World Series of Poker 2006
Included here is some of my earliest and best poker writing, a trip report from my 279th place finish in the $10,000 buy-in main event of the 2006 World Series of Poker.
WSOP 2006 Prologue
As most of you know already, I'm playing in the main event of the World Series of Poker this week in Las Vegas. A lot of people have asked me to keep them updated about how I'm doing, so I thought a series of e-mails would be the best way to do that.
First, for those of you who don't know, I'll explain what exactly the World Series of Poker is and how I ended up here:
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a two month long series of poker tournaments, culminating in the WSOP Main Event, the world's largest poker tournament. In a poker tournament, all players pay a fixed amount to buy-in and begin with the same number of chips. They are assigned seats and play poker, wagering their chips as usual, but with the caveat that they cannot buy chips if they run out. Rather, they are eliminated from the tournament. Play continues until only one player remains; however, this player does not win all of the money. Instead, the highest finishing players divide the prize based on some pre-determined ratio. In a simple example, imagine 10 people buy into a tournament for $11 each. The first 7 players eliminated get nothing, the 8th gets $20, the 9th get $30, the winner of the tournament gets $50, and the casino takes the remaining $10 as rake.
The other distinctive thing about poker tournaments is that the stakes continue to rise, forcing players to keep accumulating chips or be eliminated.
The WSOP will attract thousands of players (I believe 8,000 is the current estimate), each contributing $10,000 to the prize pool. Over the course of nearly two weeks, we will play until only one remains.
The game we will be playing is called No Limit Texas Hold 'Em. The game is usually played with 9, 10, or 11 players at a table. Each is dealt two cards, and there is a round of betting in which players can fold their two cards or wait to see the 'flop'. After the betting is finished, three cards are placed face up in the center of the table. This is the flop, and these three cards will be shared by all of the players at the table. Again, they wager based on how these shared cards interact with their two individual starting cards, then a fourth 'turn' card is dealt face up for all to share. There is another round of wagering, and then a fifth 'river' card is dealt. There is a final round of betting, and then anyone who has not folded makes the best five-card poker hand he can using any combination of his two individual cards and the five community cards.
The action is driven by forced bets called 'blinds.' Before cards are dealt, the player to the dealer's left must wager a fixed sum, and the player to his left must wager an even larger amount. They may not take these bets back if they do not like the cards they are dealt. Other players decide whether to call these blind bets, raise them, or fold. When the hand is finished, the deal and the blind bets all rotate one spot to the left, so that different players are forced to wager blind this time around.
In the WSOP, we will all begin with 10,000 chips, and the size of the blinds will be 25 and 50. Every two hours, the blinds will rise, so one cannot sit back and wait for perfect situations, as they will not come around often enough. Instead, as the blinds rise, players must aggressively try to steal these blind bets and defend their own blind bets.
In No Limit Texas Hold 'Em, there is no limit to the size of the bet a player can make. This means that, although on the first hand of the tournament there will be only 75 chips in the pot to begin with, someone could, if he wanted, wager his entire stack of 10,000 chips.
I've been studying and playing poker, and specifically No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, for about two years now, and although I don't consider myself a professional poker player, I do derive a substantial portion of my income from playing this game online. One of the most important lessons I've learned is to how to manage and grow my money. I have a dedicated poker bankroll that is separate from my other finances (savings, checking account, etc.). The stakes at which I can play are a function of the size of this bankroll and my skill level. Although I periodically take money out, as a general rule my poker winnings serve to grow this bankroll, enabling me to play at higher stakes if I continue to win.
One of the first rules of bankroll management is that no matter how good of a player you are, you will almost certainly go broke if you consistently play above your bankroll. A good rule of thumb for entering tournaments is that you should have one hundred times the buy-in in your bankroll. Now, I've had a fair amount of success in the last two years, but I do not have a million dollar bankroll. So what am I doing playing a $10,000 tournament?
The WSOP is a special case. Because it is such a high profile tournament, it attracts a much lower caliber of player than any other high stakes poker game. I genuinely believe that I will have a considerably edge over the average player at this tournament; if I did not believe this, I would not be playing.
Moreover, every internet poker site (and there are many) offers 'satellite' tournaments to the WSOP, where I can enter a smaller tournament that is within my bankroll to try to win a seat in the WSOP. Several months ago, I discussed with my girlfriend the idea of trying to qualify for the WSOP (I wanted to make sure she was okay with me running off to Las Vegas for two weeks in the event that I was successful). She was supportive, so I decided to set aside $3000 of my winnings to try to win a prize package that would consist of my entry into the tournament, 9 nights at a Vegas hotel, and $1000 in expenses, a $12,000 value in all. I estimated that this would give me about a 50% chance of qualifying.
To my surprise, I won a seat in the event on my second try, after investing less than $300. So although this is a $10,000 tournament, it has cost me virtually nothing to get here.
After two long flights and a long layover in Atlanta, I arrived at about 7:00 PM Vegas time, took a cab to the Monte Carlo, and checked into my room. It was already 10:00 my time, so I just got some food and went to sleep.
The WSOP doesn't start until tomorrow, so I want to use today to get in some experience playing live poker. Although I've got a lot of experience with the mechanics of betting, raising, folding, bluffing, etc. from playing online, this is only the third time I've been to a casino, and I am concerned that my inability to conceal my own tells and pick up on those of others will be a handicap. So, I'm at least going to try to get a little more comfortable playing live today.
Also, my father and brother are coming out to Vegas for a few days and will be arriving this afternoon, so I'll likely have dinner with them tonight.
WSOP 2006 Day 1
Thursday night, after having dinner with my father and brother, who have come out to support me for a few days, at their hotel, the Stratosphere Towers, I took a cab back to the Monte Carlo. It is only 8PM, but I need to get an early start in the morning and am still jet-lagged, so I plan on doing a little work and turning in early. My cab driver is a young Asian man who is pretty quiet until we are nearing the hotel, at which point the following dialogue ensues:
Driver: So what are you up to tonight? Big night on the town?
Me: (thinking he is just making conversation) Actually, I'm pretty much done for the night. I've got to get up early tomorrow.
Driver: Maybe get a massage?
Me: Haha, yeah.
Driver: Massage and a happy ending?
Me: Haha, yeah.
Driver: I know a place, $100. Girls pretty, too.
Me: That doesn't sound right. It costs $5 to get a soda in this town.
Driver: No, no, I know the place. $100. Girls pretty too. No one knows it is there.
He insists on giving me a "business card" with an Asian woman on the front, naked except for some strategically placed silver stars, and writes his name and phone number on the back, telling me to call him if I'm interested.
I turn in around 10:30 and set the alarm for 6:30. I'm told play is starting at 11AM, but I still need to confirm my registration at the casino (show an ID, get a seat assignment, etc.) and apparently there were long lines the previous day. Also, Poker Stars is hosting a brunch for their players that morning, so I figured I could hang out there if I had time to kill.
At 7:20 I am headed to the Starbucks in the Monte Carlo to get a cup of coffee. The casino is blaring "Over My Head" by The Fray, which includes the following refrain: "Everybody knows I'm in over my head, over my head." Awesome.
At 7:40 AM I am in the lobby of the Monte Carlo waiting for an 8AM shuttle that Stars is running to the Rio, where the event is being held. At 8:07 I am at the Rio, at 8:10 I have confirmed my registration, and at 8:15 I am eating a miniature blueberry muffin.
I shake hands quickly with Humberto Brenes, a boisterous, garishly-dressed Costa Rican pro who I've seen on TV, and then leave him alone to enjoy his breakfast.
As a general rule, I don't care for twenty-something internet poker players. They tend to be shallow, whiney, immature, etc. Of course the room is full of them, so I sit down across from a 69-year old man who is sitting by himself. He's been playing poker for years, but I get the sense that he isn't very good, and he admits to being a losing player (something very few poker players will do). We talk for a while, and he tells me what the poker scene used to be like and how much it has changed in the last few years. What really set it off was when ESPN started airing the WSOP on television, complete with cameras that could show audiences what two cards a player was holding. That year (2004), the event was won by a guy named (yes, this really is his name) Chris Moneymaker, who spent $40 on a Poker Stars qualifying tournament and ended up winning over a million dollars.
My new friend is from Houston, so his stories are peppered with a distinctly southern flavor ("this ole' boah raises me, so Ah raise 'im rot back"). He goes on to tell me how Moneymaker sent his dealer at the final table a check for $25,000.
He steers the conversation towards politics and things get hairy. He appreciates that Fox News has slightly less of a liberal bias than the other major networks, but still thinks they are too hard on the Bush administration and did not cover enough of the Clinton scandals. In fact, he rattles off detailed lists of people he claims have been murdered for or by the Clintons.
I find out he used to be a teacher, so I am thinking perhaps we can get back on common ground. Wrong. Turns out the school he taught at used to be one of the best in the Houston Unified school district, "but now it's all blacks and Spics." And we're done. I get up to go to the bathroom and don't come back.
I wander around for a little while and it still is not that crowded. At about 10:45 AM the doors to the conference room where the tournament is being held are still locked, and I find out we are not starting until noon. I read for about 45 minutes, and it still doesn't seem to be the crowded. I decide to hit the restroom before we get started, and follow signs to what turns out to be a glorified Port-a-Pot outside. I know we'll need the extra restrooms during the 20 minute break, when 2500 people will need to use them, but for now I ought to be able to get to the ones in the casino.
Wrong again. As I start to walk toward the main hallway, I encounter an avalanche of people. Apparently they've just opened the doors to the conference room, and thousands of players, spectators, dealers, cocktail waitresses, and journalists and swarming in. I've got no choice but to skip the restroom now and let the tide of bodies carry me to my fate.
I find my seat and the only other people at my table are the dealer (Mike) and a middle-aged women named Leeza from South Carolina. We get to talking, and find out that Mike has dealt at the last three WSOP final tables (they rotate dealers every 30 minutes, so probably almost anyone who dealt at all three tournaments could say this). He goes on to tell us how on the first day of the 2004 Main Event he told Chris Moneymaker that he would win the tournament, and that Chris subsequently sent him a check for $25,000. How's that for a coincidence?
The table fills up, and we start playing. I'm actually not too nervous. Especially compared to the internet tournaments to which I am accustomed, I've got all the time in the world, so I decide to sit back, study the table a little bit, and wait for a good situation to play my first hand at the World Series of Poker.
To the dealer's immediate left is a player who has not yet shown up. We'll be taking blinds and antes out of his stack, but he's got 10,000 chips and the blinds are 25 and 50 right now, so if he shows up in the next hour or two, it shouldn't really affect him at all. In fact, some arrogant pros are known to party the night before the Main Event and then sleep through the first two hours, confident that they can make up for lost time.
The next seat to the left is Leeza from Charleston, SC. She is a tight, solid player, which isn't necessarily a compliment. That's a style that can work against bad opponents, but when you are against good players and have a lot of money in front of you, predictable is a very bad thing to be.
As we are taking our seats, there is a lot of commotion to her left, and someone saying he needs two seats. I immediately think of US Airways' controversial policy requiring overweight passengers to purchase two seats, but it turns out the gentleman who will be sitting to Leeza's left is William, a twenty-something missing one arm and almost completely unable to use the other, who plays with his feet and needs the second seat to balance himself. One at a time, he pins his cards to the table with his big toe, slides them up a little wooden ramp, and looks them. He's adept enough with his toes to take individual chips out of a stack and then push them into the pot. He has an assistant who stacks his chips for him when he wins a pot. Apparently he made it into the money last year, and obviously he is popular with the press, so there are a couple of cameras taping him as he gets set up. Maybe I will be on TV after all!
