Some more WSOP tidbits

I haven't posted anything for awhile, mainly because I haven't been playing much poker lately!  After a week and a half in Vegas, the pile of things that need my attention has grown so large that I can hardly dig myself out.  So in the meantime I will spend some time sharing some more details about what the WSOP was like.

(I've found that no anecdote is too trivial to hold the interest of my friends who have been asking me what it was like.  I was afraid after a few hours of stories that I was going to have to start making some things up!)

The World Series truly was an international affair.  At my table were people from Greece, France, Sweden, Luxembourg, Canada, Japan, and a few other places.  One young guy at my table spoke fluent English, Greek, and Swedish!  What an odd combination.

The Greek guy at my table was this old fart who spent a lot of his time complaining about Scandinavian players.  He thought they were too loose and aggressive, making too-large bets.  He bitched so much that I really started to get annoyed.  When he finally busted out, I thought, "Serves you right you racist bitch."  He had accused me of being Scandinavian when we first sat down; I told him I was more German than Scandinavian but if I had known what a jerk he was, I would have said, "Yeah I'm Norwegian," just to piss him off.

The Luxembourg guy sat down (in the Greek's vacated seat, in fact) and offered to share his gum with us all.  He was very excited, his first trip to America and he found this extraordinary gum!  I took a look at it and said, "Dude, that's Rolaids."  He didn't know what that was -- nor did most the rest of the table!  So I said, "It's an antacid."  Still no response.  So I said, "If you eat something spicy and your tummy hurts, you take a Rolaids and it makes you feel better."  The whole table got a laugh out of that; the Luxembourg guy laughed the most of all.

I spent the entire first day in the main room, the "Amazon" room, and stayed at the same table.  Over half of the folks at my table busted out during that day, but I hung in there.

The second day, I drew a terrible draw.  They put me in a satellite room called "Brasilia".  This room had something like 68 tables in it, and I was at table 63.  They were breaking the tables from highest to lowest to fill other short-handed tables, so before lunch they broke my table and I had to move to another one -- still in the Brasilia room.  It was like table 57.  Naturally a few hours later, my table broke again, and I moved to Brasilia 34.  I'm not going to claim that all of this moving around affected my chances, but it was rather distracting and it did prevent me from developing a consistent image.  At least I can take comfort -- and I do, too -- that at no table was I the first player to bust out.

Near the end of my remarkable run, I looked around the room, and I saw Gus Hansen at the next table, Men "The Master" at the table next to that, and Alexander Kostritsyn the table next to that.  I couldn't believe that I was in that company -- or, even more, the other big pros that had already busted out!!

I asked myself at one point, "What in the world makes you think you can play this game at this level with the Big Boys?"  I immediately realized the answer:  The fact that I can!

Other things to do in Vegas . . . and a shout-out

There are other things to do in Las Vegas besides just hang out at the casino and win (or lose) thousands of dollars.  So here is my Top Five list of things to do in Vegas which don't involve gambling:

1. Eat breakfast at the Golden Gate casino downtown.  They have a dumpy little diner in the back with cheap, good, and completely nondescript food.  Sometimes I'll even drive all the way downtown from the Strip just to have breakfast there.
2. The buffet at the Rio.  It's probably the biggest . . . it might just be the best.
3. The buffet at the Fremont, downtown.  Not as big as the one at the Rio, but I really like it.  Plus, they have a soft-serve ice cream machine!

Hmm . . . I see that my list of things involves a lot of eating.  Maybe we'd better do some exercise now.

1. Walk the Strip, all the way from the Mandalay Bay to the Sahara (or even the Stratosphere if you are really inspired).  This was a lot more fun when the Frontier and the Stardust were still standing.  This little jaunt can take me all day, as I tend to pop into some of the casinos/bars/restaurants along the way just to see what's happening.  For people-watching though, this stroll is hard to beat.
2. Watch the Fremont Street Experience display show downtown.  Okay, not really.  It's so appallingly lame that I can barely watch it for 15 seconds without wanting to flee.  But watching the people who are watching the show can be entertaining.  It's a tragedy to realize that this tacky show may be the highlight of these people's lives.

