WSOP 2010 Trip Report: Part 1

2010 WSOP Trip Report: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Day 1

I knew right away that Day 1 of the World Series of Poker was not going to be a good day for me. As the players assigned to my table took their seats, I noted that I, at 27, was probably the oldest guy at the table. You might think that would mean I’d be playing with a bunch of inexperienced young pups, but nothing could be further from the truth. Most people in their young 20’s playing a $10,000 buy-in poker tournament are not wet-behind-the-ears amateurs. They are usually internet poker phenoms who have either made enough money playing poker to afford the buy-in themselves or at least made enough of a name for themselves that someone else is willing to put up their buy-in in exchange for a healthy cut of their winnings.

Don’t get me wrong- I still believed I was among the best players at the table. I make my living playing in some of the toughest poker games in the world, and I regularly compete against players who are even better than these guys.

But I didn’t fly to Las Vegas to play with people are nearly as good as my usual online competition. Because it is the World Series of Poker, because it is the game that everyone sees on TV and the one surrounded by more hype and tradition than any other poker event, this tournament attracts thousands of players who really have no business playing poker for thousands of dollars. It’s a unique opportunity to play high stakes poker with people who are little more than amateurs. I wanted a table full of those players.

I did not pre-register for the tournament, choosing instead to buy-in with cash the night before Day 1C, my chosen starting day. There has been some well-founded speculation on the 2+2 forums that the table assignments were not quite so random as one would like and that players tended to be assigned to tables with others who bought in at similar times. I don’t know whether that’s what happened to me or if I just had particularly bad luck, but there was not a weak player to be found at my table.

Every one of us instantly recognized the situation. We all knew there was far easier competition out there. Just looking around the room, every table in sight looked easier than ours. But someone checked with the staff to confirm the order in which tables were breaking, and we were told that we were in it for the long haul.

The other unique thing about the WSOP is that it’s a once-a-year opportunity. I would have played Day 1 differently if there were another WSOP starting the next day, and another one starting the day after that. I get one chance a year to play in what is usually a very profitable tournament, and if I lose all my chips, then I’m out of luck until next year.

What that means is that even if I’m a small favorite at my current table, I don’t necessarily want to take big risks against very tough competition when there might be much easier money to be had on subsequent days. My goal was just to keep my head above water, not take too many risks, and try to survive through in hopes of getting a better table draw for Day 2. I guess in the end that is how it worked out, but the process proved even more grueling than I imagined.

In the Beginning

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.

Let me say up front that I know I am very fortunate to be able to make a living playing poker. I love the freedom that this affords me: I am my own boss, I set my own hours, and I can work from anywhere I like. I assure you, though, that it is not akin to playing a game for a living. It very often feels like work, and the actual process of playing poker can be frustrating, grueling, exhausting, and, in the case of my first day at the WSOP, downright miserable.

Winning at poker is fun. Getting dealt good cards, pulling off big bluffs, making a heroic call, those things are all a lot of fun. Getting dealt garbage for hours on end and having opponents competent enough to put you to the test every time you try to steal a pot is not fun.

I can count on one hand the number of pots that went uncontested all day. There was virtually always a raise, and about a third of the time someone else would re-raise. Pretty soon we even had players 4-betting each other light. The level of pre-flop aggression was more akin to a high-stakes online cash game than to a live poker tournament.

By the dinner break, I had dropped down to around 25k and recovered at least twice, and I went to dinner with about the same 30K in chips that I started the day with. Of course, by that point, some players had been eliminated, and the average stack was in the neighborhood of 36K. I ran into a few players with whom I’m friendly on my way to dinner, and detecting a glum tinge in my voice, they assured me that this was plenty of chips, plenty of room to maneuver, spitting distance from the average, blah blah blah.

The problem wasn’t the number of chips I currently had. It was that I had no idea where I was going to get more. Usually there are at least a few weaker players at the table, and all the better players are primarily trying to take money from them. I can recognize particular mistakes those players are making and come up with a plan for exploiting those mistakes and taking their chips.

At our table, the only way anyone was getting chips was through getting coolered. Granted, when the game is aggressive, you’ve got to stretch the definition of “cooler” a bit. For example, our table’s first elimination came on a J[club] 4[spade] 3[club] flop. The big blind check-raised a continuation bet from the pre-flop raiser and shoved over a 3-bet with 7[club] 6[club] only to get called by T[club] 4[club].

I finally ran into a friend who was in a similar predicament to my own and could empathize. He was rushing off for a dinner reservation, but I quickly asked him how it was going. He shrugged despondently and told me, “I have like 25K. I just keep…” he paused, trying to think of how to express it, and finally found something poetic in its simplicity: “I just keep not having the best hand.”