I don't remember much about the player to his left.
The next player over is an older gentleman who doesn't say much and plays a pretty tight, passive game, which is basically the stereotype of older poker players.
The next player to the left is a young kid from Norway playing at his first live tournament. I get the sense that is pretty good, and I am grateful that he is seated to my immediate right and will almost always act before I do, allowing me to make decisions with a lot of information about his hand.
I am in the next seat, and then to my left is a quiet guy wearing dark sunglasses. Nothing distinctive about him, really.
To his left is a middle-aged man with a full beard wearing a Full Tilt Poker jersey. He turns out to be a decent player who, like me, earns a decent side income playing online poker.
In the next seat is a mortgage banker from California who describes his ethnicity as "ancient Babylonian" and "Assyrian." He's a regular guest at the Rio and often loses 10-15K at blackjack when he's in town. He turns out to be a better player than I would have guessed based on that (and he is not at all "gambly" and in fact rather tight), but still nothing special.
To his left is a young guy wearing a Paradise Poker shirt. He's got an air of confidence about him, and before we even start playing I make a note to myself to keep an eye out for him, because something tells me he is probably pretty good.
There were 10 seats at the table, so I must be leaving someone out, but I can't remember who.
Before I have even exchanged names with most of these people, they get to see me topless. The Rio has issued a rule that players may not wear any clothing displaying a ".com" logo, and thanks to my contractual obligations, I have the words "Poker Stars.com" emblazoned on my shirt and hat. So I take off the shirt, turn it inside out, and sit back down. Sucks for Poker Stars, they put 1500 players for 9 nights in the Monte Carlo so that we would wear their stuff, and now we have to take it off. Eventually they get the idea to put electrical tape over the ".com", but I am not interested in stripping for my table again, so my shirt stays inside out the entire day.
James Garner, who played a poker player on TV's Maverick, is playing in the main event for the first time in his life, so they allow him to kick off the tournament officially with the customary, "Shuffle up and deal." The floor personnel are a little vague, but it sounds like we will play six two-hour sessions today, with twenty minute breaks after each and a ninety minute dinner break, and then if we have not whittled our 2400 players down to 900, we will play another two-hour session. It is noon now, so IF everything runs perfectly on time, it sounds like we will be leaving at 2:30 AM.
Level 1: Blinds 25-50. William has busy feet and is getting involved in a lot of pots almost immediately. I wanted to feel the table out a little before getting involved, but I get dealt some solid hands and have to play them. This results in my butting heads with William a few times. He backs down pretty quickly each time, but I can feel him getting frustrated, which is all the more reason for me to get involved with him, since it means he will not be playing his best.
As it turns out, I end up winning a big pot against him with absolutely nothing. I'll spare you the details, but basically he bluffed off about 25% of his chips and I was so sure he was bluffing that I called him down with a VERY weak hand. I could only beat a bluff, and there was even a chance that he could be bluffing with a better hand than mine. When I turned my cards over and took the pot with my very weak hand, he got pretty agitated.
It actually worked out very well for me in terms of my image at the table, because based on the comments people made when I showed what I had called William with, I could determine how well they understood the game. Some people were just floored that I had put so much money in the pot with such a weak hand and couldn't see past that. A few players seemed to understand why I played it the way I did. But everyone seemed to decide right then that they weren't going to try to bluff me, and that would make life very easy for me over the next few hours.
A few minutes later, they announce that the first player has just been eliminated, and the room erupts in applause. Talk about adding insult to injury. I hope they at least let the guy leave the room before publicly humiliating him, though I doubt it.
With about 10 minutes left at this level, the tournament director announces they will be doing "staggered breaks", meaning that 1200 of us will go on break at the designated time, and the other half will keep playing and then go on break when we get back. I'm still expecting long lines at the restroom and I really have to go, so I leave about two minutes before the break starts in order to beat the rush. I'm off to a great start, having already worked my inital 10,000 chips up to 16,000 and convinced everyone at the table not to mess with me.
As I am walking out of the port-a-pot, poker pro and author Dan Harrington walks in, and on my way back to my seat I spot Phil Gordon, Andy Black, and Barry Greenstein.
Level 2, blinds 50-100: I was thankful the cameras weren't around when I won my big pot against William, because I'd rather not be the guy taking all the chips from the disabled kid who's playing to win money for the Foundation he started to help others with disabilities. But I am not getting off that easy. The reporters come over to check in with William, and when they ask how he is doing, he says, "Don't ask." Then he swivels in his seat, points his naked toe at me, and says, "This is the guy who did it to me." He's kidding, kind of, but we both know that he is really getting me back for calling his bluff.
About a half hour into this level, he is down to just 1500 chips, and goes all in. Everyone folds to me and I look down at a pair of Jacks. I call him, and immediately the cameras come rushing over to witness his fate. My hand holds up, and I eliminate him from the tournament. He continues to rib me for the cameras, asking how it feels to crush a crippled kid's dreams, and all I can do is laugh. He's mostly just frustrated with himself because he knows he hasn't played his best, and he is ultimately a good sport about it. He signs a picture for me (he has better handwriting with his toes than I do with my fingers), gives me a hug (which involves him awkwardly flopping his body into me- I don't do a lot to return the hug because I'm afraid to break him), and wishes me luck.
This time I don't leave early for break, even though I am starving, and it is a good thing I didn't. On the last hand, I finally get dealt a pair of Aces, the best possible starting hand. I raise, most of the table folds and leaves to take their break, but one of the nondescript players at the table re-raises me. I re-re-raise, he goes all in, and I call. He's got a pair of Kings, the second best starting hand, so very rough luck for him. My hand holds up and I eliminate another player, putting myself at about 30,000 chips after four hours of play, which is about what the average stack will be when we break for the day eight hours from now. Sweet.
I buy a fruit salad and a Casear salad (I'm trying to avoid all the heavy, greasy food they are selling in order to keep myself sharp) and get back to my table just in time.
Level 3, blinds 100-200. Usually when I've got a lot more chips than the rest of the table, I start getting very aggressive, but right now the blinds are still so small relative to our stacks that I decide I'd rather preserve a less aggressive image so that I can get away with more bluffs later in the day. I open up my game a little bit but mostly just play strong when I have a strong hand.
We've got three new players at the table: a Russian girl wearing a Poker Stars shirt, a French guy who I don't recognize but who is apparently a pretty successful player on the European circuit, and a Frecnh Canadian sporting a WSOP bracelet, which means that he has taken first place in one of the dozens of smaller events that precede the main event each year. I later learn it was a $3000 No Limit Hold 'Em tournament, which means he probably took home a $500,000+ prize. His name is Andre and he is sitting immediately to my left, which is not good for me, as I will almost always act before he does.
We have our hour and a half dinner break after this level, so there is no need to leave early and beat the crowd. Once again, it's a good thing I stuck around, because on the last hand before the break, someone raises from early position (meaning he probably has a strong hand, since there are so many people still to act behind him) and I call with a pair of 10's. Now Leeza from Charleston re-raises, and even though I have one of the best possible hands, I am 99% sure that she has me beat, because she is just that predictable of a player. But this is why I say it is bad to be so predictable: she has just won a big pot from the Russian girl and has so much money in front of her that I call even though I know I am behind, because if I happen to catch a third ten on the flop (which I will about one time in eight and a half), I think I can win her entire stack of nearly 20,000 chips. So I call and the flop is a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful 10 9 2, giving me the best possible hand. She has no way of knowing that, though, and I am very confident that she believes she has me beat. She bets, I go all in, and she calls me with a pair of queens. I am a 95% favorite to win this pot, and indeed my hand does hold up, so I eliminate a third player and now have almost 55,000 chips, which is like three or four times the average stack right now.
I'm sorry to see Leeza go, because she was very nice and was the first person I met at the table, but she takes her bad luck with a lot of class and grace, wishing me luck and telling me I have played very well so far.
I end up buying some pizza during the break because I need something more substantive than fruit and lettuce and they have very few vegetarian options. The pizza is surprisingly good and reasonably priced. I make a couple of phone calls to update people on my progress and then head over the Gaming Life Expo, which is a trade show where online poker sites and vendors of poker-related memorabilia have set up booths. I am on the phone with my girlfriend, and the following conversation ensues:
Me: It's been a lot of fun, I've met people from all over the world: France, Canada- HELLO, those girls are in their underwear.
Her: Excuse me?
Me: Uh, from uh, Canada, and, uh... [about thirty seconds of silence]
Her: Kinda lost your train of thought there, huh?
As I should have remembered from my one experience at a car show, trade shows marketing products to a primarily male audience rely heavily on scantily clad women as a cheap but effective advertising ploy, and boy howdy was this expo full of them.
But I'm trying to stay focused on poker right now, so I make my way back out of the expo and wait for the game to start up.
Level 4, blinds 100-200: Once again, my tablemates return from break to find one of their number gone and me sitting on an even larger pile of chips. Leeza is replaced with an older man named Frank Johnston. He looks familiar and the Canadian to my left seems to know him. I get the impression he is a well-respected pro, and maybe he is good at cash games, but after playing with him for six hours, I really think he is a terrible tournament player. He was just playing much, much, much too tight and losing too much of his stack to the ever-rising blinds. We've had a very relaxed and friendly table, everyone joking around and having a good time, but Frank wants no part of it. He sits in his corner with a sour look on his face and fold fold fold fold folds. He finally raises, and Andre the French Canadian re-raises him. I think to myself 'wow, I think I would only re-raise that guy with like two hands' and sure enough Frank folds and Andre shows him a pair of Aces.
I get a little more aggressive this level, as the blinds are a little higher and my stack is even larger relative to everyone else's. Andre starts giving me trouble, calling or re-raising me fairly frequently. Now ordinarily in this situation I look for an opportunity to come over the top of someone who I think is trying to take advantage of me. I like to raise a lot of hands, and that strategy won't work if someone to my left is playing back at me every time I get involved in a pot.
But Andre is better than my average opponent, and sitting on top of his chips is a note he has written to himself: "Prend ton temps", French for "take your time." On several occasions I seriously consider making a move on him (I have four times as many chips as he does, so I have the ability to put him to a really tough decision without putting myself in serious jeopardy), sometimes thinking for over a minute, but I always convince myself to fold, and every time he shows me a strong hand. It's a very good sign that he is showing hands to me: it means he respects me and wants to avoid a big confrontation with me by letting me know that he isn't just trying to put a move on me.
The middle-aged bearded internet semi-pro and the older guy who's been at the table since the start get eliminated and are replaced by a young Brazilian kid wearing a Party Poker shirt and a pretty tight Greek player.
Nothing much happens at this level to me, and I finish with about the same number of chips I started with.
Level 5, blinds 100-200 with a 25 ante- Now, in addition to the forced blind bets that each person pays once every ten hands, everyone has to put 25 chips in the pot before every hand. That means that before any cards are dealt, there are 500 chips in the pot. Now is really the time to start getting aggressive with my big stack to steal these inflated pots.
I get away with a couple of steals before the table starts getting fed up with me. The Brazilian and the Norwegian (Marius is his name) are the two playing back at me the most, but they both pay for it in the end. The Norwegian starts with better than 30,000 chips, a very healthy stack for this level, but loses about 6,000 trying to bluff me when I have two pair (one of the benefits of being aggressive is that you get a lot of action when you do have a good hand).