There is, however, a lame guilty pleasure on Fremont that I do enjoy.

There's a slot place squeezed in between the Golden Gate and the old Pioneer Club that sells $1 Margaritas (I forget the name of the joint).  Out front above the door they have this jumbotron that advertises the Margaritas.  It is an endless loop commercial of different people and characters (George Washington, Mona Lisa) enjoying the drinks, while the words superimposed on the images advertise the product.  I first saw this same sequence on my first visit to Vegas 15 years ago . . . and it was probably 15 years old even then.

Anyhow, one of the scenes is of this dog, a pit bull terrier, cocking his head left and right, while a cartoon Margarita glass glides across the screen.  I'm a sucker for dogs, and this little scene just cracks me up every time I see it.

There is one other thing that's fun to do in Vegas, but you need to be adequately prepared (it is the desert after all) and the weather has to be cooperative (not too hot, not too windy).  That's go hiking.  There are some decent hiking trails around the city and it's worth trying some of them.

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Now, a shout-out to my poker comrade Thom.  We both played in a home game last night, a tournament hosted by Poker John at the Poker House in Kent.  It's always a lot of fun to play these games.  Unfortunately, I ended up out of the money, and it was Thom who finished me off.  Nursing a perilously short stack and being on the button, I had a Jack-Five offsuit.  It was folded all the way around to me, so I pushed.  Thom, in the big blind, called with King-Jack (naturally the right thing to do).  The board was irrelevant, and I was out.  I went upstairs to the cash game and managed to nearly make up my entire buy-in in an hour's time, something that's hard to do in a game that was 25c/50c!

Meanwhile, Thom went on to win the tournament.  I am not surprised, he is a good player.  But the competition was pretty fierce.  If I understand it correctly, I think the heads-up was against Robert who is one of the best players in the group.  So congrats to Thom for a well-earned win.

Definition of a Cold Deck

Sometimes I think that the sign of a good poker player isn't necessarily how much he wins at the table; but how little he loses.

Here's an experience at the $1/$3 NL table at Caesar's one morning last week.  I woke up with pocket Queens.  My opponent had pocket Aces.  He won.  The very next hand, I got pocket Kings.  A different opponent got the Aces.  He won.  Before the button had finished its orbit, I got pocket Jacks.  A third opponent this time got the Aces and won.  After that hand, I had to get up and walk away . . . I was just too bewildered.

As far as the question of good/bad poker player goes, you tell me:  I started the session with $700 and finished with $500.  I lost $200 at that table, but easily could have gotten felted -- three times!

I really hope that I don't have anything like that happen to me again!

World Series Conclusion

Well by now just about everybody knows that I went out midway through Day Two.  For the record, my last hand was King-Jack offsuit.  I went all in and was called by the player to my right, who had a pair of Tens.  The board was irrelevant.

I had made a prediction before the Series started, which I only shared with a very few people because I didn’t want to jinx myself.  But after making a brutally frank assessment of my tournament skill and expertise, this was what I concluded:

• ·         I would make it to Day Three, but just barely.
• ·         I would make it through about ¾ of the field.
• ·         I would finish out of the money.

The last two predictions were spot on.  I didn’t make it to Day Three, but that’s because I didn’t expect the field to thin so quickly.  So I had a pretty accurate assessment of my chances, for what that is worth.

I had a sort of Zen-like epiphany during the final break before I got knocked out, which will probably sound kind of goofy when I commit it to paper but it actually was a pretty incredible realization at the time:

It’s not about how many chips you have.

It’s not about making it into the money, or how much you make.

It’s all about playing good poker!

If you play good poker, consistently, you will win your share of tournaments and earn your share of the money.  Just make good decisions, one at a time.

One of my childhood heroes was Coach Tom Osborne, former head football coach at the University of Nebraska.  Even though he consistently coached one of the nation’s very best football teams year after year, he never set as a goal for his players to win a certain game or defeat a certain team.  The goal he wanted his players to have was always to play the best game possible.  To give the best effort you can, each play.  He realized that, given the talent of his players, if each of them played the best that they possibly could, then his team would win their share of games overall.

