Posts Tagged ‘Marcel Luske’

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Off to a Good Start

On Day 3 of the World Series of Poker, I was feeling good. Nearly 6500 players entered the tournament, and now more than two-thirds of them had been sent packing. With roughly 2000 of us remaining, there was finally room for everyone to play on the same day. It had been a week since I played my first day, but now there were no more days off. Everybody would be playing every day until he lost his chips or there were only nine remaining.

Day 2 had been harrowing. I’d come in short stacked, and despite opposition so tough that Poker News called mine the “Table of Death”, I’d managed to finish the day with just over 90,000 chips, putting me right around the average.

What’s more, my Day 3 table draw looked to be a welcome respite. There were no names I recognized and only one or two other players who even seemed to be professionals of any stripe. Things were looking good for me.  Read the complete post...

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Ego and Variance

The most difficult thing about playing poker for a living, far more difficult than being good at cards, is dealing with the ups and downs. Although I’ve always ended up with a nice income at the end of the year, I have periods every year where it feels like nothing is going my way and I am losing tons of money. Even after experiencing them multiple times, I still find it difficult to keep a clear head during these “downswings”. This is probably due in part to the fact that for the last few years I have been playing ever higher stakes, meaning that each year brings the necessity of getting used to winning and losing larger sums.

Still, it surprises me a little that although I understand intellectually that poker is a game of the long run and that the results of a single day, week, or month don’t mean very much, emotionally I get stuck on these short-term results. After a good week, I feel like I am the greatest player ever. After a bad week, I often question all of my instincts and decisions, even though in both cases the cards probably contributed far more to the outcome than did my individual decisions.  Read the complete post...

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Jack Links and NASCAR

The 2009 World Series of Poker was presented by Jack Links Beef Jerky. It takes some effort to step down from Milwaukee’s Best, the presenting sponsor for the past few years, but when a man in a Sasquatch costume appeared on stage to speak, or more accurately to growl, “Shuffle Up and Deal!”, it was apparent that Harrah’s had pulled it off.

Jeffrey Pollack, the commissioner of the WSOP, is a man with an admirable mission and an enormous task: to bring poker into the mainstream of American sports culture. A lot has been accomplished in this regard, much but not all of which can be attributed to Pollack: poker programming has appeared not only on ESPN but on such diverse networks as GSN, Fox Sports, the Travel Channel, and even NBC. The most prominent players are household names, and the WSOP itself is a two-month long spectacle that attracts tens of thousands of players and quite a few spectators as well.

Despite these accomplishments, though, poker has not yet “broken through” entirely. It is still poorly understood by the American public at large and viewed skeptically at best by the sports editors of most major news outlets. Even the WSOP, let alone smaller poker events, have had difficulty attracting sponsors outside of the immediate poker market: online poker sites, poker apparel, energy drinks, and closely related products such as beer and beef jerky.  Read the complete post...

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Just before takeoff, the pilot announces that we are scheduled to arrive at about 11PM local, at which time the temperature will be 104 degrees. For the fourth year in a row, I’m spending the middle of the summer in the middle of the desert, braving the blistering hot sun to compete in the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

It’s surreal to think that three years ago, I was a young kid, barely out of college, who took a flyer on a qualifying tournament on the internet. Though even then I was earning a modest living at poker, I rarely wagered more than $200 at a time. I was more than thrilled when, with an investment of just a few hundred dollars, I won a seat in the $10,000 buy-in Main Event of the World Series of Poker. Though more than a little intimidated by the stakes and the competition, I was lucky enough to finish 279th place, winning almost $40,000 for my trouble. I’ve been back every year since, and remarkably, I’ve managed to win something every year, most recently finishing 35th in the 2008 tournament and winning nearly $200,000.  Read the complete post...

Edit: As I was drifting off to sleep last night, it occurred to me that I should have titled this post “Loosey Luske”. In my defense, it was 3AM and I’d been playing Stud/8 for 8 hours, so my creative juices were a bit stymied.

Early in level 7, the Flying Dutchman joins our table, upside-down sunglasses and all. Almost immediately, he takes half my stack.

Action folds to me in middle position. I’ve got 8(72), hardly a premium hand, but there’s nothing but junk behind me: two Queens, Marcel with a Jack, and an 8 on the bring-in. I raise, Marcel calls with the J, everyone else folds.

On 4th, I catch an A, Marcel catches a 4. I bet, he calls. Odds are good he’s got a pair of Jacks (though maybe I should expect him to 3-bet that more often than call?), but I’ve got outs to both halves of the pot plus the A is a scare card.

On 5th, I brick, and Marcel catches a 3. I bet, he calls.

On 6th, I pair my 8, he catches 2. I bet, he raises. That was unexpected. I think for a while and can’t figure what he has. A5 suited with the Jack seems most likely, or maybe rolled-up Jacks that he’s been slowplaying. Somewhat less likely are 65 suited with the J or a smaller pair in the hole that’s since made trips. I seriously consider folding but decide to call.  Read the complete post...