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Player Profile
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JohnnyHonda
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(United States)About me
| Presentation | My friends and family mean everything to me. Excited to make the 2006 WSOP this year in the final PokerRoom tourney of the year. Enjoy watching Daniel Negreanu....don't know how he does it. Also got a chance to play with him this year at 2006 WSOP on my last table. He's very cool. Like to play poker with my friends....keep it fun. Started to play golf at the same time as poker but not as much progress.... Enjoy sports but not as young as I used to be....lol. Know a little about Honda and Acuras, especially financing them. Laker fan, dad has a season ticket and I go to a few games a year. USC Trojan, it's been easy to be a Trojan football fan lately.... Enjoy photography, motto is "the best photographer of my children". Enjoy every day and do your best. Understand and appreciate the privilege of having much when so many have so little. WSOP 2006 Blog Went down to Las Vegas on Thursday, July 27th. Had a good time with the family before going.... it might be awhile. Went by my parents house to get my sunglasses.... don't know if I'll wear them or not. Took the "scenic" route through the Antelope Valley... took forever to get to Vegas and I won't go that way in the near future. Didn't get to Vegas until 8pm, cleaned up and went straight to the PokerRoom party at the WineCellar in the Rio. The atmosphere was great with the ships in the air and music blaring through. The party had plenty of food, people and it was evident that everyone was excited with the looming WSOP event. Met a lot of the PokerRoom team, it was fun to meet the people that you play on-line. Got in two pools with the guys....trying to build the commaraderie. Met all of the PokerRoom guys and ladies, made a good friend in Joey, from Australia and went to sleep. Friday, July 28th. Got myself registered and took a look at the zoo in the convention center. Every poker related company was in there and the crowd was electric with excitement. Apparently a few other things go with poker and was on full display. Later, I went to the pool and enjoyed the hot Vegas sun and waited for Adam and Andrew to arrive. Swam a bit and stayed friendly with the folks at the pool. Adam and Drew arrived and we were set to go to Alize, our favorite restaurant on top of the Palms. We had a perfect table, right next to the owner and overlooking the Strip. We had a wonderful dinner and went back to rest. Adam and I played a bit before going to sleep. Day 1B - Saturday, July 29th. Made it through the first day. Started at noon on Saturday, July 29th, finished at 3:30 in the morning and back in the room at 4:00. Pretty long but exciting day. Finished with 34,850 chips, which is pretty good, more than the average stack for the day. We started with roughly 2,500 people and finished with 860. Was the tightest player for first 2.5 hours, stayed right around 10,000 in chips. Won a few pots and worked my way up to $15k but then got aces cracked on the button. Everyone folded to me. I look down and have pocket aces. I raise 3x the blind and hoping for a call. The players to my left are real loose so I have a good chance. The lady to my immediate left is a grandmother from Louisville who won some local tournament. She's loose, has a lot of chips (20,000 plus) and she'll call you until she finds a hand and..... she had been hitting a lot of flushes (I think around 6!). The flop looked dangerous, K J 4. A lot of paint. Check down to me and I bet around $1,000 on a $1,800 chip pot. The big blind calls. A 9 hits the turn and the Big Blinds bets out $1,000 and I call. Then the big blind was feigning weakness, pretending to need one more card, a blank hits the board and then he bets $2,500. I was sure I was beat, but I thought about it a long time and then finally folded. He showed me his straight and the table congratulated me for a good read. Meanwhile, Phil Helmuth got bounced out of the tournament and everyone was derisively cheering for the elimination of poker's bad boy. Doyle Brunson, the godfather of poker, got bounced out, and was cheered leaving the table and the room. The funny thing was that he reentered the room and everyone was cheering again. Reverence for the poker godfather. Men "The Master" Nguyen was at a nearby table wearing pants like a boxer might entering a prize fight. The pants had Men the Master on the side of them. Pretty funny. I saw Annie Duke, John Juanda, and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson all playing Saturday. Also playing were Phil Ivey, Mike Caro, David Williams, Gavin Smith, Howard Lederer,and Allen Cunningham. Changed tables and gain a bunch of chips to $24 thousand on a called AK hand where a king hit the flop. The raiser didn't think I had a king so I won around $8k on the hand. Unfortunately, I lost all of it a little while later with AJ with an ace hitting on the flop and the guy I was playing head-up hit a flush on 4th street and I bet too much........ Later bluffed at a pot and won some of the chips back with a large position bet with AK. The same guy I lost the big pot also had AK but he finally mucked his hand. Last table of the night, blinds are now up to 200/400 and 50 dollar antes. Got pocket kings with a preflop raiser and caller. Thought about value betting but I decided that I didnt really want to see an ace on the flop and a large bet might commit my opponents to a draw. So I went all-in. The originally raiser asked if I had AK.....no information from me. I knew I had him beat but I wasn't sure I wanted him to call since i would still have a 30% chance to lose. Reluctantly both guys folded and I showed the KK. A little while later, I was getting tired of a guy 3 seat to my right stealing blinds... I didn't think he had much. I thought about a large reraise but then I thought he might call and I'm not a big fan of unpaired cards for big pots.... So I went all-in with AQ, figuring I could isolate this smallish stack..... Except the big blind called. Oh, oh. The original raiser finally folded what turned out to be jacks (yikes, much better than I thought) and the big blind caller turned over KK. He had me slightly covered so this was for my tournament life. I had a 30% chance to win the hand... not too good. The flop came with a jack (yikes again!) but no ace. Now my odds were down to about 16% to win. Not good. The turn was..... an ace and I had around $40k in chips! Picked up AQ a little later and just mucked it in early position.....funny how you can go all-in one time and folded another. Just decided my image was a bit loose and I didn't want to contest in early position with AQ. Talking kid on the opposite end of the table says I look mean with my glasses on.... great, I'll keep them on for the rest of the tournament. Picked up queens a little later when the same guy with the jacks raised. I made it $10k to go....put him to a decision for his tournament life and he folded AQ. And then it forever to wrap up the night with administration and I went to sleep! Day 2A - Tuesday, August 1. Started the day at 34,850 chips. Didn’t play much at my first table, the most interesting hand was the one I layed down. Short stack went all in for the blinds and I thought I would call him with AK with decent pot odds. Shortish stack calls and another guy thinks about it a long time before folding. The shortish stack must have something and the guy who folded, I put on AK… so I folded. Good decision, shortish stack had KK and the other guy did have AK too. Saved some chips. 32,000 chips. Moved to another table with…… Phil Ivey! Not only am I on his table, but he’s to my immediate left! I was pretty excited but that quickly turned into nervousness. He only had $20k in chips but he was raising the hands and daring people to play with him heads-up. The big stack at the other end had some success with him but I decided not to tangle with him unless I had a good hand. I never got one and I folded my sb to him. I should have played the blind just for conversation sake but my poker sensibility told me I was in a losing battle out of position with the world’s best poker player. He was eating sashimi and other healthy food and there were cameras all around him. I asked him for some chips and that was about the extent of our conversation. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell him that I’m in awe of him should we have to play a hand together…… I see the grandmother I played with on the first day bust out… she was so animated, I’m sure she’ll be on TV. I moved tables again (thank God!) and played KJ suited in the small blind. A king flopped and I bet out $2k to win the pot (too much) and was re-raised all-in by a very aggressive player (who eventually got knocked out). I folded. Later, held AJ on a dangerous AK10 flop and won a nice pot to bring me up to $40.8k. Then I had a great run. AQ with a queen flop, AQ chopped with a small stack all-in (he also held AQ). Then a hand I could have played differently… Tight player raised in early position, called with Jacks (2.5k), flop came with Jack high…. So I had trips. Tight player bets out, I call. A second 3 hits the board and now I have a full house. Tight player bets out, I re-raise all in and I thought he would call because he had top pair and he had perhaps $15k left. 4 minutes and he folded. I showed the full house and the table was on alert that I will push with the best hand. Up to $75k. Folded AQ on the button to tight pre-flop raiser. Won a pot with Jacks against 9’s, Chinese lady checked to me, I bet out strong and she took forever to fold… but did so correctly. I had a strong player 2 seats to my right who was always raising my blind if he had a chance. I call with J10 suited and the flop came out 1010x. Check, check. Check, strong bet, stronger re-reraise and he threw away Jacks (so he says). Might have been able to milk that for more too. However, my image is looking pretty strong because I was showing my cards. Also won a hand with pocket 10s against the big stack, who had over $200k (yikes). I didn’t want to tangle with him much. Finished Level 9 with 99,900 chips! Dinner time. Played with the same table for the two levels and my image is pretty tight and aggressive. Strong player to my right raises my blind again and I reraise with pocket AA, BB and raiser fold KQ suited. Perhaps I lost a chance to win more but it did set up another hand. I thought I had chance to really get some action because I had raised the SB earlier and he was so tired of me he went all in. I laughed and told him I deserved it for trying raise his blind so often. I was hoping someone would catch a real hand and then we would have had some fireworks and I had both players covered. Later, I