For a loser, Vegas is the meanest town on earth. - Hunter S. Thompson
Tournament Day.
The tournament started at 5pm so I farted around until 2pm before heading over to the Rio. I wanted to go early to give myself ample time to observe the other tournaments and walk around the poker floor.
As I walked towards the Amazon room I became extremely glad that I waited in line for 90 minutes yesterday because there was now a line easily 10 times the size of the one I waited in. They had more windows open but it had to be at least a two hour wait. Ha ha suckers!
This year they have about 100 overflow tables in a temporary structure outside to accommodate the ever-growing popularity of the WSOP. It was in this building that I found my table number for the start of the tournament, the other 50% of my tournament was going to be happening in the main room.
Back in the main Amazon room, the WSOP has officially begun and we are in full swing. Every square inch of floor space is utilized to squeeze as many tables in as possible with just enough walking room to get around that you usually end up having a few intimate moments with passing strangers.
Event #1, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’Em World Championship started at noon with a field of 451 and a top prize of $500k. I took a bunch of pictures that you’ll see below, lots of recognizable faces. As I was leaving the room to grab some food, Phil Hellmuth made his typical late appearance. For those of you that don’t watch poker on TV, for some reason he loves to miss the first few blind levels of major tournaments.
After I ate, that tournament must have just gone on break because I went into the restroom and peed next to Men Nguyen. Raymer, Cloutier, and Chan were also using the facilities. “This is Justin Geoghegan reporting live from the 2007 World Series of Poker men’s restroom and … wait just a minute folks this is our Degree All-In Moment as Johnny Chan has just left the restroom without washing his hands”
(Note to Chan’s lawyers: I made that up so please don’t sue me)
Well enough with the small talk, you came here to find out how I did in my tournament, so I’ll get right onto that.
The tournament was delayed an hour because of their huge CF that registration had become. People were STILL waiting hours in line to register. At 6pm the cards were in the air and we were playing.
In the early stages of the tournament I play very conservative. I’m selective about what hands I get involved with so that my post-flop decisions are very clear. I like to keep the pots small. I’ll raise unopened pots with ranges of hands that get wider as my position at the table improves. I’ll call in position with good drawing hands and a few limpers. So nothing fancy, just ABC poker Dan Harrington style.
Nothing of note happens in the first two hours. I’m not making any outright bluffs, though I do make the occasional semi-bluff like a continuation bet on the flop where my hand is very likely still the best. I’m also focusing on getting good table reads. I identify a few loose players and take some of their chips with preflop raises they have no business calling followed by a strong bet on the flop when their weak hand didn’t improve. I raise with weaker hands against these guys because what’s weak for me is still usually going to be stronger than their average holding. No big pots in the first two hours, just a slow accumulation of chips. We started with 2,000 and I think when we took our break at the end of this period I was up to 3,200 or so.
The second two-hour period was a little more erratic. I got involved in two big pots as people started to react to the rising blinds. In each case I was a big favorite.
Big pot #1 - Blinds are 100/200 with no ante yet. I’m in early position (seat 2 or 3) with AQ unsuited. I raise this hand about 50% of the time in this situation, and call the other 50% but due to the loose table I had decided to raise a little more frequently so this was more of a 75% raising hand. I went ahead and raised to 600. The rest of the table folds until the small blind puts in a minimum reraise of another 600. It’s folded back to me. On one hand this guy saw me raise in a very early position which should indicate to him that I have a strong hand, meaning his reraise is declaring that he has a hand that can compete. However this gentleman had also shown a tendency to have spurts of hyper-aggression where he overplayed a few loose hands. He was also the table chip leader so I had to be careful. I elected to call and make a decision on the flop since I have the better position for the rest of the hand. The pot is now 2600 and the flop brings us: AKT. This has a ton of texture to it. On one hand it greatly improved my hand as I now have a pair of aces with a queen kicker and a gutshot draw to the nut straight. On the other hand there are a number of hands this guy could have reraised with where this improved his hand better than mine. But had he really been reraising with strength or was he making one of his loose raises? He pushes in his whole stack (which is much larger than mine) and I’m now faced with a decision risking my tournament life. Here were some factors in my decision: Bet size - Favorable - He overbet the pot with a wager of my remaining 3,000. On two previous hands where he had strong flops, he trapped with slower maneuvers and smaller bets. This bet size suggested he did not want a call. Player - Favorable - He overplayed a couple pots earlier that he got lucky on. I’m willing to look him up with a weaker holding due to his track record of hyper-aggression. His hand - Unfavorable - There aren’t a lot of re-raising type hands that I’m actually beating right now. AK, AA, KK, TT are all way ahead of me. There’s a chance I’m up against a weaker reraise, but even bad players get good cards. My hand - Neutral - top pair, top kickers with a draw to a straight in case I’m currently behind. Timing - Favorable - This might be my best shot to take a stand and double up. In tournament play the clock is always ticking and if you want to win you have to come from behind at least once or twice to win a big pot. —- After deliberating, the signs point to call so I do. He immediately says “Good call” and turns over KQ which is about the best thing I could have hoped for. I have top pair, he has middle pair and we share the kicker. Only two cards will win the hand for him (the two remaining kings) and four cards will split the pot (four jacks). The turn and river are bricks and I double through the table chip leader up to 8,500.