I back down to the Brazilian a couple of times, but then he loses a big pot to Andre and I can tell he is getting frustrated. I've been raising a lot with marginal hands, but finally pick up a pair of queens, the third best starting hand, and make my usual raise to 600. Andre calls me for the bazillionth time, and then the Brazilian goes all in for about 6000. I call, Andre folds, and the kid shows and 8 an a 3, one of the worst possible hands. I knock him out, and when he leaves, the whole table starts commenting on how incredibly bad that play was by him.
This really surprised me, because although he didn't choose the best time for it, his play was not as bad as it might seem. If you look at it from his perspective, he saw me raise (which I've done plenty of times with less than stellar holdings) and Andre call (which he's also been doing a lot.) There are now 2000 chips in the pot, and by going all in, he is risking 6000 for the chance to increase his stack by 33%. Morevoer, it will be very difficult for me to call without a very strong hand, even if I suspect he is up to something, because I still have to worry about Andre behind me. And since Andre only called me rather than re-raising, that suggets he has a good but not great hand that he might not want to call with. So in this case, it might be possible for the Brazilian to get away with going all in with absolutely anything, since there is a very good chance that both Andre and I will fold. Unfortunately for him, I had one of the best hands I've had all night, and I win another big pot.
I quiet down for the last half hour of this level and go on break with 80,000 chips. I don't know for sure, but my guess is that of the 1100 people remaining, I am in the top 5 in terms of the size of my stack.
Level 6, blinds 200-400 with a 50 ante- We resume play at 1 AM, and I have now been away for 19 hours straight, and at the Rio for 16 hours. I am really starting to feel the fatigue, but I know that everyone wants to make the second day and probably feels as tired as I do, so this is a good opportunity for me to steal some pots and take advantage of tight players.
The Brazilian is replaced by a middle-aged guy in a BetHoldEm Poker shirt. His very first hand at the table I end up putting him all in, holding a weak hand but pretty confident he will not want to risk busting out. Sure enough, he folds and I win a substantial pot. Welcome to the table, buddy.
A few hands later I double him up though, making a pretty loose call when he re-raises me all in. I'm still not sure whether my call was good and I was just unlucky his hand was as strong as it was or whether I should have just folded, but it only cost me 6000 of my 80,000 chips and it is important for me to show people that just because I am raising a lot doesn't mean I will fold any time I am re-raised.
I lose some more chips on a bluff, and again it is hard for me to say whether this was a good play and I was unlucky to run into a strong hand or whether it was bad play.
Soon, however, I make a definitely bad mistake that I can attribute to being inexperienced at live play and dog tired. Basically, I was involved in a sizeable pot and didnt end up with a very big hand. I thought the Greek had bet 1000, and there was like 12,000 in the pot, so I said "call" even though my hand wasn't that good. Turns out he had bet 5000, which I never would have called. Ugh. I was angry at myself for this, but I resolved not to let it get to me. I decided I was too mentally drained to keep playing so many marginal hands, so I decided that even though the table conditions were right for aggressive play, I just didn't have the mental stamina to handle a lot of tough decisions. So I backed down, mostly just raised my good hands, and finished out the last two grueling hours.
I wasn't the only one getting exhausted, though. The French pro had been ribbing the Greek for a while, telling him Greeks were the laziest people he knew, which is ironice because the French player had been getting the world's longest massage (there are legimitate, fully clothed massage therapists working the floor, none of that "happy ending" stuff) and was joking about how relaxing it was, and afterwards he literally fell asleep at the table!
It was an exhausting but also exhilerating and fascinating experience. Although I was frustrated with myself for making such a big mistake at the end of the day, I feel like on the whole I played very very well, was lucky enough to find myself in some very profitable spots, and finished the day in great shape with 57,000 chips (30,000 is the average). Of the 2400 players who began play on Friday, fewer than 800 remain. Of the ten players who started at my table, only myself, the Norwegian, the Babylonian mortgage broker, and the Paradise Poker kid survived. Over the next three days, about 7500 more people will play, and 2000-3000 will surivive.
I play again on Tuesday, when half of the remaining players will play until 800 of us are left. The other half will play on Wednesday, also whittling their numbers down to 800, and if I survive Tuesday, all 1600 of us will play again on Thursday.
I'll be working during the day today and going to see Carlos Santana tonight at the MGM Grand. Thanks to everyone for all of your support, and I'll continue to keep you updated.
WSOP 2006 Day 2
Thursday night I've got a meet-up with a contingent of online poker players with whom I regularly discuss poker strategy. This is my first time meeting most of them in person, and it was a blast. Unfortunately, I had pre-paid $55 for the event, which was to include entree (salad, in my case, since the other options are all meat), dessert (which I don't end up getting), and unlimited beer (which I don't want to take advantage of since I am playing the next day). So basically I had a $55 salad.
However, the value of getting to talk poker and WSOP strategy with these guys cannot be underestimated, so really I think I got a great bargain. In particular, I got to spend about half an hour talking with one of the best tournament players on the internet, whom I know by his online screenname, Rizen. He's one of the nicest, smartest, friendliest, humblest guys you could imagine. I remember reading an interview with him after he won upwards of $200,000 in an online tournament, and he was asked whether he woke up his wife to tell her the good news. He responded that she was pregnant and not feeling well, so he didn't want to disturb her, and waited until the next morning to share the big news.
Anyway, I get to talking with Rizen and another great player named Paul about strategy for Day 2 of the WSOP, as we are all playing the next day. Rizen says that Day 2 will be the day of the re-raise. The blinds and antes are high, meaning that everyone will want to steal the pot, but stacks are still relatively deep, meaning that you can re-raise someone whom you suspect to be stealing the pot without risking all of your chips.
I file this away in the back of my mind and get to sleep around 12:30 AM. I wake at 9AM, shower, and head downstairs to the buffet for breakfast. I want to eat a solid meal, since the food they are selling at the Rio is mostly junk, but I don't want to wait a real long time either. On the way down, I am regaled by "master magician Lance Burton" who performs the same card trick in an endless loop on the TV screen built into the elevator. Lance shows me five cards and allows me to choose any card I like and remember it. He then shuffles and cuts the deck, removes one card, and shows me four different cards, asking if he hasn't successfully removed the one I was thinking of. Sorry, sir, but I won't hand over hard-earned money to someone who dangles his prepositions.
The food is kind of cold, which is standard for a buffet, but I get a lot for my money and it doesn't take long.
I'm about to go catch the Poker Stars shuttle to the Rio when I realize I am wearing a Poker Stars.com T-shirt, which the Rio will not allow. I need to get a Poker Stars.net T-shirt, and I wonder if the Poker Stars hospitality suite in the Monte Carlo is still open. I swing by the second floor, but no sign of anyone giving out T-shirts, so I head back up to my room to see if I can find a phone number for them. A scruffy-looking, middle-aged guy in a Poker Stars.net T-shirt gets on the elevator with me, and I ask him if he knows where I can get one. He tells me he's got an extra in his room, so I get off on the 18th floor and go with him.
I introduce myself and learn that his name is Bill (not his real name, as I'm not sure if he'd want me to use it). On the way to his room, we pass an attractive young Latina from housekeeping. Bill is just saying to me, "I like getting to know other players here," and decides it would be really smooth if he adds, "I wish I could get to know this pretty little thing better."
The woman laughs awkwardly and mutters, "Thank you" in a heavy accent. I feel a little sleazy just being with Bill right now, and more so when I enter his room and see that it's awash in toys.
"I brought the whole family," he says by way of explanation, tossing me a 2XL shirt. I thank him and we walk back to the elevator. The same woman is still in the hallway, and Bill keeps at it.
Bill: You sure are a pretty little thing.
Woman: Thank you.
Bill: What's your name?
Woman: Candy.
Bill: You should let me take you to dinner some time.
Candy: Thank you.
Bill: I've got my sister with me, she can babysit for me.
Candy: Thank you.
I'm still feeling kind of sleazy since Bill's advances are clearly unwanted, but at least it seems like he's not married, which at first I thought he was. We part ways at the elevator, but I see Bill again on the shuttle over to the Rio. We talk for a bit, and he tells me a little more about himself. I never do find out why, but he's divorced with sole custody of his two-year old daughter. He's from the St. Louis area and used to play poker three times a week at the Harrah's there, but once he got full custody of his daughter, that was no longer an option, so now he plays online in the evenings after putting her to bed. It's a cute story that adds a lot to Bill's likeability, but the kicker for me is when he takes off the cap he's been wearing and shows me the picture of her tucked inside. She is adorable, but the inks on the photo are all smeary in the corners. "I was wearing a lot of mousse in my hair yesterday," Bill apologizes.
I wish him well and take off to find the Starbucks that is bound to be hiding somewhere in this casino. Fortunately, I stumble across the Poker Stars hospitality suite in the Rio first. I pick up a net shirt and hat of my own, and learn that there is free coffee inside! Beats paying Las Vegas Starbucks prices, which is like $3/cup.
I grab some coffee and take a seat on a couch next to a middle-aged man from Denmark. It's tough to determine how good his English is, because when I am talking to him he just nods and says "OK" kind of awkwardly and at odd intervals, but when he talks he seems to have understood everything I said and speaks pretty fluently. Maybe he is just an awkward guy? We make awkward conversation for a few minutes, then lapse into awkward silence, which is interrupted by Bill's entrance into the Poker Stars lounge.
He gets to talking with another guy in the room about the construction industry, as Bill owns a construction company of some sort and the other guy does home inspections. Interestingly, they've both had guns pulled on them several times while on the job. Bill's stories I thought were especially interesting:
"The first time, they were trying to jack my bike, and usually I'm real careful about getting boxed in, but this time I wasn't paying attention. I'm sitting at a light, and suddenly two cars pull up on either side of me. They're still a few yards back from the light, and immediately I know what is going on. I see a gun as one door starts to open, so I kick back as hard as I can on my bike, gun it, and tear off through a gas station parking lot.
The second time I'm in an alley putting up some siding and this guy comes walking down. He gets about six feet away and I tell him, 'Stop there. If you come any closer, we're going to have problems.' That's when he draws his pistol. I take $10 out of my pocket, cuz I don't carry my wallet when I'm working, and tell him, 'This is all I've got, so I guess you're gonna have to kill me,' and I put it back in my pocket. I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he just put the gun away and ran off.'
We talk some more about poker, and he offers me some valuable tax advice. Seems he's been getting gouged lately by the IRS. When his daugher was born, he decided he wanted to clean up his record so he sent them a check for back taxes he owed them. His accountant told him it was a terrible idea, and that if hadn't gotten a bill in years he could probably get away without paying, but he wanted to do the right thing. Well, then they came out of the woodwork and started auditing his business, and have hit him up for over $100,000. Talk about your bad beats.
It's about time to get started, so we walk down to the tournament room and wish each other good luck one more time. Today's table is less colorful than my last, probably because as the stakes get higher, everyone gets more serious. To the dealer's left is a guy named Lane. I had searched for his name on the internet and turned up an article from his hometown newspaper about him going to the WSOP. I found this quote from him encouraging: "I just want to make Day 2." I was hoping he'd be playing too tight and I'd be able to run him over, but in fact he had more gamble in him than anyone. He started the day short-stacked and was not reluctant to move all in order to pick up a pot. Still, he is probably the 'soft spot' of the table.
