“The last hand before a break, especially a dinner break, always means fireworks. Some people are eager to fold and get out of the room, which makes other people more inclined to steal, which makes other people more inclined to resteal. Ranges get wider and sometimes it just turns into a pissing match.

I was dealt 9′s in the CO, which are exactly the sort of medium-strength hand that can be tough to play with that sort of dynamic. The action folded to me, and I opened to 60K. Marc called on the Button, and the blinds folded.

We got a J62 flop with two hearts. I bet 85K, about half the pot, and he raised to 225K.”

Read on to find out how I navigated this and other dicey spots on my final two days in the tournament!

There are people who are good at poker, and then there are people who are downright intimidating, players who are ready to fight for literally every pot that they believe they can win. A player like that is not someone you want on your left when you have a lot of chips. I tightened up my game pre-emptively, folding hands I otherwise would have raised because I knew that Gonzalez was waiting to attack me and I needed better than average cards to stand up to him. I watched him give hell to a lot of others at the table.

If you haven’t read Part 1, you can find it here.

In other news, the weather here in Canmore has been fascinating. Last week it was warm, sunny, and clear. This week clouds rolled in, blanketing the valley in fog and rain. Today they started to clear, and through the breaks in the clouds you can see all the snow that fell in the mountains. I never realized the extent to which the weather could be both cloudy and sunny at the same time!

After some thought, my opponent moved all in for 36,500. This is another spot that I’d never put myself in online, betting without a plan for what I’d do if my opponent raised. In a live game, though, I have the added option of staring him down. I stared intently at him for a good three minutes not even thinking about anything in particular but just watching him and letting him sweat for a bit and trying to see what kind of a feel I could get from him.

When I decided that he’d basted in his own perspiration for long enough, I reached towards my chips and watched again for a reaction. He blinked and turned towards me a bit. That felt weak, but it wasn’t decisive, so I just made a note of it. Never taking my eyes off of him, I confirmed with the dealer the amount I would need to call. My opponent swallowed. I counted out the appropriate number of chips but held them in my hand, starting to lean towards a call but not having made up my mind yet. He blinked again and looked uncomfortable. I pushed the chips into the pot.

I look forward every year to writing these trip reports and put a lot of work into them, so I’m very eager to hear any and all feedback. Please let me know what you think!

Excerpted from my WSOP 2007 Trip Report:

As we are taking our seats on Day 1, there is a lot of commotion, 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 two seats to my right 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!

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. A little background: one of the first hands I played, I raised AQ from early position and Will called out of his BB. Flop was rags and gave me a flush draw. Check, check. Turn blanks, he checks, I bet like half pot, he says “I think you have AQ, but that still beats AJ” and throws it away. We play a few more pots in between, with me raising his limps a couple times, and I can feel the frustration pouring off of him. He’s also had two pot-sized river bluffs snapped off by other players.

He limps for 50 and says “I’ll try to induce a raise”. I say “I’ll oblige” and make it 200 with KQo. He thinks and calls, saying “I induced the raise, so I guess I have to call it.” Flop J77, check check. Turn J, he checks, I bet 200, he check-raises to 1000. I just can’t think of any hand he would play this way. I don’t think he has 88+, 66- is counterfeited, and if he had a boat he wouldn’t be check-raising me so hard, he clearly doesn’t want a call. So I think for like a minute and call. River is a 5, and he toes three pink chips worth 500 each and nudges them into the pot with the tip of his toenails. I think again, really hesitant to call off so much of my stack, but I just can’t put him on a hand. I’m tempted to raise him, but that would cost me even more, and I start thinking maybe K-high is good. Why would he bet an A on the river? He’s got to think he’s good but he can’t expect a worse hand to call. He must have a hand with no showdown value at all. So after like two minutes I call him and wait for him to show. He rolls T8s for a busted gutshot. When I turned my cards over and took the pot, 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 down, 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.

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.

More Classic Stories:

Little Old Lady Owns Me at 2/5 NL
The Grasshopper and the Baboon
Don’t Make Your Girlfriend Watch You Play Poker