lost my first contested hand of the day. I had 9’s and limped in. I limped in because I almost knew that the short stack a few seats to my left was getting ready to go all in. This guy was a good size stack when I sat down and he was the great beneficiary of poker luck. He called a short stack all in with A10, and then a medium stack went all in with AK (same aggressive player I lost to with KJ on the jack flop). There was so much money in the pot, he almost had to call and he did. The king hit the flop and the aggressive guy was going crazy but then a straight developed and luck prevailed. Anyway, he proceeded to donk off his chips to the chip leader (Aaron Clark, who ended the day at around 250,000 chips) on an unwise call and then kept limping with bad hands, getting reraised and either folding or folding after the flop. So, the short stack goes all in and I’m thinking he’s steaming. The button calls. I make it $20k to go because I want to isolate the short stack and now I’m getting nearly 3.5 or more to 1 on my money and I think it’s a coinflip or I’m winning. Except he turns over pocket 10s and my stack goes down to $84,800 by 10:32 pm. People are getting knocked out quicker than expected so the tournament director decides to eliminate the last round and cut the next to last round to only one hour. I’m really happy because I’m sick and can use the rest. I had a great run early in this round starting with a bluff. The aggressive player was continuing to pound the blinds (you can tell who’s winning the blinds by seeing who has all of the small chips) and I decided to use my image. I reraise by $7k and he just looks at me. He’s tired of being re-raised by me and losing chips to me on the J10 and AA hands. He thinks for about 4 or 5 minutes, he’s considering going all in. He later told me he had AK but I’m not sure…… Anyways he folded. I had 62 offsuit and took it down. The aggressive player told me he played in a lot of tournaments and gave me some props for good play. He knows Mr. Findlay at our Shack-Findlay store. Next hand, another guy near the button raises, I have 99 and go over the top and he folds. Then on the button, I limped in with 55, saw the flop with high cards, checked to me and won the pot. A few other small hands and I finished the night with $103,200 chips. I'm 126 in my half of the field or roughly 250th in the entire remaining field of approximately 1100. 8,000 down, 1,099 to go. Laughs! Time to sleep, its later than midnight. Day 3 - Friday, July 4. I’m starting with $103,200 in chips which makes me the chip leader at the table. My dad flew in from Los Angeles. We had dinner last night Alize at the top of the Palms and he would support me all day. It meant a lot to me. I have two small stacks to my left, medium sized stacks in the middle and the larger stacks to my right. It’s an ideal situation, hopefully the table will be worried about the money line (at 873 players) and will be passive unless they have a great hand. The table starts off real active and so I stay back and watch the action. Someone asks me about my chip protector. It’s the 1932 Olympic medal that brought my mother’s side of the family back to America. My grandfather competed in the 32 Olympics in LA and won a bronze medal. He was born in America but grew up in Japan. After the Olympics, he continued to live in the US and taught Judo and was a gardener. I always respected my grandfather greatly and the medal he gave to me is my most cherished possession, symbolic of so many family traditions to me. The smallest chip stack is out early and replaced by another smallest stack. That was a relief. The table started to become more docile and I started to steal blinds with great and good hands. It was apparent that people were starting to stay clear of me and I was enjoying the total freedom. I had one hand where I limped in, several players followed, the button raised and I reraised $20k with AK. The button (Tore) folded AK. I was reraising to win easy blinds and limpers. I moved up to $112k after the first two hours and continued to move forward to $120k after the next two hours. We were getting closer and closer to the money line. An announcement was made that 889 players left in the field. The players were buzzing about the announcement and we were all encouraging the short stack at our table, Mike Zakarian. He had started with $57k but lost money on limps to reraises and folded queens preflop. With the line nearing, I had around $11.5 and raised with Ace 6 suited, not a good holding but good enough given my stack, position and the threat of the money line. One of the short stacks, Hertzel Zalewski went all in. He was a pretty good player but I was sure I was up against either JJ, QQ, KK or AK. It cost 9k more to for the pot of $19k so I called. He turned over JJ, I didn’t improve and I dropped the blind earnings from the previous two sessions. No worries. An announcement was made that the tournament was now proceeding round for round to determine which players would receive money or….not. All of the short stacks were playing super tight. I heard one short stack decided that he would only play aces, got them and of course….lost and finished out of the money. On our table, Mike Z was on life support. The table folded down to the small blind, Tore Michaelson. Tore folded his cards and showed that he had AQ. The table and crowd buzzed with the unusual level of compassion showed