To his left is a guy I will call the jackal. He never really did anything mean, but didn't smile much and had an angular face and Jack Nicholson-esque receding hair line that made him look kind of frightening. He is a tough player who doesn't give up a pot easily and makes some very good reads.
Next is a guy I will call Bob just because he looks like a Bob, friendly but a bit on the oafy side. After me, he is the biggest stack at the table. I am thinking maybe he will be reluctant to risk his whole stack against me, but the first time I re-raise him, he re-re-raises all in and I have to fold. Mostly he just likes going all in, which isn't a bad strategy given his stack and the way the table is playing.
To Bob's left was an older guy who didn't say much or get involved in too many pots.
I don't remember much about the next three players, and I don't think any of them lasted real long. Then comes me, then to my left a real friendly guy from Atlanta named Derek.
There's one other non-memorable guy to his left, then a gaunt, bony, very quiet older man who I think is European, but it's hard to tell because he rarely speaks. He seems to be in a bad mood, and someone from the Rio offers to bring him some Tylenol, so I guess he has a cold or a toothache or something.
Level One, blinds 250/500 with a 50 ante. My gameplan for the day is to come out swinging and use my chiplead to muscle the table and pick up some small pots without a contest, but that doesn't pan out. I don't get the cards for it right off the bat, and the first two times I try it, I end up losing medium sized pots, once after trying to bluff the Jackal (before I knew what a jackal he was!) when he made a great call on me. So I'm not off to a great start, having lost like 15% of my stack, but when I decided on this strategy, I knew that was a possibility and I have enough chips to survive these kinds of swings.
Not long after I get a pair of aces, raise, and end up having two people re-raise all in. I have the best possible hand, so of course I call, and am in great shape against ace-king and ace-queen. I eliminate two players and get back the chiplead at the table.
Then, continuing my streak of winning big pots just before breaks, I get Ace-King, one of the best possible starting hands, the last hand before the first break of the day. I make my usual raise to 1600, and the gaunt European calls from the big blind. The flop comes out A-K-J, giving me top two pair, which is a huge hand in this situation. Best of all, a board like this could also give my opponent a big but second best hand that would allow him to pay me off. So this skeletal old man checks and calls bets of 2000 on the flop, 6000 on the turn, and 12000 on the river. I show my cards and he throws his hand away while I scoop a pot that increases my stack by about 33%.
I go on break with 85K in chips, off to a great start. I had seen my father and brother on the rail looking for me earlier, but couldn't get their attention. I think they didn't recognize me because I was wearing a cap, which I usually don't. They kicked spectators out of the area near me not long after, so they didn't get a chance to see me playing, though it turns out they did watch Phil Ivey, perhaps the best player in the world, for a little while. Apparently, although my brother has had no trouble getting seated at casino poker tables, he is hassled constantly by security at the Rio for being a few months shy of 21, so they don't stick around to watch for long.
Level Two, blinds 300-600 with a 75 ante- Honestly, I don't remember a whole lot of what happened here. I don't play any big pots, but I get away with a bluff re-raise or two, so thanks to Rizen for that insight.
There was a big pot where it was folded all the way around to the Jackal in the small blind. With only one player left to act, he raises with QJ of spades. However, the player left to act is All In Bob, who goes all in. The Jackal thinks about and realizes that even though he is probably behind right now, he isn't likely to be far behind, and there is enough money in the pot and Bob could be doing this with a wide enough range of hands that he can call profitably. So he does call, and Bob has Ace-Ten, but the Jackal pairs his Queen on the river to cripple Bob. I don't like seeing so many chips go to a strong player.
A few hands later, Bob is down to just 5000 chips and is first to act. He declares "All in," then a moment later says, "All in blind," meaning that he is claiming to put his last remaining chips in the pot without looking at his cards. I have no idea whether he is telling the truth or not, but regardless, this could create a profitable situation for me. Sure enough, the quiet old guy to Bob's left calls, meaning there are now about 12,000 chips in the pot. Bob has no more chips left, so he can't fold, but the old guy still has at least 30,000 behind, so if I can get him to fold, I only have to beat Bob's hand for a shot at winning 12,000 chips, and if I don't beat Bob, I only lose 5000. I decide I'm going to raise anything decent, and when I look down Ace-Queen, it's a no-brainer. I make it 20,000 to go, everyone including the old guy folds, and now I just have to beat Bob, who flips over a pair of Queens, one of the best possible hands. I stare at him for a minute. "Were you really all in blind?" I ask him. He says he was, but I still have my doubts. In the end, though, it didn't really hurt me, because I was getting good enough odds to play with him even if I knew what he had.
The real victim was the old guy who had called the all in and folded to my raise, because he just lost 5000 chips with no chance of winning the pot, so he starts insisting that Bob had looked at his cards. Bob swears he didn't, nobody else at the table can say for sure one way or the other, Bob offers to wager $50,000 cash that he didn't look at his cards, his interlocutor says he doesn't have that kind of money but still doesn't believe him, etc, etc. Bob goes out a few hands later and is replaced by a middle-aged man with a grey beard.
Level Three, blinds 400-800 with a 100 ante. I start this level with about 80K. We've got two more new players, both pretty young. The guy two seats to my left is exuding a lot of confidence, but the guy two to my right looks very young, probably just 21, and I hope that he will prove easy to push over. He actually does lose a few medium-sized pots to me, but wow was I wrong about him. Both of these kids turn out to be very high stakes cash game players, sometimes playing as high was 200-400 no limit, a game which would have a $40,000 buy in. So in fact, a $10,000 tournament to them is not really the big potatoes that is to me. Whoops.
I win another big pot this level when the bony European raises from first position (suggestive of a strong hand, since there are still nine players to act behind him) and gets called by Lane. I have a pair of 3's, which I can't really expect to be the best hand right now, but I feel that if I catch a third 3 I could win a very big pot, so I decide to gamble and call them.
The flop is 742, a pretty safe flop for me, as it is unlikely they have either a 7 or a 4. Either could have been dealt a pair, though, so even though they check to me, I don't bet.
The turn is an a Ace, a very bad card for me, as it is very likely that if neither of them had a pair before, then one or both of them just made a pair of aces. They check to me again, and I check behind.
The river is a 5, making a straight for me. Best of all, my hand is well concealed, since 33 is about the only starting hand I could conceivable have that would give me a straight. Skeletor bets 3000, Lane folds, and I try to raise to 13,000, but I accidentally make a 'string bet', meaning I put 10,000 chips in the pot and then try to add 3000 more, which is not allowed. So I am only allowed to bet 10,000, which may be good, since I'm not sure Skeletor would have called 13,000. He calls angrily, knowing he is beaten, and when I show him the 3's, he hurls an Ace and a Queen face up into the muck in disgust. I'm not sure who he is angry at, since he played the hand badly at several points, but whatever.
I've got 95,000 chips when we start our hour and a half dinner break, and am delighted to hear that we've eliminated so many players already that we won't have to play until 4 in the morning. Instead, we'll play one and a half more levels (three more hours) after dinner and be done for the night.
I spot Paul, who I met last night at ESPNZone, because he is like 8'4 and towers over the crowd of thousands. He started the day kind of short but has worked his way up to like 40,000 chips, which I'm glad to hear. He suggest that we grab dinner at the Sao Paolo Cafe, which sounds like it will beat eating pizza while standing over a garbage can, so I follow him.
It's a great place, a sit down restaurant with no line, good food, and reasonable prices. He orders a Turkey Club and I ask for Mediterannean Grilled Salmon. A perky waitress named Courtney scampers off to place our order, and Paul and I get to know each other. He's a thirty-something lawyer who got sick of life at a big firm and now splits his time between poker and 20-30 hours a week defending people who have been illegally hassled by debt collectors. He seems like a really nice, down-to-earth guy, and I'm glad to see that he's in a better mood than he was last night, after getting off to a good start today.
Courtney returns in a panic and asks if we are poker players. She warns us that it will take a while to make the salmon, and would I like them to grill it a little on the rare side so it will be ready sooner? I don't think we're really in that much of a rush (or that it takes all that long to grill a salmon filet), but she seems very concerned about it and I usually like fish less well done anyway, so I give her the green light.
Meanwhile, Rizen and his family sit down in the booth behind me, and he brings his toddler son over to meet us. The kid is adorable, and I'm starting to notice a theme: internet poker has enabled Paul, Rizen, and Bill to earn a decent living without having to compromise time with their families, something that is obviously of great value to all three men. I point this out to Paul, and I tell him my theory that any job that pays you a lot of money wants either your time, your soul, or both. That's very consistent with his experience at a big law firm, but then we start talking about whether poker involves such a sacrifice. Although it can be time-consuming, it does provide convenience and flexibility that can free up time for family. As for your soul, well, there is always the question of who is losing the money you are winning, but Paul, Rizen,and I all make most of our money playing tournaments, which means that we are winning usually $100 or so from many different people rather than several thousand dollars all from the same person, which seems considerably better.
Courtney returns with my medium salmon, which is fantastic, but no turkey club. Apparently it was no longer fresh by the time my salmon was done so she had them make him another one. I don't get the impression that he would have cared, but he thanks her and we wait for the sandwich.
By the time we're done eating, we've got only about 15 minutes before the game starts back up, we're on the opposite side of the casino, and we're still hoping to hit the bathrooms. Thankfully Courtney has anticipated our rush and left us the check. We're ready to leave money on the table but we have to pay up front and there is a line. The two people in front of us, however, see our Poker Stars and Party Poker shirts, and when they find out we are still playing, they let us go ahead of them. The bill comes to $30, but we both drop a twenty, leaving a healthy tip for Courtney because she deserves it.
Just before the end of the break, Paul introduces me to Jason, who may well be the chipleader of the tournament with over 200,000 in chips. He's a well-known high stakes internet player, and, it turns out, a very friendly and well-grounded 21-year old engineering student from Duke University. I had previously read about a $50,000 pot he had lost to an unlucky river card a few weeks ago (yes, he's a 21-year old with a poker bankroll that can absorb a $50,000 loss), so I'm glad to see that he's doing well today.
Level Four- Blinds 500/1000 with a 200 ante. The pot is enormous now, containing 3500 chips before any cards are dealt. We've thinned out most of the dead wood from the table and there are a lot of tough players left, so I know we will be fighting tooth and nail nearly every hand. Unfortunately, I am catching the worst cards I've caught all tournament, and am not able to make much happen.
The Jackal manages to lose a huge pot to Graybeard on his left, which is good for me since the Jackal was a tough player and Graybeard is very predictable. Unfortunately, he's also very tight and has enough money that he's not feeling much pressure and can afford to be patient. It doesn't hurt that he's been dealt Aces at least three times today.
Dinner seems only to have exacerbated the truculent European's foul mood, and it reaches a boiling point when a cute young blonde named Demetria takes over dealing for the table. Skeletor has just called Lane's re-raise all in and lost. He has enough chips that he isn't eliminated, but he is in very bad shape. Demetria reaches over to match up Lane's chips with his, and he snaps at her, "Count dem down."
"What?" Demetria asks, sounding a little hurt and confused.
"Don't stack dee chips. Count dem down!" Skeletor spits back at her.
