The first installment of my 2010 WSOP main event trip report, covering Days 1 and 2, is now appearing in the 2+2 Internet Magazine:
“We began play with 30,000 chips each and blinds of just 50 and 100. On the very first hand, about half the table folded before the player on my right, a young French Canadian in a red hoodie who looked sort of like a raccoon, made a small raise to 200. I was next to act holding K5s. I re-raised to 600. Everyone folded, and just like that I was up to 30,350 chips. It was the most I would have all day.”
If you want to find out what went wrong on Day 1 and why I got called a “douchebag” on Day 2, then read the article. And of course, let me know what you think of it!
Andrew,
I enjoyed the article. Your trip reports are a great mix of poker and story-telling.
I am always curious how poker players recall their hands when they play so many in a day. Some players (Bernard Lee) claim to write down every single hand but others claim not to take any notes. Knowing you are going to be blogging and writing about the Main Event, do you take notes beyond what you would do for your own poker improvement?
I know I’m a douchebag for asking this, but doesn’t 2+2 have an editor? I saw several missing words in the online article; stuff that rarely if ever is found on your blog.
Thanks, Pie. In past years I’ve kept a notebook where I record key hands and observations, but I didn’t this year, and I don’t feel like the writing suffered too much because of it. There’s really only a few key hands that I need to recall, and those tend to be etched in my mind for better or worse.
To be honest, though, I do fudge some of it. Especially if it’s unimportant information like which suit a card was (if it doesn’t make a flush at least possible then it doesn’t matter) then I may just make something up for the sake of retelling a more detailed and coherent story. And then there are probably some details that I think I remember but have in fact gotten wrong. You learn to sort through the information. I won’t remember a lot of the standard or straightforward things that a player does, but I will usually recall if he plays a hand strangely or shows down a big bluff or something like that.
As for the editing, I guess it’s a compliment to me that my stuff doesn’t get aggressively edited. The 2+2 article is adapted from e-mails I was sending to family and friends during the event. Many of them aren’t poker players, so I had to add in a lot of details for the 2+2 audience, which is probably what resulted in a higher-than-average number of typos and errors. I’ll try to be more mindful of that for Part 2, thanks for the feedback.
Your D-Bag accuser reminds me of all the ***** D-Bags who play online and do the same thing every hand in the same situations. “Hollywood” every single hand if they call or fold in early positiion. Love how you handled that, Andrew. Cannot wait to read more reports on your deep run.
Heh, thanks. I’m looking forward to sharing them!