I think that works in poker too (or any other endeavor, for that matter).  Just do the best you can, one play at a time, and your decision-making will be rewarded over time.

Again, it sounds goofy now that I have it on paper, but so what, it’s my blog so I can put whatever I want in it.

As far as the rest of my trip went, well, what can I say, it was extremely successful.  I basically paid for my trip with what I earned at the poker table (not counting the WSOP of course, but I had saved up for that separately).

I entered one particularly interesting tournament at Harrah’s, after I was knocked out of the WSOP.  It was a “bounty” tournament, which is something I’d never played before.  The buy-in was $100, but you got $10 back for each player you knocked out.  I knocked out eight players (there were 46 total), so I almost made back my buy-in just on bounties alone!  I finished in third place, which was a pretty pleasant confirmation of my abilities to still play good tournament poker.

I’ll be posting more feedback about Vegas, the series, and other stuff in the days to follow.

World Series Of Poker

I haven’t posted for awhile (I was never able to get my Internet to work at the Plaza) but now that I am at the Rio, I am connected again.  There’s been a lot happening so this might be a long entry.

First of all, I have made it to Day Two, but just barely.  I have around 12k left.  It doesn’t look like I will make it to Day Three.

But I have outlasted over half of the field, which to me is significant.  And I’m having the time of my life!

I’ve seen so many poker celebrities, here is just a partial list:  Clonie Gowen, Erick Lindgren, David Singer, Hoyt Corkins, Kirk Morrison, Jack Ury (at 95, the world’s oldest poker player), Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Mama Williams (David’s mom), Mike Matusow, Shawn Sheikhan, Humberto Brenes, Robert Varkonyi, Olga Varkonyi, Erik Seidel, Chau Giang, Minh Le, David Dirksen, Patrik Antonius, John Hennigan, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Gus Hansen, Larry Flynt (he was at the next table and I think he busted out in the first level), and so many others.

I even ran into Daniel Negreanu.  Literally, unfortunately.

He was booking down the very crowded corridor, like he was late for something.  Meanwhile, I was going the other direction, just sorta doofing down the hallway, looking around, la-la-la, like usual.  And then … WHAM!!  I about killed the poor guy.  Before I was even able to apologize, he had recovered and zoomed down the corridor again.

(The same exact thing happened to me once with Yoko Ono in Manhattan, about 15 years ago.  She was walking from the Ritz Carlton to her limo, and I zoomed around the corner and crashed right into her.  As she got up and into her limo, the guy I was walking with said, “Dude!  That was Yoko Ono!”)

Aside from the WSOP, I’ve been playing quite a few tournaments on the days off.  Primarily this is to beef up my live tournament experience, which I think is pretty thin.  I have played four tournaments aside from the WSOP, and all four of them I finished in the top half of the field but only once in the money.  But I’m very pleased with my play so that is good.

The tournament I cashed in was a daily tournament at Binion’s.  They had about 45 players and paid the top five.  The buy-in was $50.

I made it to the final table of ten players.  Then I made it to the final six; the next person out would be the “bubble boy” and win nothing, while the rest would make the money.

I found myself in the Big Blind, and called somebody’s all-in while I was holding Ace-Queen.  The other player had King-Ten, and a King on the turn gave him the win.  I lost so many chips, I couldn’t even complete the small blind!  So I was all-in the next hand and looking at the bubble.

Well, I quadrupled up that hand (Ace-Ten, and won with Ace-high), and I was back in the running.  I ended up finishing second!  That gave me a lot of confidence in playing the small stack.

The only other tournament of note that I played at was called the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza.  Once again, I made it through half of the field but finished out of the money.  But I played very good poker.  Two hands took me out.

In the first of these hand, I had QQ.  I called another player’s all-in.  She held AQ, so I was about a 4-1 favorite.  But an Ace came on the flop, and I was drawing to only one out (about a 7-8% chance).  Just to rub salt into the wound, another Ace came on the river.  So I was down to short stack once again.

I limped into the next level, and then went all-in with AK.  I got two callers – one had QQ, and one had AA.  The board was no help, so the Aces took both Mr. Queens and me out.  I can’t complain about how I played these hands though.  Maybe if I had had a bigger stack, I could have gotten away from the AK on the flop but I’m not complaining.  If I consistently play good poker, I am really happy with my play regardless of where I end up going out.