Looking a little flustered, she releases his chips and counts Lane's, announcing the total to Skeletor, who proceeds to count them himself anyway before passing the requisite amount. Demetria is very popular with the table, so several of us are now getting vocal about our distaste for the ghoulish European and laughing rather blatantly at him, which I'm sure is doing nothing for his mood.
The next dealer to take over is a burly man named Oren, and the guy to my right and I wonder whether Skeletor will be as quick to pick on him. Sure enough, Bones is unhappy with where Oren is dealing his cards to, and when he complains, Oren tells him, "Sorry, buddy, that's where I toss 'em."
So the next time Skeletor goes to fold, he tosses his cards across the table, far from Oren, and says, "How do you like eet? Eet ees eenconvient, right?" Everyone at the table chuckles in disbelief and Oren rolls his eyes.
High stakes kid: Maybe if you had more chips, he could hit them more easily.
Skeletor: What?
HSK: Nothing.
Skeletor: No, what deed you say?
HSK: It's nothing, forget it (as the whole table snickers).
Then, what we've all been waiting for. The first player to act is the same kid, who just calls the blinds for 1000. Derek announces he is all in, and Skeletor quickly calls. The kid calls as well, and when the cards are turned over, the kid has 99, Derek has KT, and Skeletor has AA. Even though Skeletor is way ahead, I just don't feel like the universe is going to let him have this won, and sure enough, the kid makes three of a kind 9's to eliminate Skeletor, who storms off while the whole table laughs and claps. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," I quip.
We break again, and I run into Bill looking dejected. He's out of the tournament thanks to what he thinks was a bad risk. We discuss it, and I assure him that even though it didn't turn out well, I think he played it correctly. He takes a little consolation in that, and then I decide to give him some very valuable advice which I don't usually give out. I tell him about an internet forum that has improved my play one hundred fold and make him promise to check him out. I assure him that if he studies it it will make him thousands of dollars. As a rule, I don't tell people about this site, because it isn't really good for me to help anyone else take money out of the online poker economy, but Bill is kind of a special case. He's been very nice to me all day, beginning with offering me his shirt this morning, and I'm really touched by his dedication to his daughter and the way online poker has enabled him to keep up his playing while still being a good father to her.
On my way back to my seat, I pass the Frenchman and the Greek from Friday, who are both still in, and wish them luck.
Level 5, blinds 600-1200 with a 200 ante- In 18 hours of play, I have grown my starting stack of 10,000 chips to over 90,000, remaining above the average chip count the entire time. Now, in this last hour, I manage to lose 1/3 of my chips and drop below average for the first time all tournament. Not a great end to my day, obviously, but nothing that can't be recovered from.
The situation was this: per the strategy that I'd discussed with Rizen, I had been re-raising people a lot, and had netted probably a few thousands chips as a result (when a steal re-raise goes wrong, it's rather expensive!). However, I'd also started to frustrate the two players to my immediate right, who had taken the brunt of my abuse. Not long ago, high stakes kid had re-re-raised me and I'd had to fold.
So now the guy to my immediate right makes a standard raise to 4500 and I look down at a pair of eights. This is a pretty strong hand, and there are a lot of advantages to re-raising rather than calling with it. However, if I re-raise, I'll have to make it fifteen or twenty thousand, and if this guy goes all in for 60,000+, I'll have a really difficult decision. Moreover, I think he's more likely than usual to do that, given my current image, so I just call. A tight Irish player behind me with about 30,000 chips asks for time, and finally decides to call. The blinds fold, and the flop comes 973, a very good flop for me, as it is unlikely that either of them has a 9 or was dealt a pair of Tens or better to begin with.
The guy to my right bets 5000 into a pot of more than 15,000, which is pretty weak, so I figure I am ahead and raise him to 15,000 (looking over this now, I probably should have raised more). Now the player behind me goes all in for 28,000, and I've got a very bad feeling. The first guy folds, and it will cost me 13,000 more to call into a pot of 67,000. That means that even though I think I am beat, I only have to win one time out of five to show a profit on a call like this, so I call, and he has 44 for three-of-a-kind 4's. I don't think I really played it poorly,it was just an unfortunate situation for me.
There is a concept well-known to all poker players called "Tilt." It takes its name from pinball machines, which players can manipulate by tilting them slightly to the left or right in order to get the ball to go where they want it. However, tilting the machine too hard or too far will cause the machine to realize the player is cheating, at which point the flippers shut down, the game freezes up, and the player can only stare at the letters "TILT!" flashing on the screen as his ball rolls unimpeded past his flippers and out of play.
It's a pretty apt analogy for what can happen even to a very good poker player who makes a mistake or has some bad luck. Something snaps inside of his head, his frustration overwhelms his judgment, and he starts making bad decisions. He might make a bad bluff or a bad call in a desperate attempt to win back lost money and "undo" a mistake. All players have to struggle with 'tilt control', because while mistakes and bad luck happen to everyone, it is important not to let one bad decision spiral into many more. There is no way to get back money lost to poor play or just plain bad luck, so all you can do is shake it off and move on.
I wish I could say I have such a zen-like mindset, and when I'm at my best I do, but I find it very frustrating that after a grueling day of poker, during which I felt I had played quite well, I am back to where I started at the beginning of the day thanks to one close (not necessarily bad) decision on my part and some bad luck. I feel the frustration welling up, I feel myself tilting, and I am just not confident that I can tamp it down and move on. So I decide the best thing to do would be to back off, avoid close decisions, marginal situations, and bluffs for a little while, and just wait out the last half hour of the day rather than risk compounding my mistakes by playing a lot of hands with a bad mindset.
So I finish the day at 59,300 chips, exactly 2000 chips ahead of where I started, and now substantially below the average stack, which is around 75,000. I'm kind of disappointed, but it all gets put into perspective when I run into Paul, who has made his way up to 55,000 chips after starting the day with less than half that. He is thrilled with his performance, and I find it interesting that we finished the day in pretty much the same situation, but feel so differently about it. The truth is that no matter how we got to the point where we are now, whether we went up and then down (like I did) or down and then up (like he did), we just have to play the situation we are in now.
So I head over to my new table to drop off my chips and scope out the competition. To my immediate right is a world-class professional named Annie Duke, considered the best female player in the world and one of the best players of any gender. I am happy to see I have her covered, though barely, as she has only 57,000 chips. The other stacks at the table range from 5500 to 291,000, with most having somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000. In addition to Duke, there is at least one more player with a WSOP bracelet (he won one of the no limit hold 'em events earlier this year) and a few players who made the top 150 at last year's tournament. I'm not expecting the table to be easy, but frankly I was expecting to run into some pretty solid players if I made this far in the WSOP anyway. In fact, while there are obvious disadvantages to sitting with a great player like Duke, if I never got to play with a big name pro, I would have left Vegas feeling like I had missed out on something. I hope that I'll be able to learn a few things from playing with her for a while, and especially since we are starting in very similar seats at the table and with very similar chip counts, I'll be curious to see how her strategy differs from mine.
I'm really not sure how to approach Day 3. 1159 players will begin play on Friday, and the person finishing 874th will win nothing (actually, I heard a rumor that he will win entry into next year's main event and a year's supply of Milwaukee's Best Light, if you consider that part of the prize and not a cruel joke, so maybe it is more accurate to say that 875th will win nothing) and 873rd will win $14,500. So there will be an interesting dynamic as we approach the "bubble": some players will play very tight and try to fold their way into the money, others will try to bully the tight ones, and still others will try to re-bully the bullies. I think I'm going to have to observe my table and try to get a sense of who's who and how well each individual understands this dynamic before I try to make any moves. My stack is still large enough to give me some breathing room, but if I lose one more medium-sized pot, I'll be in the danger zone, so I'd like to wait for a pretty good spot before sticking my neck out for the first time.
Paul is heading back to the MGM, which is right across the street from the Monte Carlo, so we split a cab. He tells me he is thinking of flying home to spend a night or two at home with his wife and young daughter before competing again on Friday. He's a little concerned about flying in Friday morning (he lives in California) in case he gets delayed or something, but I tell him it is probably worth it even if he comes back Thursday night. I've definitely found it stressful to be in a strange city and hotel room for so long, away from my girlfriend and my own bed, and I envy him the opportunity. Even if it costs him a couple hundred dollars, given the amount of money that is on the line right now, it is probably worth it even from a purely financial standpoint.
I get into the elevator at the Monte Carlo and hold the door for two rather drunk young women who look like maybe they are not the brightest crayons in the box even when sober. Lance Burton regales us with his amazing card trick, and the first girl says, "I want to see that. We should see that," to which the other responds, "I know, how does he do that? I choose a different card each time, and every time, he guesses it."
WSOP 2006 Day 3
About 1150 players begin play today, and 873 will win a prize. Obviously no one wants to finish 874th, and so an interesting dynamic will develop: some players, especially those with the fewest chips, will tighten up considerably, passing up even rather favorable opportunities for fear of going home empty-handed. Others, perhaps more knowledgeable or just less in need of the "small" $14,500 prizes to be paid to the first players eliminated inside of the money 'bubble', will prey on the fear of these short stacks. Still others will look for opportunities to 're-steal' from aggressive players whom they perceive to be picking on the ones trying to fold their way into the money.
So where does this leave me, with a below average but still comfortable stack of 59,300 chips? I'm just not sure. I came into this tournament telling myself that I would be cavalier about the small prizes, willing to push small edges and risk going home empty-handed in the hopes of accumulating chips and maybe, just maybe, taking home a massive prize. I know that this isn't just greed or recklessness but good tournament strategy.
But the truth is that $14,500 is a lot of money to me, and now that we are approaching the bubble, I'm more nervous than I've been all tournament. When push comes to shove, will I really be able to risk it all? I'm going to be playing with some world-class players, people who have won big tournaments like this before. I feel like they will take one look at me and peg me for what I am: a kid who coughed up a couple hundred bucks to take a shot at this tournament and is now within sight of the biggest score of his life. I imagine worst-case scenarios where these pros make some extravagant bluff, and I, suspecting that my hand is good but unwilling to risk it all, am forced to make weak fold after weak fold.
But maybe I can use this to my advantage. I've already decided that, with my stack size, I can't afford to lose another medium-sized pot. That means I can't be as loose and aggressive as I've been so far. I need to have a stronger than average hand the next time I get involved, and I need to win some chips early to give myself some breathing room.
I decide the best thing for me to do is to play tight early on, assess the table, and wait for some good cards that will enable me to win a small to medium-sized pot with little risk. Then, having established a reputation as an inexperienced internet player, I'll pick a spot or two to pull off a big bluff, and those pros will never see it coming!
With game plan in mind, it's time to address some essentials: I've eaten all the animal crackers that I bought to sustain me between breaks and the only razor blade I brought with me is going dull. I walk next door to the CVS and buy more of both. I hit the hay around 12:30AM, wake at 9AM, shower, and lather up my face. The new razorlades are nowhere to be found. I don't know I managed to lose my CVS bag in a tiny hotel room, but it is gone gone gone and I am going to be late late late if I don't get my act together. I'm tempted to skip shaving altogether, but I think there is a fair chance that I will show up on TV today, since I've drawn a seat next to professional poker player Annie Duke, one of ESPN's favorites. So I bite the bullet and shave with a dull blade, getting close enough that I won't look too scruffy but not so close that I nick myself frequently.
I've heard rumors that I'm only contractually obligated to wear one piece of Poker Stars gear, so I decide to test this theory by donning a Boston Debate League T-Shirt. If I do get on TV today, I'd really like for the League to get some exposure, and if someone from Stars says something, I've got a shirt I can put over it.
