Starting today, team Blackmoonpoker member Miska Lahti will be leading a blog and a video diary from WSOP Main Event 2010. Feel free to communicate with him on the forums. Miska will be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Today Miska is busy playing in day 1D of the Main Event, so he asked us to make a first blog post for him.

Hello everyone!

I am Miska Lahti, a new Blackmoonpoker team member.

First a little bit about me:

I am a 22-year old university student from Vaasa, Finland. My hobbies include soccer, golf and floorball and in general I like to play almost any kind of games that include a ball.
I study economics at the University of Vaasa, however currently I’m taking a year off from studying in order to play poker while games are still soft. You can find out more about me from the interview I did with Blackmoonpoker.

I’ve been playing poker “professionally“ for two years now. When I say professionally, I don’t mean that I am a pro just that my income comes solely from poker. I mainly play midstakes plo(6max) and Texas holdem heads up in the Internet. I also spend quite a bit of time on different poker forums.

As a part of my deal with blackmoonpoker I will keep a blog here, and also I will write hand analyses etc. to the forum. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me, I will answer as soon as I can, and with my best knowledge. (tää loppu vois olla “according to my best ability.”)

Bmp has been good to me and currently they are sponsoring me to the WSOP 2010 Main Event. My deal with them includes 2500€ for travelling expenses and the buy-in for the tournament.

I am writing this in my hotel room at the fabulous Flamingo hotel/casino in Las Vegas. My hotel room is pretty awesome, it is on the top floor of Flamingo (28th floor) and my room is almost 60 square meters and my bed is 3m x 3m :D pretty nice, huh.



I will start my tournament on day 1d (8.7.2010) and hopefully I go deep.

So far I have been in Vegas for a day and I have mostly been playing cash games, the value in these games is just SICK! There are 3-5 old guys in every table limping and check calling with nuts and under pairs and who knows what. Hopefully I can make something like 10-15k just by playing the cash games here. Also I will probably go to the Grand Canyon and other sites, maybe tomorrow.

One funny hand comes to mind from the 2-5 no limit game I was in yesterday. I was playing something like 90% of the hands since no one 3-bets here. Not even with aces. So I was overly aggressive the whole time since they let me take almost all the flops away if they don’t hit top pair or better.

To the actual hand then:

I was in cut-off with 83s and two old geezers limp from utg and mp. So I made my usual raise since those two were limp folding and limp calling all the time and their hand ranges are awfully wide. On BB there is young Asian guy who calls also. Flop comes 238 rainbow and I flop top two. They all check and I bet little over half the pot and the Asian guy raises and one of the old men calls too. Ok here I was thinking that the Asian guy probably has an overpair and the Abraham on utg could have almost any 2 since I don’t think that the Asian guy would fold overpair against me and there isn’t too much value slowplaying so I just raise more. Asian guy thinks a long time and calls and Abraham calls too. Turn is a J which is pretty much a blank. They both check. I move all-in and Asian guy snap calls me and then Abraham starts huffing and stands up explains something like “ I don’t like this that every time raise raise raise it’s not fun” and open folds AQ ? lol The Asian guy opens AK and is drawing dead. The river is 8 and I take down pretty nice pot. But this is just one example of how the games are around here.

After that I lost a huge pot with nutfull against quads (sick cooler) and then got up and went to have lunch and play Chinese poker with a friend of mine who is also in Vegas now.

Anyway I will head to the pool area to have some mojitos and then go play some cash games again. I hope that one day every one of you can enjoy the Las Vegas experience; you just have to see it with your own eyes. My next post will have more photos and hopefully the first video diary as well. Stay tuned and wish me luck during my first day at the WSOP! :)

Here's a couple of new photos of MIska playing at the WSOP Main Event tables.

Back From Vegas

Got back to Finland this morning. Last days in Vegas went by in a hurry and here's what happened.

Since it was my last weekend in Vegas, I decided to go "all-in" with everything. First since my cash budget were a bit low I decided to go play 5/5 to Rio and I made 1200usd in 3hours i played. While playing I drank some cocktails and couple bud lights. After getting a bit too drunk to play 5/5 i went to hard rock to play 1/2 with Jason whom is a regular there, we played red/black over shots again until it was 11pm and then we went to hard rock hotels nightclub Vanity, which is pretty awesome. We spend the night there and after that just played some craps and ultimate Hold'em which is funny game. People around here play it really bad too. Its like Hold'em but against dealer. and there's some weird bonus systems.

Saturday i got up about noon and since I wasn't feeling too good I went to the pool to relax. I met a funny guy named Joe from Michigan. He was a truck driver who had turned pro after winning 200k last year on the internet. He plays mostly tournaments but I managed to convince him to play Chinese poker against me. Of course he got beginners luck and o lost like 45 points to him in a half hour.. oh well. After that I went to eat in a Brazilian steakhouse on the miracle mile, (its a large shopping street in the middle of the strip). After eating I had a little nap and after that I went to play 1/2 just for fun. I managed to lose like 700 in that game after losing one flip with AKs against QQ and then my KK got cracked with 89 when the guy hit a straight on turn in a 3-bet pot. Cant win always.

Then I got back to my room and ordered salmon from the room service and watched movies and stand-up from the TV. Then it was time to go to airport and I just checked out and got myself a cab to the airport and flew home.

All an all the trip was excellent. Everything was organised so well and then except the disappointing AA vs KK in the tournament the games mostly went well. I had a blast, Parties, good food, exceptional buffets, friends, Chinese poker. The trip was awesome. I recommend Vegas to every poker player. I'm just waiting for the next years WSOP. I will be there again then.

Now that I got back home i will start producing stuff to the BMP forum. Including Strategy articles/videos and just answering to your hand analyses questions and stuff. I will also play under my nick Blackmoon1 on Prima. ( You'll probably see me playing mostly 1/2 2/4 Omaha, but every now and then I play Heads up Texas too)

See you around in the tables and Good luck. :D