It’s always a good thing to be ‘underestimated’ in poker

This is going to be one of those frustrating blog posts where I can’t actually TELL you what happened because I don’t want to give any spoilers. The NBC Heads Up is a televised tournament which means that they really do prefer it if we don’t give away what happened until after it has aired. If you were following members of the poker media though on Twitter last weekend, no doubt you have a pretty good idea of how it all panned out!

Phil Laak (who I seriously adore – he and Jennifer Tilly are my favourite poker people) was in the same first bracket as me and he took a photo of us while we were waiting for play to start and posted it on Twitter. I hope he doesn’t mind me reposting it here! Go and follow him on Twitter @RealPhilLaak if you don’t already – he’s a blast.

It was a lot of fun to be invited to play on the show. I really love working with Poker PROductions so being able to catch up with the TV crew is a big bonus for me. They do an awesome job on their many MANY American poker TV shows and have filming down to a fine art!

It’s a hell of an honour to be invited to play this event and be a mere few heads up SNGs away from winning $750k. It’s some of the best odds in poker, particularly when you add in how volatile heads up play can be. Even if you face Phil Ivey in a quick heads up SNG, there’s still that chance to beat him!

Playing under TV cameras makes me nervous

I played Andrew Robl in my first round. I’ve met him quite a few times as I was working on poker TV shows that he’s been a guest on. Most recently, he played on this season of High Stakes Poker which has just started airing on GSN in the States. I was under no illusions that his skill level is higher than mine as he’s played an absolute TON of hands at much higher stakes than I have. We had a really fun time chatting while we played.

He seemed very surprised when I told him that playing under the TV cameras always makes me nervous. I’m 100% happy to do my job, introduce or interview people on TV but when the cameras focus on me …. yikes! He asked me if it was a ‘control’ thing and I think he’s right. When I’m the one holding the microphone in people’s faces, I know exactly what I need to do to lead them through an interview. When I’m the one being scrutinised, that’s a little more scary!

It’s an interesting feeling, playing in such a high profile event with some of the best players in the world. While it’s always a good thing to be ‘underestimated’ in poker, it still surprises me when people assume that I’m clueless at the game.

I’m playing WPT Bratislava! You can be there too! Start with a daily freeroll and win your $7,000 package for free! – Kara Scott

At one point in our match (no spoilers as to the outcome, don’t worry!) we were All In but weren’t able to turn our cards over as we needed to wait until the cameras were free so they could capture it all for the show. That’s one of the things about playing on TV that people don’t anticipate – you really do need to keep in mind that you’re making a TV show so play will slow down a LOT some times.

We had to wait quite a long time so Andrew took off for a quick walk about. A fairly high profile poker pro who was railing Andrew was sitting in the stands just behind him. He started asking me what my cards were but I wasn’t supposed to say anything until the cameras were there. Andrew and I had already had a short, roundabout discussion about our hand strengths. He had exactly the same hand as our last all in, so it was clear what he had. I told him that I was dominating him.

This poker pro asked me, with utter disdain, if I knew what ‘dominating’ meant. I was actually pretty surprised. We’d never really had much of a conversation before, so I was a bit shocked at the fact that he seemed to be heckling me! He then condescended to inform me that if I had or then I wasn’t actually ‘dominating’ Andrew’s hand. Errrr, yes thank you for the lesson in poker vocabulary but I’m aware of what the phrase means. Yeesh.

I’m afraid I can’t give any more of the story as I promised not to give you spoilers. I had a lot of fun though and am looking forward to watching it when it airs. Next up, I’m heading to San Jose to play the Bay 101 Shooting Stars event. I’ve been asked to play a charity rebuy the day before in San Jose and that should be fun as well and a chance to gamble it up for a good cause. I’ll let you know how it goes but until then, good luck at the tables!