I arrive at the Rio around 10:45 AM and head to the Poker Stars hospitality suite to get some coffee and a muffin. There's not much happening inside, so I wander the halls, taking in the sights and making a few phone calls. I spot Rizen (a top-ranked online pro I mentioned in my last update) and chat with him for a minute about the upcoming day. My confidence is buoyed by the fact that his advice is the same conclusion I've already drawn: just make sure you win the next pot you play, and you'll be fine. And it is REALLY buoyed by the next thing he tells me: "You know as much about poker as Annie Duke does. Just play your game."
Feeling a little more confident, I head into the convention room, flash my player card at the security guard, and look for my table. On the loudspeaker, the tournament director is making some announcements: "If you are at Table 49 or Table 50, you have been re-assigned. Please take your assigned seat at Table 173 or 174. If you are at table 189, you are at the ESPN Feature Table. Please make your way to the front of the room."
I freeze. I double-check my seat card. Sure enough, I'm at Table 189. Good thing I shaved. I push through a crowd of spectators and show my card to another security guard who lets me onto a small stage in the front of the room. In the center is a large poker table brightly lit from above. It is surrounded by cameras, and people in headsets are scurrying around. One of them grabs me and starts to put his hand down my pants. "Got to get you mic'ed up," he explains, clipping a battery pack to my waist band, running a wire up the inside of my shirt, and then taping a tiny microphone to my collar.
I take my seat, pass my seat card and photo ID to the dealer, and start to stack my chips. The techie stops me. "You're blocking the camera." He points to a small dot on the table. "This is where your camera is. You need to keep this area clear of chips." This table has 9 cameras built around its perimeter that will allow viewers to see the hand of every player at the table. When I look at my cards, I have to be sure to do so in a way that will enable the camera to "see" them as well. Great, I needed one more thing to think about.
The other players arrive, get their microphones on, and take their seats. To my left is a friendly guy named Paul with a stack even shorter than mine. To his left is another short-stack named Shane, then a guy about the same size as me in a Party Poker shirt.
To his left is a guy who looks like a New Yorker but turns out to be from Seattle. He's wearing a sports jacket and baseball cap and chewing aggressively on a wad of gum. He looks like he will be annoying, but actually turns out to be pretty nice and a strong player.
To his left is an older guy who is one of the tightest players I have ever played with. It seems like he never enters the pot without a super-strong hand, and everyone picks up on that right away.
Next to him is a young kind in designer sunglasses, with Activision and XBox logos emblazoned all over him. He's sitting on a monstrous stack of 250,000 chips.
To his left is Mark Vos, who has been described to me as "an aggressive young Australian pro who has already won a WSOP preliminary event." He's wearing a Full Tilt Poker shirt with the top several buttons undone and his hair is toussled. A goofy grin is plastered on his face, and it looks like he will be a lot of fun, though probably a tough opponent.
Last but certainly not least is Annie Duke, sister of well-known pro Howard Lederer and no slouch at the tables herself. She's a mother of four, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. She looks young, pretty, and rebellious, with torn jeans that ride low on her hips, exposing a sprawling tattoo across her lower back.
Level 11, blinds 600-1200 with a 100 ante. On one of my first hands at the table, five players fold and Annie raises to 3600 frome late position. With only three players left to act behind her, she doesn't need much of a hand to do this, but I am really not looking to get involved yet. I look down and see an Ace and a 9, both spades. This is definitely not the strong hand I'm supposed to be waiting for, but it's a hand that should play well against the wide range of hands Annie could be raising with. I call.
The flop comes out A98 with two clubs, giving me top two pair, a huge hand. Annie bets 5000, which I think she would do with almost anything, but this is no time to get fancy. There are a lot of ways for her to make a straight or a flush later in the hand, and my goal right now is to maximize my chances of winning a medium-sized pot, which this one already is. But I've got a huge hand here, and I obviously want to win as much as I can.
I announce "raise" and start fumbling with my chips. Nervousness is kicking in, and I am literally forgetting how to count. I grab a stack of pink chips, each worth 500, and try to count of 15000 total. I make three stacks of ten, then three more, then pile them all up into one big stack and look at it. It looks to big, so I count it again. Yep, 60 chips worth 500 each is 15000. I shove them into the pot. Annie folds quickly and looks at me like I am crazy, and only then do I realize I have actually raised to 30000. My face burns as I scoop the pot and stack the chips. Hopefully that one won't be interesting enough to make it onto ESPN. At least I accomplished my goal of winning the first pot I entered.
Not long after, everyone folds around to Annie in the small blind, and she raises to 4000. I find Jack-8, not generally a strong hand but I'm the only player left to act, so this is a great stealing opportunity for Annie, and I don't want her to make this a habit. So I call. The flop is T95, giving me a pretty good draw to a straight. She bets 6000 and I call. The turn is a Jack, giving me top pair. She checks, and I decide to check as well, in order to keep the pot small and maybe let her bluff on the end. The river is an 8, which I am not happy to see, even though it gives me two pair. If Annie has a Queen or a 7, she now has a straight. Thankfully she checks. I contemplate betting, but in the end I just turn my hand over and she mucks her cards, giving me a kind of annoyed look, like she doesn't think I should have called her. Oh well.
The next time Annie raises, I fold and she smiles at me. "Oh come on, I thought you were coming along for sure." So much for building up a tight image.
Level 12, blinds 800-1600 with a 200 ante.
XBox just calls in early position, which he does kind of frequently. I'm contemplating a bluff raise, but find a legitimate raising hand instead. I make it 7500 and he folds.
I don't play another hand for the first hour of this level, at which point we have our first break.
XBox raises to 4000, which he's been doing quite a lot, and Annie just calls him, which is strange for her. Mark and Xbox on her immediate right have been raising quite a lot, and she's re-raised both of them several times, so I figure she doesn't have that great of a hand. And XBox raises a lot, so again, he doesn't need a big hand. This is the opportunity I've been waiting for to take advantage of how these two likely perceive me and pull off a big bluff. A re-raise should enable me to win the pot right away a good amount of the time, but if I'm wrong, I'll have lost 20% of my stack. I force myself to utter "raise" in my most confident voice and CORRECTLY count out 15000 chips. Everyone folds and I take down a pretty substantial pot.
I'm so relieved to have taken the pot that I'd really like to just sit back for a few hands, but it's not meant to be. Just a few hands later, Mark raises to 3600 from early position and I find myself with Ace-King, a very strong starting hand but one that usually needs to be 'protected' before the flop with a re-raise. I make it 10,000 and Mark calls. The flop comes Jack-6-4, he checks, and I am trying my best not to cringe. Without an Ace or King on the flop, I don't have so much as a pair. But this is a huge pot, with more than 25,000 chips in it, and I just can't afford to give it up without a fight. I force myself to bet 15,000. Mark stares at me hard and starts asking me questions, "Why such a small re-raise? (he's right, I should have made it 12,000 at least)" while I try my best to stare blankly into the crowd. My heart is pounding so hard that I would swear he could feel the vibrations in the table, and it's all I can do to keep my breathing measured.
Finally, he says, "I'm folding an overpair," and mucks his hand. I'm floored. If he's telling the truth, he just folded a pair of queens, which means he figured me for either kings or aces. That means my plan panned out exactly as I hoped it would: he assumed I was a predictable player who would only re-raise with the strongest possible hands. I'm about to throw my hand away when he says, "I'll give you $100 to see your cards." I smile and pass my cards to dealer, thinking he is kidding, but the dealer doesn't mix them back into the deck.
"He's offering you $100, sir." Is this really allowed?
"You'll see it on TV," I tell him, and if he really folded Queens, then ESPN probably will air the hand. At this point, I've got him thinking I'm not capable of a bluff, and that image is worth a lot more than $100.
Now I REALLY just want to crawl into a shell and sit out for a little while, but it still is not to be. XBox calls the blinds for 1600, Mark makes it 6000, and I find Ace-King again. I'm terrifed to re-raise Mark again, because I just don't want to play another big pot with Ace-King right now, so I decide to just call him this time. If XBox calls too, then I can afford to fold any time I don't make a pair on the flop, since I will win a pretty sizable pot most of the time that I do.
XBox folds, but the flop is a beautiful Ace-deuce-deuce, giving me a near-certain best hand. Everyone checks to me and I check as well, seeing no danger in giving Mark a free card. The turn is a 5, and Mark checks again. I bet 10,000 and he calls. The river is a 7, he checks and calls 20,000. I show the AK and he mucks. Wow, I am off to a great start!
Mark's chip count is now low enough that he believes he can stack all of his remaining chips into one tall tower. Annie tells him that the felt on the table is too spongy to support it, and sure enough he gets about 60 chips into the tower before it all comes crashing down. They both laugh as Mark retrieves his chips.
We go on break at some point in here and I see my friend Paul sitting outside with a brunette who is frankly way out of his league. I know he was planning on going home to California during our two days off to see his family, so I greet him with a "Hey, Paul, is this that cocktail waitress you were telling me about?"
"Very funny," he answers as he introduces me to his wife of twelve years. He's still in and getting quite short, but now in spitting distance from $14,500. Unfortunately I don't have much time to talk, as I need to get back early to get my microphone on, etc.
Level 13, blinds 1K/2K with 200 ante.
We've got only about 25 players left to go until we are in the money, and I'm sitting on a good 130,000 chips, feeling very comfortable and confident now. Mark has gotten pretty short but is still raising aggressively when the even shorter stacks are in the blinds. He makes it 7000 from late position and I find Ace-Ten in the small blind. I raise 28,000 more, putting him all in, and he folds. Even though he's up a couple hundred thousand dollars from his win in the preliminary event, I don't imagine he is eager to bust out so near another $14K.
There are not less than 20 players to go, and the tournament director announces that we will play "round for round", meaning that every table will play nine hands, with each player paying the big blinds once and the small blind once, and then pause to wait for all other tables to finish. All players who go out during this sequence of nine hands will be considered to finish in the same place. In other words, if players 876-872 are eliminated during this 'round', then the five of them will share the two $14,500 prizes for 873rd and 872nd place. This prevents anyone from stalling in the hopes that players will be eliminated before them at other tables. Well, it prevents most people from doing this. Some just don't understand and insist on stalling anyway.
The 'bubble' bursts and we all have $14.5K locked up. There will likely be a lot of short stacks who will go out quickly now that they have made it into the money. Also, the director has announced that players will no longer be allowed to wear IPOD's or other headphones, so Mark takes his off and integrates into the fort he is building with his chips. I glance over and see that Paul has made it into the money. The next time I look, though, he is gone. That's poker.
A shortish player moves all-in for like 28K and I find Q's in the SB. He's got AT and my hand holds up, putting me well above average with about 150K.
XBox raises to 6000 from first position, which generally is suggestive of a strong hand. However, the player in the big blind is the very tight old guy, meaning that this might also be a steal. I am contemplating a bluff re-raise, and when I find Ace-Queen, it's a no-brainer. I make it 20,000, and then something ugly happens. The very, very tight player who only plays monster hands re-re-raises all in. Ugh. XBox folds and I look at the odds I am getting from the pot. There is 77,000 in the pot and it will cost me 27,000 to make the call. There's no way I'm ahead, but if I win a little more often than one time out of four, I'll show a profit with this call. If he has Ace-King, a pair of Jacks, a pair of Queens, or even a pair of Kings I have the right odds to call. The only hand I won't beat often enough is a pair of Aces. I call. He turns over a pair of Aces. Ugh. It is so frustrating to work so hard for my chips while this guy folds everything and still manages to get paid off when he does pick up a monster hand. I know his strategy is a long-term loser, but I'm still annoyed by his short-term success.