One thing that I am really pleased about is my reading.  I have been spot on.

Here’s an example:  I was playing a no-limit cash game at the Golden Nugget.  I woke up with Ace-King, so raised preflop.  I got one caller, the guy on my left.  The flop came King-Seven-Four, so I had top pair top kicker.  I bet, he called.  The turn was a Ten.  I bet, he called.  I knew I was dead; what would he keep smooth-calling with?  On the river, I checked and he bet.  I said, “Don’t bother; your set is good.”  He said, “Wow, when did you realize that I had a set?”  I said, “Just now, when you admitted it.”

I went down to the WSOP the day before I was scheduled to play, just to get familiar with the environment and hopefully calm my nerves a bit (I have been a wreck because I’ve been so excited).  I watched one hand in the bleachers of the ESPN TV table.  Erick Lindgren was head-up against somebody named Andrew or Andreas (I couldn’t hear the announcer clearly), and Erick had position.  The flop was Ace-Five-Ace.  Andre(w/as) bet; Erick raised, Andre(w/as) called.  The turn was a six.  Andre(w/as) checked, Erick bet, Andre(w/as) called.  On the river, Andre(w/as) checked again; Erick put out a huge bet, and Andre(w/as) went into the tank for a long time.

The guy sitting next to me said, “I bet Erick as an ace.”  I said, “I don’t think so.  I think the other guy has the ace, but he doesn’t like his kicker.  I don’t have any idea what Erick has.”  Then I thought about it a bit more, and I said, “I wonder if Erick flopped a full house.”

Andre(w/as) eventually called, turning over Ace-King.  Erick turned over his pocket fives for a Full House, and scooped the pot.  It’ll be interesting to see if that hand makes the ESPN coverage!

Initial Reactions to WSOP Environment

I’ve been staying at the Plaza Hotel in downtown Vegas, and it’s been a perfectly fine place to stay except that I can’t seem to get an internet connection.  I don’t really need one; there isn’t any email or anything that I need to get to, but it does mean that I won’t be able to update my blog unless I stop by a Starbucks or wait until I check into the Rio on Monday.

But I did want to put my initial thoughts down and some experiences, even though I’ll be uploading this later.

First, here’s a question for you:  One of the following statements I just made up; the other three actually happened.  Which is which?

1.       (1) I saw Andy Bloch and Brandon Adams wandering the halls at the Rio…while I was wandering the halls at the Rio.

2.       (2) Two people came up to me, thinking that I was Tom McEvoy, and asked me for my autograph.

3.       (3) While standing in line to pay my $10,000 entry fee, I found myself directly behind William Rockwell.  He was featured in an ESPN WSOP piece; he’s the guy who lost the use of his arms in a motorcycle accident and plays poker using just his feet to move the cards.  (He’s a really friendly guy.)

4.       (4)While standing in line to pay my $10,000 entry fee, I found myself directly ahead of Raymond Rahme.  Rahme is the South African pro who made the final table last year.  After waiting a short time, he became impatient; he pushed himself to the front of the line and demanded to buy his entry fee right then.

I haven’t left downtown since I checked into the hotel; most the poker I’ve been playing has been at the Golden Nugget and Binion’s.  I played at the Binion’s Classic but finished far out of the money.  I made a huge bluff against a guy I read as weak, right before the break.  He turned a three-of-a-kind and I lost way too many chips.  My last hand was a pair of tens against Ace/King; the King on the turn sent me to the rail.  I hope that I got my donkey play out of my system!

My first WSOP day is Saturday, which means that my second day is Wednesday.  Then, every day until I leave is just poker (either at the WSOP or, if I get kicked out, at the side games).

The WSOP environment itself is pretty extraordinary.  An entire wing of the Rio is given over to it – the whole convention center, in fact.  They have mixed the cash games with the tournaments in the same room, an immense room that seems to stretch beyond the horizon.  In the hallways are various booths for vendors.  Smaller convention rooms are lounges for VIPs and contest winners.  They’ve set up a temporary building out back where you can buy some food – pizza and sandwiches and such.