Big Fold

Despite the aggressive play, I did make one pretty big fold that I still don’t hate although it proved to be incorrect in this instance. A quite good Czech player who’d been by far the most aggressive guy at the table raised in first position. I had been flat-calling him with a lot of hands, and so holding pocket Kings in early position, I chose to flat-call again.

That part, I think, is definitively a mistake, because this guy did not fold to 3-bets. That means both that I missed out on pre-flop value and also that I’m less likely than usual to induce a squeeze play from someone behind me. Sure enough, the small blind called, and everyone else folded.

The flop came J[club] 8[heart] 4[club]. The SB checked after some hesitation, the Czech bet, I called, and the SB called. The SB’s call worried me a bit. With two of us showing interest and a dearth of good draws possible, I felt he needed to be pretty strong to call a flop bet.

The turn was the 9c. SB checked, and the Czech bet again into both of us. If it weren’t for the SB left to act behind me, I’d be more comfortable calling this bet. I think I’m slightly ahead of the Czech’s range, but if the SB continued putting money into the pot now, I believed I’d be well behind him. Not to mention that even if the SB folded, the Czech could quite possible fire a third barrel, and I wasn’t sure I could call it. After several long minutes of thought, I folded. The SB called.

The river checked through, the SB’s KJ was good, and I sighed in frustration. It’s hard not to be biased by the results of this hand. The really key bit of information I don’t have is how often the Czech will bluff the river if I call the turn and the SB folds. I do think not re-raising initially was mistake, but I still think the turn is very close, and I don’t mind my fold even knowing what the players showed down in this instance. Having to make some tight folds is just a disadvantage of having bad relative position.

Finally a Fish

Towards the end of the day, we finally got a bona fide weak player at our table. He fit my stereotype of the ideal WSOP fish: a middle-aged guy who owns a profitable small business (he was wearing expensive clothing and a hat bearing the name of a contracting company) which business accounts for his ability to buy into the WSOP despite a decided lack of poker skill.

Sure enough, on one of his first hands at the table, someone raised to 800, and this guy made a huge re-raise to 4300. That’s just bad play no matter he had.

Forgive me; I know the shark analogy is beyond overused in poker, but what happened next really was akin to a feeding frenzy. The eight of us were hungry after having had no good prey for the last seven hours, and now, finally, there was blood in the water. Suddenly, we were seeing a lot fewer re-raises and a lot more people calling anytime this guy was in a pot. People weren’t trying to steal small pots anymore. We were all trying to flop a hand strong enough to take this guy for all he was worth.

To his credit, he seemed to figure out what was going on and tightened up considerably after the first few minutes. He still lost a little money here and there, but he wasn’t bleeding in quite the way we’d hoped. With less than an hour left in the day, I finally made a strong hand against him.

I was holding AQ, and the board read TTJ2. Up to this point, there’d been no action after the flop. The river brought a Queen. He bet big, but I called confidently, only to be shown K9 for a rivered straight.

That pot knocked me down a lot. I had barely 12,000 chips, and the blinds were now 200/400 with a 50 ante. I wasn’t dead yet, but I was in the danger zone, and I didn’t have much room to maneuver. Any hand could be my last.

The most active player at the table made a very small raise to 900, which he did probably 40% of the time that the action folded to him. A very good player on his left re-raised to 2400. I was in the small blind with a pair of Jacks and my measly stack of 12,000 chips.

A pair of Jacks isn’t always such a good looking hand with a raise and re-raise in front of you. Coming from weaker players, such action would be very worrisome. But as I’ve said, it really wasn’t at all uncommon at our table. Given how short I was getting, I don’t think I had any option but to stake everything I had on this hand. I moved all in, the first guy folded, and the second quickly called, turning over a pair of Aces.

There was no fanfare with crowds and cameras like you get later in the tournament. There were still thousands of players in the event, and it made no difference to anyone whether I lived or died here. The dealer showed us the flop: 974, no help for me. I began contemplating a Day 1 elimination from the WSOP, by far my earliest ever. The turn, an 8, gave me a glimmer of hope. Now, in addition to a J, and a T on the river could save my hide by making me a straight. Sure enough, there it was, a beautiful Ten of hearts to save my sorry hide.

There was no jumping, cheering, or hollering for me, and no belly-aching or berating from my opponent. We were both professionals, and we both knew what had happened. It was a cooler followed by a bad beat, both very standard and neither at all meaningful in the grand scheme of things. Skill didn’t factor into it at all, not into my getting my money in bad nor into my eventually winning the pot.

Am I lucky to be alive? Yes. Was I unlucky to draw such an awful table? Yes. Was I unlucky to get garbage cards all day? Yes. These things happen. That’s poker, and tomorrow is another day, hopefully with slightly more forgiving opposition.

Day 2

My second day at the WSOP was pretty much the polar opposite of Day 1. It wasn’t easy, but it was a lot less stressful and more profitable, plus the company was better. The table consisted of a lot of decent but not particularly good players who weren’t fighting as hard as they should have been to win pots.