by Tore. I gave him the knuckles and really it was incredible because he also needed the chips. Its one thing if you have $300,000 chips and do this but Tore only had $40,000 himself and could have used the extra $3,800 chips. We all encouraged and expected Mike to offer some type of gift or something to Tore but when he left, I didn’t see him exchange any information with Tore. Very disappointing. I was continuing to steal blinds and worked myself back up to $126k. Meanwhile, there was an incredible hand that I witnessed at our table. A mid-table raise from Hertzel and a call from Aaron Bartley, a local professional who I was very concerned about before we started play. Aaron has won a $150k tournament and I was very weary of him. But he didn’t have a big stack and was biding his time, stealing some blinds but no big hands. I had a won a few very small pots with him, hitting a card on the river to save me a couple of times. But they were fairly small hands. Back to the big hand, Hertzel raised and Aaron called. The betting was going back and forth and after the turn it seem quite certain to me that Hertzel was on a draw or weak second pair. On fifth street, Hertzel checked and Aaron shot out a very large bet. Hertzel thought about it forever….. tick, tick…….. he would be out of the money if he called the bet and lost. Finally, Hertzel called and turned over Q 10 which produced only Q 10 high on a flush draw. Aaron showed Q 7 and Hertzel won a huge pot. Amazing… calling a large bet with Q 10 high. Aaron went into the tank for awhile in frustration and Hertzel’s annoying fans were making a lot cheering (which sounded like jeering to the other players). So, Hertzel went from a 30% chance to be out of the tournament with me and perhaps a 100% chance to be out of the tournament with Aaron to a decent chips stack. A few hands later, Aaron went all in and was called by a player holding only A10. Aaron held AJ, and won the hand unimproved to go up to $50k. When this player called Aaron, I thought he was a dead duck because this player appeared to be tight but made this very loose call. Not long after, the A10 caller went all-in with Q5, I called with AQ (easy call with the pot odds with any two cards, much less AQ). The flop had a Q and a 5 but an Ace came on the river and my stack was continuing to grow. I was now up $158.3k at the dinner break, winning blinds with QQ, AJ, etc. 721 players left. Peter Falk, between Mike and Aaron, was the second chip leader on our table but got tangled up with Aaron. Peter raised up with AK and got called by Aaron in position. The flop had middle cards, Peter checked, Aaron bet a good amount and Peter went all in… but Aaron immediately called and showed a made straight. So now my most dangerous opponent was up over $100k after being only at $25k. After the dinner break, Aaron and I played a critical hand. Aaron had folded the previous blind to me, very unusual for the table and for him. I had been raising his blind on occasion and won most of our small confrontations. I felt good about my winning average against a pro, albeit with a big chip stack and being in position. After Aaron folded, he said that was the last blind he was going to fold which I interpreted as “I’m raising you with any two cards next time”. The next blind was folded to him (interesting because my table image was so good that no one wanted to play my blind without a real hand) and Aaron raised. I looked down and KJ and decided to play. I actually hate KJ, an easily dominated hand but a decent hand heads up, especially against a loose opponent like Aaron. I had lost some money on the second day with KJ in the small blind when a king hit the flop, I bet out and someone went all-in on me (I folded). The flop came with jack and rags and Aaron fired out $10k. I called thinking that Aaron wanted to buy the pot, like with Hertzel. I thought about reraising but I was trying to keep the pot as small as possible. Another blank hit and Aaron fired out $20k and I immediately called. An ace hit the river and Aaron fired out $30k, I thought to myself that Aaron is very loose and is trying to buy the pot, I’ll still have enough money if he has KK, AA, QQ or AJ or trips, he had never seen me call big bets, only make them and perhaps he thought that I would be easily bought with my relative inexperience. I called and he showed me AJ and my ability to play my game would never be the same. My stack was severely damaged to $86k and although it doesn’t sound too far off my starting stack, the blinds had progressed two levels and I was now out of the ability to make moves when I saw fit. I didn’t catch any cards, and during the next level I was in the “yellow zone” (only able to make less than 10 orbits without playing). Every time I had an OK hand, I raised up the blinds but Spike Gallas would pound me back by going all in and I was floating around the $50k level until the end of the night. Spike Gallas played an amazing game. He was directly to my left and started the day with only $10k. I was stealing his blinds early on but late in the evening he evened the score by pounding me back and I wasn’t able to call with my weakened stack. It was frustrating because when I raised with great cards he always folded but when I had easily dominated hands, he went all in. Spike went on to survive the day and played on for awhile during the second day too. Meanwhile Aaron continued his great run, putting