The line to buy-in to the Main Event took nearly two hours to negotiate.  (By the way, the false statement above is the second one, about Tom McEvoy.)  Even though it was a slow line, it wasn’t a long line; there were probably only 30-40 people ahead of me when I started.

I wasn’t sure how to get my $10,000 to Las Vegas.  I didn’t want to stuff that much cash into my pocket and wander around with it in Seattle and the airports.  I considered waiting until I got to Vegas and then cashing a check at the bank, but I really wanted to get it over with and by the time I got to town it was evening and the banks were closed.  So I ended up buying $10,000 in traveler’s checks in Seattle, then cashing them at the Rio.

Unfortunately, the only traveler’s checks my bank had were $100 denomination checks!  So I had to sign up for 100 checks, and then cash each of them separately at the Rio (which required me to sign each one – that’s 100 signatures!)  After waiting an hour and a half in line, it took me another half-hour to sign the damn checks.  The cashier was very pleasant (and patient) but upon further reflection, I think I would have been okay just taking the cash.

Other than my donkey tournament performance, I’ve been holding my own quite well in the cash games.  The locals are really good – scary good – and the tourists are complete fish.  I’ll write more about it later but I think that’s enough for now.

Another well-played hand

Like last time:  A $1/$3 no-limit table with nine players.

The two blinds posted.  The player under-the-gun folded.  The next player called the big blind for $3.  He was pathetically bad, and his weak limp didn’t mean a thing to me.

The next three players folded, and it was up to me.  I looked down at my hand, and – Hello!  Ace of Spades, King of Spades!

Frequently, I will raise (or re-raise) with this hand, like most folks.  Sometimes I’ll just limp to change up my play a bit.  This time around, I decided to limp, so I put out my $3.

I didn’t have to wait long for it to be popped though!  The player to my left put in a raise to $12.  He had just barely come to the table so I didn’t have a great read on him, but something made me feel as though he had a really big hand; maybe a high pocket pair.

All of the other players folded, included the first limper, and it was back to me, heads-up.  I was facing a $9 raise.

I generally feel that if I’m not willing to take Ace-King to the flop, even in the face of a modest raise, I should give up my license to play poker.  So I put the extra chips out there, and we saw the flop.  As always with “Big Slick”, I’m definitely prepared to lay it down if the flop misses me.

Well, the flop hit me pretty nicely:  Seven of Spades, Ace of Diamonds, Eight of Diamonds.

I figured I probably had the best hand, unless he was playing some kind of Ace-rag and hit two pair (very doubtful because of his pre-flop strength).  I wasn’t thrilled to see the flush cards out there; I was less concerned about any straight.  He’d played it so strong pre-flop that I really didn’t feel as though I had much risk here.  So, even though I’ll usually lead out with a nice bet on such a coordinated board, instead I just checked.

I was rewarded with a hearty bet by my opponent of $15 into a $30 pot.

This bet size really made me feel much more comfortable that he wasn’t on any kind of draw; it was consistent with a big pair or maybe some kind of Ace (Ace/Queen?  Ace/King?).  Realizing that I still almost certainly had the best hand, I called.

The turn brought the Ten of Spades.  A modest help for my spade flush draw, but I was still really playing the Ace.  I checked again, to see whether my adversary would continue to hang himself.

He put out $40 into a $60 pot, a serious overbet.  It could hardly be sweeter.  Unless he had Ace/Ten, I was still in great shape . . . and I also had one of the flush draws working for me.  I called.

Now the river:  The Three of Diamonds.  The flush card for diamonds; but I totally didn’t put him on that.

Now came time for one of the hardest things in poker:  Deciding the ideal value bet.  I wanted a number low enough for him to call, yet high enough to bring in the most money.  The pot was around $140 . . . a bet of $50 gave him almost four-to-one on a crying call.  I bet; he called; I showed my Ace/King; he mucked his pocket queens, and I reeled in a $240 pot.

Sweet!

He was so tilted that he got up and left.  I think he only played like three hands!  Oh well . . . another satisfied customer.