Big Pot #2 - Our table broke up 20 minutes after my last big pot and I sat down at a new table. My stack at this table was very healthy, I was probably #1 or #2 in chips. A new table means I have to refresh my image. I want to showdown strong hands and keep the pots small. For 40 minutes or so I’m doing just that and accumulating a few chips here and there. 4-5 hands before the dinner break I look down to see AK in seat number 2. The blinds are still 100/200 but now with a 25 ante. I raise it to 750 and it gets folded to the big blind who calls. The flop comes AT6 rainbow (club, heart, spade) and he checks to me. This is a great flop for me, so I bet it hoping for a loose call or even better maybe he’ll make a play at it and move all-in. With 1600 in the pot, I put in 1000. He pauses … and then shoves all his chips in! I do some quick run-throughs of any possible reason why I should let this hand go and I can’t find anything. So I call. He shows AQ suited (clubs) and I am looking REALLY good. He only wins on a queen or runner-runner straight/flush cards. I’m 83% favorite to win, 16% to lose, 1% to tie. When I win this pot I’ll have close to 12,000 chips and be in a great spot for another few blind levels. The turn card is a club and I start to get a little sweaty as he now has the nut flush draw. I’ve now fallen to a 75% favorite … but still 75%! The river is disaster. A club. What just happened. He caught two clubs. How did that happen. I … damn it. I’ve heard the phrase “that’s poker” many times on TV. I think I finally understand it.
Lucky for me, 4 hands later there is a dinner break and I have an hour to cool off.
During dinner, I evaluate the situation. I’m down to 4,375 and it’s costing me 550 a round to play which puts me in the “orange zone”. I’m not so desparate that any raise has to be all-in, but I can no longer play early/middle position little pairs or connectors. I look to open pots with reasonable hands in position. Also if I meet any resistance to one of my preflop raises, I might have to choose that spot to make my stand and see how the cards come. Because of the way the blinds worked in relation to the dinner break, we still had 25 minutes of the level remaining after dinner. During that time we had 2-3 orbits and I took down one pot so I’ve dropped to 3300ish.
The blinds go up to 150/300 with a 25 ante, it’s costing me 700 a round to play and I’ve just entered the “red zone”. In the red zone, if you make a standard preflop raise and go all-in on the flop, your flop bet will not be big enough to chase off potential drawing hands - especially since they are guaranteed to see both of the two remaining cards. The only play is an all-in raise. You’re hoping to get good cards, but it’s very likely you’ll go in with a marginal hand, get called by a slightly better marginal hand and the first person to pair up wins the hand. You just hope it’s you so you don’t have to go home.
In the first orbit, I move in on the button with 55 and take down the pot. In the second orbit I move in with a pair of nines in fifth position when a player behind me reraises to chase out the rest of the table. Unfortunately my timing is horrible as he turns over two red aces. I still have a 20% chance to win the hand, but as the board comes the aces hold up and win the hand. I bust out 350 of 1050.
I hate to sound like Matusow or Hellmuth here, but I really felt like I was playing excellent poker throughout the entire tournament. I made no major mistakes. I won pots with good cards, I won pots with bad cards. I was playing my opponents and not my cards. I was in the zone. Total time played: 6 hours, 10 minutes.
That’s poker!
Also they don’t have fortune cookies here, that’s some stupid American invention. All that said, I have my first 3 meals back home already planned out: Breakfast: Biscuits and Gravy with hash browns and coffee. Except for the one Starbucks I found in Beijing and a western style coffeeshop in Guiyang, the coffee here has been horrible. Lunch: Cheeseburger, fries and a coke with ice that doesn’t give me diarrhea. Dinner:Some kind of cheesy appetizer, a big juicy steak, cold frosty beer, and a chocolate milk shake for dessert.
