Posts Tagged ‘WSOP 06’

I get back to my room about 2AM Friday night, exhausted from another long day of poker, but there are no more days off, and I need to be in my seat at the Rio and ready to play at noon on Saturday. I wake at 9AM, head down to catch the Poker Stars shuttle around 10:30, and see several people in Poker Stars shirts standing in the taxi line. Seems Stars is no longer running the shuttle, so I split a cab with them to the Rio and we all head down to the hospitality suite for coffee and muffins. We are talking idly when a bearded journalist interrupts us to introduce himself, “Hi, my name is Jim McManus, and I’m covering the World Series for the LA Times. I’m writing a piece on bluffing in poker and bluffing in the Middle East, and I was wondering if any of you could share some stories about big bluffs you’ve been involved in so far in this tournament.”  Read the complete post...

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.  Read the complete post...

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.  Read the complete post...

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.  Read the complete post...

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.  Read the complete post...