Ice Diamond Poker

For those of you that are interested, Andy Fields is back in Las Vegas

Ice Diamond decided to enter two relatively small tournaments today and got sucked out of the first pretty quickly.

However, not disheartened, Ice went to Caesars Palace and entered their main bounty tournament of the day. The starting chips were $5,000 and there were 29 entrants.

It wasn’t long before he was in a commanding position as chip leader and had four times the chip average. By the first break however, Ice had only taken one scalp for a $50 bonus.

Three hours into the tournament and Ice made the final table. Now he was slightly below the chip average and had to make some moves.

Everything worked out and Ice once again found himself chip leader with over $150,000 in chips. Ice came heads-up with a Chinese gentleman who was rather aggressive. Ice waited patiently until he looked down at pocket kings. This was the time to make the move.

Flop K, Q, Q

Ice checks and Chinese man goes $5,000. Ice thinks for some time and flat calls.

Turn 5

Ice checks again and Chinese man makes a big raise. Ice pauses and calls again.

River 2

Ice checks and Chinese man goes all in. He shows his A, Q and ges to collect the chips.

GOTCHA!

I would also like to extend a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to my friend and work colleague Darren Cornwell who also won his first tournament today. You can view more about this trip on his website at http://www.irregularactivity.co.uk

(I won’t tell you how much as you may get jealous and I am sorry there are no pictures as I do not have my card reader here).

Some more Torquay news for you.

Here is a direct report from our lovable card-room manager - Nick.

‘Since Sept2007, casino employees have been allowed to frequent other casino’s in the UK.

I’ve been limited to the odd forray in to plymouth with fair success, so it was time to have a shot at a uk festival that also coincided with some time off.

Broadway Festival in Birmingham. Sunday 20th July. £100 Freeze-out, 127 runners.
£5000 to winner, £2500 to 2nd. etc

Got in the zone early slow playing quads into someone’s full-house, they thought they were trapping me..

The key seemed to be hitting a powerful hand and getting paid. LNP pro Peter Evans was doing the same, held an early monster stack,
and did so all the way to the final table.

Down to bubble, “anything for 11th?” where have i heard that before? No said Peter evans.

I reached FT with 19k, ave chips 44k, blinds were 800/1600. So i felt ok, though mustn’t get too short. I got my double up with KK’s v 77’s, then polished of the same player with JJ’s v AKx, 50/50 have got to get through at this stage.

Couple of players were duly crushed by Peter Evans monster stack. Down to four, made a brave play against a similar stack as mine, he folded his pocket 10’s, 3 hearts on flop, one an ace, to my re-raise all in..(only Kh working for me).

Finished him off with AKx. Then soon after took out the next player with quad 6’s…

Heads up with Peter Evans! Now he’s talking a deal..quick chip count 240/220 in his favour.
I’ll take £4k and trophy suggests Peter Evans…hmmm let me think..politely decline.

Half a dozen hands a few small exchanges, he quickly realised it’s not gonna be easy.

Final: Blinds 5k/10k, Evans 20k ahead in chips, raises to 50k on button, I look down A3x, heads up good image, there’s only 1 move, I’m all-in. ” oh well, gotta gamble some time,
call” He flips over J10x!

This is it, he’s got me covered by 20k, ONE TIME!… xxxxJ aaagh! £2500 card.

I didn’t wreck the joint, just shook his hand and wished him well.’

Last night Ice made a basic error. It is true folks, after all the preparation and work I put into this years campaign, I f@@Ked up BIG STYLE!

Feel free to call me a prat, but I am devastated. I really have let myself down and, worse than that, I have let all my supporters down - I am sorry!

Here is what happened.

There was only two minutes to go before the last break of the day, and mentally I was through to day 3.

Was sitting pretty as you know from previous posts and was the 2nd chip leader on my table with about $90,000. Had been playing solidly all week and taken out several professionals. In a way I was feeling invincible (1st mistake).

Then I was shaken because I was moved to another table where there were two guys who were both highly stacked (They both had $400-500,000). I should have taken my time and only played premium cards until I had a read on the players.

The first two hands I watched the chip leader take out two player on the table. The first hand he had pocket Aces. The next player he took out with pocket kings - both times stealing my small and big blind.

The next hand I was on the button and everyone folded round to me. I had K, Q, suited.

I raised, he re-raised.

I thought to myself, I have live cards and I refuse to give them to a bullying chip leader. The next thing I knew was that I had shoved all in - WITHOUT EVEN THINKING!

He immediately called and showed pocket aces. Three hands in a row he had pocket A,As, K,Ks, then A,As against me.

I really thought I was going to do really well and I have let myself down with just one foolish bit of play. Please bear in mind though, that I had been playing for 12 hours solid.

My position in the main event was 999 out of a field of 6,500 so I did beat 5,500 and I understand that all of the professionals are out.

