being 0-17, I feel great," he said. "I had a great weekend."
That is no lie. Khan finished second in the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up. What's more, one of his horses did exceptionally well this weekend, too. That is, Khan made more money this weekend than most people make all year. Thus, the big smile.
More than that, though, Khan's been working on his game and focusing on its finer points. He spent some time with a friend in Seoul, Korea and has come here with his mind set on playing his best game, regardless of the results.
"I've been working on not being nervous at the table," he said. A more clever interviewer might have suggested less Red Bull. Instead, I merely wondered how Khan, one of the more pronounced presences at any tables could ever be nervous.
"Most of the time," Khan said, "I think everybody else is more scared at the table."
Scared, nervous, or just otherwise wrapped up in the everyday struggle that is the World Series, Khan seems like he is a good place, regardless. He has just a couple of minutes until he has to shift gears and start playing non-rebuy poker. And, I don't care who you are, after the rebuy period brawl, the transition to real poker is no easy task. For more with Khan, see the video blog below.
Within the next hour, Joe Hachem will return to the room and fight for a seat at the $1,500 PLO Hi-Lo final table. Then, in a little more than two hours we'll see the elite of the poker world sit down for the $50,000 HORSE event.
by Hevad Khan