XBox just calls the blinds again, and I decide it is time to put a move on him. This will be the second time I've raised him, so he's probably going to call, which I means I don't want to do it with absolutely nothing. But if I get any kind of hand that will play well in position, I'm going to raise. I find Jack-Ten and that will do nicely. I make it 11,000, he calls. The flop is 974, not bad for me, as even though I only have Jack-high right now an 8 will give me a straight and a Jack or Ten will give me top pair. Plus I have represented a big hand so far and a bet now may win it for me. Nope. He checks and calls 16,000. The turn is a meaningless deuce. Ugh, this pot is really big now and I still have just Jack high. I've fired two big bets at it already, am I really going to keep firing at it? I only have like 60,000 chips left, so if I bet again and he goes all in, I will probably have to call, since there may be as many as ten cards that could make me the best hand. I decide to check and hopefully catch something on the river. I don't make my hand, but I do catch a ray of hope when an Ace falls and XBox checks again. When I raised him, I "should" have had either a big pair (Jacks, Queens, etc.) or two big unpaired cards like Ace-King or Ace-Queen. He probably expects me to bet any of those on the 9-7-4 flop, so he can call with any pair, since more often than not I'll just have Ace-high (or Jack-high, in this case). So when I check the turn, the big pairs become a lot less likely, which means he probably expects me to have AK or AQ. So maybe, just maybe, he will fold if I bet now. If I'm wrong, I'll have lost about 80% of my stack on this bluff and be left crippled with barely 30,000 chips. But the pot is just too big to give up without a fight. I bet 25,000 and he sighs. "I played this terribly," he tells me. "You must have Ace-King," and he throws his hand away. Thank God.
A few hands later, Annie Duke manages to get all of her chips in the pot with only a 5% chance of winning, but she catches a miracle card on the river to win a big pot. She is very apologetic to the player whom she beat, and he takes it well. She's got a little cadre of fans whom she claims not to know, and she is clearly embarassed when they start cheering for her. She knows she didn't deserve to win that pot and feels bad that all of these people are cheering her anyway.
I had heard some gossip about Annie, that she can be whiney or snooty and will try to take advantage of technicalities and use them to her advantage, but so far she's been nothing but friendly and polite. The only indication I get that she might be a little demanding is when a new player, an Asian man wearing an elaborate vest with dozens of dangling coins on it, sits down in the seat on my left. He makes a jingling sound every time he moves that, admittedly, is a little annoying. A minute later, Annie calls over a floor person and speaks with him briefly, I can't tell what she is saying. A few minutes after that, someone from the tournament tells the man he needs to remove his vest because it is distracting other players. I don't know for a fact, but it sure looks like Annie is the one who complained about this. I don't see why it's such a big deal if his vest makes noise, but if it is really distracting you, just ask him to remove it yourself. Calling over a floorperson and having him ask seems kind of petty and immature.
The next time Annie wins a pot, her fans start chanting "Annie! Annie!".
Annie: I'm sorry, everyone, really. I think that's so obnoxious.
Me: They're cheering for you?
Annie: Yeah, but I don't know them.
Me: Oh, I thought they were saying "Andy! Andy!"
Annie: Why would they cheer for you? All you did was fold.
Me: Well, it was a good fold.
Level 15, blinds 1500-3000 with a 300 ante.
It seems like it wouldn't be the last level of the day at the WSOP without me losing a big pot. Annie raises to 9000 from first position, which means she probably has some kind of hand. I have 90,000 chips and a pair of Kings, the second best possible hand. I contemplate re-raising her, but I think that will do too much to announce the strength of my hand, so I just call. The flop is an ugly Ace-Queen-4. There's a decent chance Annie has an Ace, meaning that my Kings are no good, and even if she doesn't have one, she will probably try to represent it. We both check. The turn is a 9, and she bets 14,000. I think she would do this with absolutely anything, so I call. The river is another 4, and she bets 20,000. Ugh. There is 53,000 in the pot already, so if she bluffs here with any frequency, I have to call her. I call, and she has Ace-King, giving her a pair of Aces.
The next hand, she is in the big blind (meaning that she has been forced to bet 3000 chips without looking at her hand), and the player against whom she got lucky raises. "Are you just doing that because you're mad at me?" she asks.
"No, Annie, he's doing it because he wants to play a pot with someone who is bad enough to put all her chips in with just a 5% chance of winning," Mark quips. It's even funnier if you imagine him saying it with a British accent (although he lives in Australia, he was apparently born in South Africa).
At the end of the day, I ask Annie if she would mind discussing our big pot for a minute. She's happy to oblige, and I explain to her my thought process. Although she didn't exactly say she would have played it the same, she agreed that my thinking was correct and that she will bluff the river often enough to make a call profitable. In fact, she told me that she played it the way she did precisely so that I would pay her off with a pair of Kings. Nice hand, Annie. Painful as it was to lose this pot, this is the kind of education I was hoping to get by playing with a well-known pro like her. Hopefully it will make me money in the long run. Annie also told me that if I re-raised her, we would have gotten all the money in before the flop. That means that I would have gotten all of my money in as a favorite, but lost anyway, so in some sense, not re-raising probably made me about $20,000, even though it's what I would have done if I knew what cards she had.
I win the blinds a few more times and finish the day with 66,500 chips, having accumulated barely 7000 since the beginning of the day, despite what I considered to be some pretty good play on my part. Oh well, that's poker. At least I'm up $20,000 for the day!
WSOP 2006 Day 4
Jim McManus? I'm a big fan. In 2000, Jim was a poker enthusiast teaching creative writing at the Art Institute of Chicago. He got an assignment with Harper's to write a story about women at the World Series of Poker and flew out to Las Vegas to cover the event, but ended up spending his entire advance trying to win a seat in the tournament, which he eventually did. He went on to make the final table, win $247,760 (many fewer players competed in 2000- this year the top 12 competitors will all be millionaires), and chronicle the entire trip in a best-selling book called "Positively Fifth Street" ('fifth street' is another name for 'the river', the final card dealt in Texas Hold 'Em). It's a great read, especially for poker players, and I've been very consciously mimicing his style in these updates. In fact, someone suggested that I publish them under the title "Positively Better Than That McManus Book". Unfortunately Jim doesn't have time to talk, but he leaves his e-mail address with all of us and nearly begs us to send him detailed accounts of our experiences with bluffing.
That's pretty exciting, but right now I need to figure out my strategy for the day. The bad news is that the blinds start at 2000/4000 with a 400 ante, meaning that my stack of 66,500 will last only about 54 hands unless I make a move. I am getting to the point where I can no longer afford to play a pot for anything less than my entire stack, because once I commit any meaningful number of chips to the pot, it will be too large for me to give up on. But there is some good news, too. First, I have enough chips that I can be a little choosy about when I will commit them all, and second, I have so much experience playing fast-action online tournaments that I pretty much know what I am doing with a stack of this size.
This is probably a good time to explain a rift in poker culture that I've been hinting at for a while now. Ever since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 Main Event (not 2004, as I mistakenly reported earlier), there has been an explosion of poker playing on the internet, and each year more and more people like me, who can count on one hand the number of times they have played live poker at a casino, pony up a few hundred dollars for a shot at poker's most coveted title. Decades ago, the quintessential professional poker players had names like Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim. They would leave home for days at a time, driving across Texas to play in every big (illegal) game there was. They couldn't afford to be selective about the players with whom they played or the games they were playing. Making a living at poker required a willingness to play any variant of the game at any stakes and to endure long road trips, armed robbery, and sporadic bankruptcy.
Nowadays, there are thousands of professional or semi-professional players on the internet. Most are young, in college or recently graduated, but some are still in high school and others have forsaken college altogether. They can find a game of virtually any form of poker at almost any stakes (from $.01/.02, with a minimum buy-in of $.20, to $200/$400, with a minimum buyin of $4000) whenever they want to play. For instance, I focus on playing No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournaments, and whether I want to play a $10 tournament or a $100 tournament, I can find one starting somewhere on the internet in the next 5 minutes. These internet pros, some of whom have up to 16 tables open at once on four big-screen, high resolution computer monitors, can play in a year or two as many hands of poker as a Texas road gambler might have played in his entire life.
Although some people who have made a living for decades playing live poker now play on the internet and some internet stars have made a big splash on the live poker scene, a gulf continues to exist between these two cultures. But at the main event of the World Series of Poker, our worlds collide.
In any poker tournament, the size of the blinds and antes dictates how aggressively competitors must play. Generally, deeper stacks require more skill, as there are more decisions to be made. At the world series, the size of the blinds increases every two hours, guaranteeing a lot of room to maneuver in the early stages and ensuring that the tournament lasts for two weeks. In a typical online tournament, the blinds increase every 10-15 minutes, so that only the largest tournaments last more than a few hours. Internet players like myself, accustomed to these rapidly increasing blinds, have evolved a very aggressive style of play. We raise, re-raise, and move all-in very aggressively, knowing that we cannot afford to pass up even small edges and that if we happen to get unlucky, there is always another tournament starting any minute.
Those accustomed to live play tend to be more cautious and conservative. There is only one WSOP main event every year, so they tend to guard their 'tournament life' carefully, reluctant to risk it even when they believe they have a small edge. You may have noticed that whenever I described an older player at my table, I almost invariably described him as a 'tight' or 'conservative' player who, in my opinion, folded too often and didn't raise nearly enough. These players have their own stereotypes of online players, who are sometimes derogatorily referred to as "internet donkeys":
1) We are too loose and aggressive, bluffing too often and calling raises with hands that more conservative players consider garbage. In most internet tournaments, it is rarely correct to fold if you have the third, fourth, or even fifth best possible hand. In deep-stacked tournaments like the World Series, there are more occasions where a good player can correctly fold even the second best possible hand.
2) We lack class. We are likely to cheer or celebrate obnoxiously when we win a big pot, even if we won it through luck rather than skillful play. I've been careful to avoid doing this, but I've seen plenty of it.
3) We aren't familiar with the ethics and rules of live play. Accustomed to seeing our cards as soon as they are dealt, we sometimes look at them before it is our turn to act and inadvertently broadcast our intentions, affecting the decisions of those acting before us. We put chips into the pot without verbally announcing our intentions, meaning we are sometimes forced to call when we meant to raise or raise when we meant to call (a mistake I've made more than once). We 'slowroll', meaning that even if we expect we have the best hand, we tend to wait for our opponents to show their cards because this is information we are accustomed to having, even though this is considered rude in live play (I did do this intentionally once, for the purpose of further frustrating an already frustrated player).