Any comments are welcome - even ones saying I am a twat. Please be honest with your opinions but don’t beat me up too bad as I am gutted.

But, who needs $9,500,000 when I am blessed to have such a great life?

Thanks again for all your support guys & gals.

I should be in Torquay next Friday and will need a hug!

Just recieved a txt from Ice - turned out he lost a flush draw and dropped his stack down to $88,400, but has since added a few more chips to the pile - not sitting with an impressive $110,000 in chips. The average chip stack at the moment is $63,745 and there are less than 2000 people still in in (not just today but the entire tournament) - go Ice!

Turns out everything is going along great!

Ice has tripled his chip stack within the 1st and 2nd intervals at the WSOP today! This is how the latest hand played out - Ice is in under the gun and dealt a pair of Bullets, so he puts in a tiny raise to see what’s out there, his opponent calls the raise and the flop comes a rather uninspiring 10 / 7 / 4, Ice has to be in front so pushes in a $2000 raise, his opponent re-raises $12,000 and Ice insta-pushes All In - what’s the other guy got…. Kings!!!! Rag, Rag, WIN!

Thank you very much, now Ice is sitting with a very pretty $100,000 in chips! To put that into perspective Phil Helmuth is currently sitting with $104,000 in chips.

We haven’t heard from Ice in a while so we’re hoping everything is A-OK. At the 2nd interval, the blinds were up to 300 / 600 with a $75 Ante. As of writing only 2181 players remain in the World Series. More to follow shortly….

Additionally - Ice now has a WSOP profile page - just give it a click - Ice Diamond.

News straight from the WSOP - Ice just won a Killer hand. He started he day off with $31,000 and has now got $51,000! Ice had the guy in his sights after just watching him double up his stack and correctly guessing that he would not want to part with his new found chips so soon.

Ice is dealt: J Hearts / Q Clubs and the flop comes, A / 10 / 4 all hearts, his oponent raises up the pot by $9000, and Ice instantly pushes All In - what a move, the guy spends the next 10 minutes trying to figure out if his beat and eventually folds his hand! Ice had the Straight draw and the flush draw but in all fairness was probably beat - well read!

It really takes some balls to put your tournament on the line based on your read of a player, one wrong read and your outa there! Good play Ice.

So here’s the latest update live from the Rio - There are 2379 players left in the World Series. The top 666 players get paid (don’t like that number) with 666th place getting $21,230 and 1st place getting paid $9,119,338 but we won’t know that outcome for a while as the final table won’t be happening until November!

In less than 10 minutes Ice will be continuing his campaign - good luck.

Ice will be resuming his campaign to win the World Series at noon on Wednesday (8pm UK time).

For those of you in Las Vegas his table number is: Amazon Room, Orange section, Table 25, Seat 8

Today, Ice is relaxing by the pool and getting an early night after a complete blow-out with Darren last night.

If you want to see how the tournament panned out yesterday please see my reply to Fred Cummings

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Darren for being a great friend, good company and for updating this site whilst I am playing live. More info on this trip may be found at Darren’s website.

Some of you may know that I do a little magic.

We thought it would be a laugh therefore, to do an on the spot trick for some sexy chicks out in Vegas.

This is what happened…

Today we had fun before I am boring preparing for the World Series on Saturday.

First of all I went on a slot machine waiting for Darren to come down for breakfast and won $1,500 on the wheel of Fortune with only $8.

Then we entered a tiny oker tournament which is described as a ‘crap shoot’ as the blinds go up every 15 minutes. Darren and I were both out quite quickly.

Then he gave me a surprise. He said, ‘Come with me as we’re going to fire some machine guns’. We went to the Las Vegas gun club and you can see what happened on the video.

Later, I did some shopping and we went up to the top of the Stratosphere tower. - Wow what a view!

Not content with getting through to the 2nd day of the WSOP, Ice has just come 1st in a satellite tournament to win his entry into the $1000 buy-in at the Bellagio (7.15pm Tonight) with a chance to pick up $70,000. Check out the poker room if you want to find him and we wish him the best of luck - everything seems to be going the Diamond way.

We know you’ve all been having problems with your cell phones, so come and check us out.

After a galent fight and a tremendous effort from Dave ‘The Dish’ Milby I am afraid to report that his campaign has ended in tears.

Dave is an exceptionally good poker player which everyone in Torquay already knows. He has proved this time and time again, not by winning just local competitions but by winning seats in both the WSOP and the WSOPE (World Series of Poker European event).

Dave fought well in the early stages and got above the chip average but then tried to bluff a guy off with a straight flush draw. Dave unfortunately missed the flush and/or the straight and the guys cards held up.

Dave was reduced to $7,000 in chips.

After encouragement from Ice Diamond Dave went in after the break with a real positive attitude. He realised he would have to make a move sooner rather than later and pushed all in with A, J.