life-threatening pressure on the table and finally broke two of the other stacks on the table. One fellow was a new guy to our table and Aaron crippled him by betting large on the river and he folded, even though Aaron believed that they both had AK, with an ace on the dangerous flush board. A very conservative player on our table raised and said “whew, I thought you (the next player to him) were going to go over the top”. I thought to myself that I would put him all in if I were Aaron. And Aaron put him all in. The conservative player, Scott Sweeney, went into deep thought and finally came out with the right answer (I thought) and called. AQ versus Aaron’s 4’s and Scott’s flush doubled him up to $100k. Scott was very perturbed by Aaron though and I could see the aggression in his feelings toward Aaron. Later Scott and Aaron tangled again and with Scott holding top Ace pair and J kicker and Aaron holding trip nines, Aaron reraised Scott’s initial bet and Scott went all-in and was done for the day, What an amazing day for Aaron, starting with $60k, going down to $25k and left the night with $420k and ready to fight for the championship. He was a real fun guy and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with him and I also enjoyed the table. I am short stacked but I’m ready to fight tomorrow. Day 4 - Saturday, August 5. My friend Andrew drove in this morning to support me while I’m on life support. There are 481 players left and I’m player number 447. Time to be a kamikaze! Get the All-In Chip out! I have $47,600 chips, which doesn’t sound horrible but the blinds and antes are now 11,000. I have only 4 orbits to play. I’m in seat three and when the button is folded to me, I look down at 2 4 offsuit and go-all in. The big blind is ruffled a bit but folds pretty quickly. I determine quickly that the player to my left is very conservative, especially when I see him fold a hand offering 2 to 1 pot odds on a desperate all-in player. I go all-in with A7, near the button, K10 on the button and win the blinds. The big stack two seat to my left thinks about calling but decides that $50,000ish is too much to gamble. Other small stacks are busting everywhere and even the large stacks are tangling and blowing each other out. Daniel Negreanu sits down at our table, I offer him my hand and he gives me the knuckles. He’s my other poker hero (along with Ivey) and isn’t this a treat. He has around $100k in chips. He had over $300k going into yesterday but ran into big trouble was down as low as $25k yesterday. He immediately starting joking with table and his presence made the table fun. I was surviving and my PokerRoom counterpart Ryan was doing very well across the table. He was short stacked and even had slightly less chips than me at one point but then had a few great hands with KK and JJ to more than double up to over $150k… Good job Ryan. I had easily been the most all-in player at our table. Before looking at each hand, I would determine my hand requirement to go all-in. In first position, my requirement was AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10,10, AK. I received AK under-the-gun and said all-in and slowly pushed my all-in chip to the center. Daniel Negreanu immediately commented that he hated the all-in chip because of the mistakes it made. A few of the players on the first day had been using the all-in chip as their chip protector and accidentally put themselves all in with very inferior hands. One person had 9 5 (the Dolly Parton hand) and got themselves knocked out by a person immediately calling with AK. He protested that it was a mistake but it was not to be and the floor chairman made the ruling stand. Immediately, the conservative player to my left called and I put him on AA, KK, or QQ. I was hoping for a 45 or 30 percent chance to win. The rest of the table folded and I put on my USC #3 football jersey on and started to jump up and down like a boxer, awaiting the fight. He turned over Aces! Completely dominated, had a small chance at a flush early and then it was over. What a fantastic run and experience. Finished 372 out of 8,773 (4.2%). Made new friends, had my best friends and my dad come to watch me play and experience the electric atmosphere of the 2006 WSOP. My mood was good and I felt thankful that I had had a chance to live in America and enjoy this great event with family and friends. |
| Personality | Open minded |
| Occupation | Chief |
My Poker Achievements
| Date | Event | Winnings |
|---|
Game Information
| Poker Idol: | Phil Ivey - Got a chance to play with him at WSOP 2006 (directly to my left) |
| Favourite game | |
| Structure: | |
| Casino game | |
| Prefers | |
| PokerOnline |
Hobbies & Favourites
| Hobbies | Business and Investments, Online Gaming |
| Favourite sports | Baseball, Basketball, Golf, Football, Soccer |
| Favourite music | R&B / Soul |
Personal Links
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| Oda Homepage | Family and National Park Pictures |
My TopLists
Latest Visitors
| Nickname | Date | |
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_pelleyman | 30 Mar, 2009 |
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martinjorge | 1 Mar, 2009 |
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zildjian105 | 3 Nov, 2008 |
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bytor2163 | 21 Sep, 2008 |
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demian23 | 31 Aug, 2008 |
