The Millionaire Maker is like the PokerStars Sunday Million on crack, drawing a field of thousands with a relatively affordable buyin and the distant prospect of a life-changing score. It ended up drawing a field of 6343, making it roughly the size of the Main Event for about 1/7 the buy-in. And, of course, with a much less good structure.
Most WSOP events start at either noon or 5, but this one was bumped back to 11AM to free up more tables later in the day. Even so, one of the daily deepstack tournaments was cancelled and the other postponed for hours for lack of tables. When I arrived, the convention center parking lot was slammed, and I joined the mass of humanity surging towards the entrance from either their private vehicle or the steady stream of taxis depositing them at the foot of the red carpet.
I was happy with my starting table. Out of eight opponents (it was a ten-handed tournament, but the seat on my immediate left was unoccupied), only two seemed capable of giving me tough decisions. The only downside was that they were one and two seats to my left. One of them lost a flip to a weaker player and was eliminated early, which was nice. I later realized that the other was Mike Sowers, whom I really should have recognized sooner given that he is a fellow Tournament Poker Edge instructor. Ana Marquez eventually claimed that empty seat on my left, but she was playing pretty tight, and before too long the table broke anyway.
I ran my stack up to about 10K without any big confrontations, then I lost a big pot to a pretty nasty beat. I limped 22 behind an early position limper and got a 552 flop. I called his flop bet and shoved over his turn bet. He called with AA and rivered a 5 for a higher full house. I was proud of myself not only for not reacting externally but for not even really getting upset on the inside. I just shrugged it off and settled in to play some 20 BB poker. That proved boring but quite profitable, and I got up over 30BB without any showdowns.
Because we started with just 4500 chips and blinds were doubling every level, players started dropping quickly. A vacant seat on my left was filled with a very nice Canadian who was a paradigmatic example of the sort of guy you come to the WSOP to play with. On the first hand that he played, he accidentally bet out of turn, confidently declaring, “3000” and throwing his chips eagerly into the pot. When the dealer told him it wasn’t his turn to act, he started stammering and apologizing profusely. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I just… ah… sorry. I get… sorry… I get… ah… nervous, y’know?” If any of you are Pokercast listeners, his accent was even more pronounced version of Mike Johnson’s, which made it that much funnier.
He left the table for a minute, and there was actually speculation as to whether he was putting us on, that’s how over-the-top his nervousness was. Also, he had to ask how antes worked. If he was acting, though, he deserved an Academy Award. “He took second in the PCA High Roller, so he must be doing something right,” I said, which drew a few astonished explanations before the table realized that I was pulling their leg.
A few minutes after the nervous Canadian returned to the seat on my left, Scott Seiver showed up holding a seat card for that same seat. Apparently when the floor seated the Canadian there, they hadn’t given the seat card to the dealer as they were supposed to but instead held on to it and reassigned it to Seiver, so he ended up at another table instead of on my immediate left. Talk about a suckout!
With blinds of 100/200, I opened to 450 with KJo in late middle position. The Canadian on my left called me, and the big blind called. We checked around a QJ6r flop. The turn was a T, and the big blind checked again. Given the lack of action, I was pretty sure my second pair was good, so I bet 650. The Canadian folded, and the big blind called. I decided I could still get value on a river 5, so I bet 1600 out of my 3800 stack, and he called with Q9. That hurt, and I’m conscious that overly thin value betting is sometimes a leak of mine in tournaments, but even in retrospect I like this bet. This and maybe AJ are about the only better hands than mine that I could see him playing this way.
That left me short stacked, which wasn’t the end of the world. A lot of good spots came up, I just never had quite the right cards to take advantage of them, but I could see that the potential was there. For example, the action folded to me on both the button and the CO, where my shoving ranges there would be extremely wide, but I found 62o and 82o respectively.
I lost a flip with 77 against the AKs of an even shorter stack, but it left me with just 3 BBs. Thankfully I was in late position and the ante was just 25, so I had a little room to wait for a hand. I got 99, got it in against three others, and miraculously held up. The next hand I open shoved KTo and lost to AJo.
I think this was pretty typical for a low buy-in WSOP event. There was a bit of play in the beginning, but not a lot of room to recover from early hiccups. I spent much of the tournament short-stacked, and on the whole the experience felt both (theoretically) profitable and boring.
“Paradigmatic”??? What kind of word is that. Can I steal that word from you. Anytime I meet a Canadian Ill use that word.