He came up against a guy with a pair of 9s which managed to hold up.

I think Ice speaks on behalf of everyone when he says, ‘Well done for qualifying and putting up a good fight. Now just enjoy the Vegas experience and look forward to the WSOPE’.

Bad luck mate!

Well done to Mike Cummings yet again for winning the weekly poker tournament.

Mike won heads up against Pete Griffiths and took home a stupendous £1,000 for his efforts.

Mike thinks he is progressing at an alarming rate and wants to give the World Series a shot next year.

Mike, we all agree you are a GREAT player, but the reason you won this week is because Dave, Al, Luke, Scottie and Ice aren’t there. If we were you know you would have been knocked out before the re-buy period ended. Only joking!

Well done again and thank you for keeping us informed as to what is happening in the UK Mike.

Thought of having a where’s Wally competition as I haven’t seen Dave for a week.

It turns out we are all having problems with communications over here.

Anyway, so far after 4 hours of poker, Dave is standing at $21,500 chips. He has a loony German on his table who keeps raising out of control. Dave is just waiting for the opportunity to catch him.

Dave is frustrated at the moment and I have advised him just to be patient and wait for the right opportunity. Remember, we all start with $20,000 in chips and the blinds are 2 hour levels, so there is plenty of time.

The most any player has on Dave’s table is $29k.

We are looking forward to having a few beers later. Enjoy the pics below…

This is just a short note to say a BIG thank you to all the Torquay guys and gals that are being so supportive and reading my silly little blog.

I also must apologise again to Tracy Brown for thinking she was this hot chick I met in the Paris hotel and asked me to sign an autograph.

It was really good to talk to you, especially whilst you are all playing poker. Hopefully one of my supporters will walk away with a MASSIVE first prize of £1,000. Who needs $8,000,000…..?

Any comments are welcome; just read the post you want to comment on and click where it says ‘post comment’. I promise to try to approve your comment any time either me or my friend (butler) get near a computer.

Thanks again, and watch this space for a report on Dave Milby’s progress today!

Regards, Ice

Yes, you read that right - Ice Diamond is through to the 2nd day of the tournament, finishing the day off with a fantastic $30,900 chip stack.

The chip average is about $35,000 so nothing to sweat about just yet.

Ice finished the day by taking out the Dutch Champion and Legend of poker Marcel Luske!

It’s been a long, tough, hot day out here in the Nevada desert. 12 hours of Poker playing against the elite, the cream of the crop poker players. A well earned day off tomorrow and a night to celebrate tonight.

We’ll be updating the WSOP coverage during Dave’s attempt and recovering Ice and his performance on Wednesday from 12pm Vegas time onward!

WOW - things are really starting to heat up down at the Rio. 1st up Ice drops 10,600 chips with his Ace / King. The flop comes Ace / Something / Something and he is raised, calls the bet thinking the only thing that could beat him would be Ace / Ace and that’s exactly what the opponent had - that’s poker ladies and gents.

Fast forward 15 Minutes and we get a killer hand. The chip leader (sitting on about 100,000 chips) sees the flop King / Seven / Four and checks his bet, Ice raises it up, and the chip leader re-raises, Ice goes All-In and the opponent matches the bet. He’s only got pocket 4’s, Ice is way out in front with pocket 7’s and easily rakes the pot - putting him up to a respectable 38,500, way above the chip average, this could be going in to day 2. More to follow….

So here’s the last 4 hours in Brief - Ice upped his chips in the 3rd session to a commendable 25,000 bang on the chip average, but took a pretty bad beat not long after knocking his stack down to 15,500. Chip and chair guys, this is poker and things can change in the blink of a eye.

Looking at an Ace / Three in his hand with pot value on the table, his opponent ‘the Crazy Wig Chinese Guy’ (we don’t have a picture) goes all in. With an Ace / Three / Rag showing on the flop - Ice calls the bet for his opponents entire chip stack - the catch, two of the flop cards are diamonds - could this guy be on a flush draw? Thankfully, no more diamonds reared their heads and Ice now sits with a pretty 27,500 chips at the forth interval - looking very good heading into the 5h and final day one session.

Just another 2 hours until the end of day 1, more to follow….

Fun Fact - 1900 people started today out of the total 8000 give or take, 600 people have already been knocked out in todays session!

Just heard direct from the table, Ice has taken a bit of a hit - he’s down to 14,250. A short stacked player pushes all in pre-flop for 6000 with pocket 8’s, Ice has pocket Aces so calls - the flop comes - nothing on the board, Ice is the clear favourite, the turn card comes….. 8. Down 6000. But like they say - it’s chip and chair, just one double up puts Ice near the chip leader!!

Ice has been playing a solid game for the last four hours, and the 6 table he is on is full of crazies - so we doubt it will be long until his dishes a few of them out - more to follow soon…….