In short, internet players tend to overplay their medium-strength hands and otherwise fail to adapt to the deeper structure of large buy-in live tournaments like the WSOP. Up until now, that has been a handicap, but at this stage of the tournament the blinds and antes have reached a stage that really is comparable to the later stages of an internet tournament, and now it is time for us internet donkies to shine. There is a mathematically correct strategy when your only option is to fold or raise all-in, and it relates to the number of players left to act behind you, the likelihood of each calling you, the size of the pot, and the number of chips you have remaining. Although I don't have the math down cold, I have a much better feel for it than the average live player, and I expect to use that to my advantage.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time describing my tables today, because I wasn't at either one for too long. My first table was a great one for me: the average stack size was about half the average for the tournament as a whole, which means it will be easier for me to get away with moving all in to pick up the blinds and antes without being called. The most colorful character at the table is AJ Shulman, the wife of Cardplayer magazine founder Barry Shulman and co-owner of the magazine. She's been around the world of cards for a long time and seems to know what she is doing, but she is even shorter than I am, so she is not much of a threat to me. She's a vivacious woman, probably in her 50's, loud and talkative but also friendly and mostly good-humored, except for when she is unhappy about how some detail of how the tournament is being run.
She is sitting to the immediate left of the dealer, with whom we are talking before the tournament director gives the order to "shuffle up and deal". I've heard a lot of complaints from the dealers about how Harrah's has been treating them, both with regard to their pay (Harrah's claimed at one point that staff would bet getting 3% of the prize pool, but it sounds like the actual number is 1.5%), their accomodations (many have traveled from casinos around the country to deal this event, and have had to handle travel and lodging expenses out of pocket), their training, and the respect they are generally afforded by management. Apparently, they are also not allowed to have any food or drink while they are at the table or even during their breaks. We end up devising a plan whereby I order a coffee from the cocktail waitress and pass it to AJ, who places it on the floor next to her so that the dealer can surreptitiously sip on it.
Unfortunately, AJ is not destined to be with us for long. There is a raise and a re-raise in front of her, and she shouts, "Come on Aces, show me Aces!", shuffles her two cards a few times, taps them, blows on them, and finally peeks at them. "All in" she announces. Both players call, and the flop comes out Ace-Queen-Four. One player bets, the other folds, and now that it is heads up, AJ and the other player can turn over their cards. AJ reveals a pair of Kings, the second-best hand she could have hoped for. Her opponent was dealt a pair of Queens, way behind AJ before the flop but now way ahead with three-of-a-kind. AJ has only a 5% chance of improving, and she does not, meaning that she has been eliminated in a most unlucky way. I've seen players handle poor fortune in a wide variety of ways, from cursing their luck to cursing their own play to berating the play of their opponents to calmly saying "nice hand" and tapping the table, but AJ's response was unique. She shakes the hand of everyone at the table, then sticks her tongue out at the player who eliminted her and blows a very genuine raspberry (I was sitting next to him and could see the mist) before wishing everyone good luck.
A few hands later, I am dealt the coveted pair of Aces. It is tempting to make a small raise and try to invite action, but I decide to play it like I would any other hand and just move all in. This may actually be perceived as weakness by someone who understands good late-game tournament strategy, and regardless, if everyone folds, I can show the hand and hopefully earn some respect for future all-in steals I have to make. Sure enough, everyone folds, and I show my Aces to the table. A few hands later, I re-raise all-in with Ace-Jack over someone's raise and he says, "Aces again?" before folding, so it seems like my plan worked.
I don't get a lot of mileage out of this play, though, because not long after, our entire table gets broken down and we are scattered across the room. I am moved to a new table with Jason (very strong 21-year old player mentioned in an earlier e-mail) who now has about 700,000 chips, another high stakes player I played with for a while on Day 2, and a few more very strong players with mountains of chips in front of them. The blinds and antes quickly eat away at my stack and before long I am down to just 50,000 chips. I haven't had any good stealing opportunities, and have been waiting very patiently, maybe too patiently. It hasn't been completely in vain, because in the time I have waited players have been dropping like flies and I have been slowly climbing the pay scale, now having about $30,000 wrapped up. Still, while I know that the correct strategy is to focus on accumulating chips and not focusing on these small increases in prize money, a few thousands dollars is really not small to me and I am a little more inclined towards patience than I would be if the stakes weren't so high.
In one moment of particularly poor judgment, I am in the big blind, forced to put up nearly 10% of my stack blind, and five players just call the blinds, meaning that the size of the pot is now very nearly the size of my stack. The correct play here is to go all in and hopefully get it heads up with just one player and a giant overlay from all of the dead money in the pot, and I am ready to do this, but then I look at my cards and see Ace-Deuce. Anyone who calls me will probably have either a pair or a better Ace, meaning that I would actually be in better shape with a hand like Ten-Nine, which would at least give me two live cards. I chicken out, check, and fold to a bet. I asked Jason about this hand later, and he said I shouldn't even have looked at my hand, but just gone all in.
My next time in the big blind, six players fold before someone finally raises. I have a pair of 5's, and figure this is the best chance I am going to get. "All in," I announce, and the raiser smirks, realizing he is priced in to call me with whatever garbage he was trying to steal with. He turns over a 9 and and a 6 is pleasantly surprised to see that with two overcards to my pair, he is nearly 50% to win the pot. My hand holds up, though, and I get a much needed double up. This marks the first time the entire tournament that I could have been eliminated, being all in against a player who had more chips than I did.
I'm sitting almost immediately behind Humberto Brenes, a Costa Rican pro famous (or notorious, depending on who you ask) for his over-the-top antics. Needless to say, the cameras love him. He is using a toy shark to protect his cards (it is a player's obligation to be sure the dealer does not accidentally muck his hand and that his cards do not become confused with anyone else's, so most put something on top of their cards to protect them) and explaining to his table that it is not he but his friend the shark (also named Humberto) making all of the decisions at the table. Any time he calls someone's all in, he stands up and shouts "Humberto huuuuuuungry! Humberto huuuuuuuuuuuungry!" repeatedly, and sometimes the shark travels across the table to devour and retrieve the chips he has won. These days, being a pro is as much about marketing as it as about playing poker.
I go into the break with over 100,000 chips, still not a lot of breathing room but a big improvement over the 70,000 I started with. I run into Rizen and learn that he is up over 500,000. As much of a minefield as these huge tournaments are, it is very reassuring to see great players doing well, especially people as nice and deserving as Eric (his real name). He tells me some stories about how bad the play is at his table, and I am extremely jealous, because mine is tough tough tough.
Level ? (lost count), blinds 2500/5000 with a 500 ante. Even with 100,000 chips, I am still in desperation mode, able to afford less than ten times around the table. I keep my head above the water with some steals and re-steals, get dealt Kings once but just take the blinds (which is not trivial, at this stage), and then finally see a big starting hand in Ace-King. There is a raise in front of me, and I re-raise all in. My blood runs cold, however, when Jason looks down at his cards and announces "all in". He's seen a raise and a re-raise in front of him, and is still willing to go all in? Thankfully, he turns over Ace-King as well and we chop the pot. Phew, that could have been bad.
Then I finally run into a good spot. Jason opens from first position for 15,000 and the high stakes kid calls him. I have nearly 130,000 chips at this point and am dealt a pair of Aces. Again, I am tempted to make a smaller raise, but these are two very smart players and both seem to have some kind of hand to raise from first position and to call a first position raise. I've been going all in a lot, so a smaller raise might around suspicion. Besides, while I'd badly like to double up again, taking down the 50,000 chips currently in the pot would not be a bad result either. I announce "all in" and they both fold, taking me up to 180,000 chips.
What happens next is perhaps the most painful thing I have ever witnessed in my time playing poker. Jason raises to 15,000, and another player with a huge stack re-raises to 75,000 from the small blind. Jason announces "All in" for 400,000 more and the other player calls fairly quickly. Jason turns over a pair of Aces, the best possible hand, and the other guy has Ace-King of spades. There are nearly one million chips in the pot, making this probably the largest pot played so far in this tournament. These chips represent the combined fortunes of 100 players who entered this tournament but have not survived this far. Jason is an 87.23% favorite to win, and winning would likely give him more chips than any of the roughly 300 players who remain.
It is hard to convert tournament chips into an exact dollar figure for a player's equity at a particular moment in the tournament. Before play began, everyone had paid $10,000 and received 10,000 chips. However, Harrah's took a cut of the prize pool for their profits and to pay the staff, so even at that point there was not a 1:1 conversion. Furthermore, one must account for the nebulous skill factor that makes chips worth more in the hands of a good player than in the hands of a bad player. Then there is payout structure of the tournament. At the moment when the bubble burst and fewer than 873 players remained, a player with just a single black chip, worth 100 in tournament units, would nonetheless be entitled to $14,500 in real money. Now that some portion of the prize pool has been paid out but the same number of chips remain in play, each chips is worth proportionately less than it was at the start of the tournament.
Still, a conservative estimate would be that the 1,000,000 chips in this pot represent at least $250,000 in real money equity, and in the hands of a skilled player like Jason, they could easily be worth $500,000 or more. His opponent, previously one of the larger stacks in the tournament, now faces an 83% chance of being eliminated in one fell swoop. ESPN camera crews rush over to record the action The dealer raps the table, "burns" the top card from the deck, and flips over the three flop cards: Jacks of spades, 9 of hearts, 4 of diamonds. It's a very safe flop for Jason, improving his odds of winning the pot to 93.64%. The only way he can lose now is if his opponent catches two perfect cards in a row: two spades to make a flush, a queen and a ten to make a straight, or two of the last three kings in the deck to make three of a kind.
I grimace and watch Jason do the same as the the dealer reveals the turn card: a Queen of spades. This is one of the worst cards in the deck for him, instantly giving his opponent 13 ways to win on the river, either with one of four tens to complete a straight or one of nine spades to complete a flush. But still, Jason is a 72.73% favorite to win.
The dealer raps the table one last time, burns a card, and reveals the river, which will likely be burned in Jason's mind for the rest of his life: a 6 of spades, giving his opponent a flush. "Oh God," I say, literally feeling sick in my stomach. The table explodes. Jason's opponent, a long-haired, goateed twenty-something from Dallas, leaps out of his chair and claps his hands. "Yes! Yes! Yes!" Jason's face is a mile long, but he is remarkably calm, just staring at the felt and muttering, "So sick."
Finally, he asks the dealer, "How much is it?" He has more than his opponent, so he will get to keep nearly 300,000 chips, still in better shape than I am and about average for the tournament. The dealer counts down Dallas' stack and then tells Jason he needs to cough up about 430,000 more chips. Jason's chips are stacked in a pyramid in front of him, with pillars of yellow chips, worth 1000 each, 50 deep. Slowly, he breaks off tower after tower of yellows, several times more chips than I have ever had in front of me in this tournament, and shoves them across the table to his opponent.
The rest of this level goes by in a blur and soon we are on break again. My deal with Poker Stars guaranteed me a hotel room through the night of Friday, August 4th, and when I was still in the tournament at the end of the day Friday, it was automatically extended through Friday the 11th. However, I already have a plane ticket for 11PM tonight, and frankly am getting sick of Vegas, so my plan was to see how things go today before deciding to cancel the flight. It's now 4PM and I'm still in the tournament, so I start calling people to find someone near a computer who can cancel my flight for me. My girlfriend is at the beach, my brother is at work, my friend is at the grocery store, finally I reach my mother and walk her through the process of cancelling the flight. By the time I pay cancellation fees to America West and Orbitz, I've lost nearly all the money I spent on the flight, but that's trivial compared to the amount of money I've locked up already (nearly $40,000). I check in again with Rizen, now up to 600,000 chips, tell him of Jason's misfortune, grab a granola bar from the hospitality suite (still haven't had lunch), and head back to my table.
Level ?, blinds 3000/6000 with a 1000 ante.