I stole some blinds and antes early on and quickly built up an aggressive image. My usual MO is to start out slow and then ramp up the aggression, but since our table also had a lot of shorter stacks, I figured we were going to lose some people soon. They’d probably be replaced by better players, and I wanted to get while the getting was good.

I soon got the sense that a few of my more competent opponents had me pegged for the aggressive player that I am and were ready to play back at me. It was a good time to pick up a big hand, and soon I was dealt a pair of Queens on my big blind. Blinds were 200/400/25, and he opened to 1200. I re-raised to 3600, and he called.

The flop came 522, about as dry as I could hope for. I bet 4200, and he quickly called. The turn was an off-suit 3, which I considered a great card. If my opponent had just Ace-high, he might be less inclined to fold it now that he’d turned a gutshot. More importantly, if he had a pair smaller than mine, he might be able to justify getting the rest of his money in on the basis that I could be semi-bluffing with something like AK.

I bet 12,000, trying for a large size to encourage such a read. After some thought, my opponent moved all in, and I quickly called. Sure enough, he had 99, and my hand held up. Just like that I had an above-average stack of about 60K.

Another Life-Saving Suckout

Blinds were still 200/400/25 when I raised to 1100 with A9 in early position. Ordinarily I wouldn’t consider this hand quite good enough to play with a lot of people left to act behind me, but given the weaker competition, I was relaxing my standards a bit.

Two looser players on my left called the raise, and then the table chipleader, who was on the Button, re-raised to 4400. I knew that this player had won a small buy-in online satellite and seemed to have gotten pretty lucky on Day 1 to accumulate his chips. He didn’t turn out to be quite the pushover I was hoping, though; in fact, he was one of the better players at the table. So I gave him credit for recognizing that this was a good opportunity to make a move, and I decided that I was going to make a move right back at him.

I 4-bet him to 12,000, and he called with no hesitation whatsoever. Given how large this pot was quickly becoming, his quick call showed a lot of strength. I was planning to cut my losses and give up my big bluff, but then I had the (mis)fortune of seeing a flop that was just a little too good for me. The flop came Q 6 5, all diamonds, and I had the Ace of diamonds.

At this point, there were nearly 30,000 chips in the pot, and about 45,000 left in my stack. In short, my draw was good to get away from, and I was suddenly faced with the very real prospect of putting my tournament life on the line once again.

I feared that if I just moved all-in now, overbetting the pot, my hand would look like exactly what it was: a big draw. I wanted to make it as tough as possible for him to call me with something like JJ or TT, so I decided to break my remaining chips into two bets. I bet 16,000 on the flop, which he quickly called. Not good.

The turn brought the 4 of clubs, which was no help to me. Now there was 60,000 in the pot and only 30,000 left in my stack. Even if the guy showed me a pair and put me all in, I’d practically be forced to call because of the odds I was getting. Better then to make the bet myself and put the pressure on him. I moved all in.

The kid didn’t look too rattled, but he did take his time. Eventually he called and showed me a pair of Jacks with no diamond, which was about the best I could hope for. I did indeed have 12 outs to sweat on the river. It was a tough call for him to make, but I believe it was a good one. To my great fortune, the river was the Jack of diamonds, giving him trips but giving me a flush. Now I was sitting very pretty with 120,000 chips.

Bubba

Obviously I was feeling pretty relieved and grateful, but one thing was still bothering me. There was a middle-aged man two seats to my right who was taking forever every single time that it was his turn to act. He was a hefty guy sporting aviator sunglasses and a floppy brown fisherman’s hat. He had the biggest coffee mug I’d ever seen, with the word Bubbamug emblazoned on the side, and he was the picture of a Good Ol’ Boy. I believe he was from either Florida or Lousiana.

Anyway, he was clearly playing for the biggest stakes of his life and doing his best to play up the drama of the tournament. Every time it was his turn, he would pause, look slowly around the table, take a deep breath, and then, having already wasted 10 seconds, finally look at his cards. Then he would put them back, take another breath, look around, count his chips (let me save you some time, buddy: you’ve got 25 less than the last time you counted; all you’ve done is pay the ante), look around, sigh, and fold. This whole act took upwards of 30 seconds, and I could tell the whole table was irritated by him.

Despite my background in competitive debate, I am really not a confrontational person. I want people to like me, and I don’t enjoy getting in arguments with strangers. Technically the guy is within his rights to take 30 seconds or so every time it his turn. He paid his money same as everyone else, and if he wants to be a drama queen, that’s his prerogative. It is pretty rude to waste the whole table’s time, though.

Not only did I not want a fight with this guy, but I also legitimately wanted him to hurry the hell up, which I knew he wouldn’t do if I asked him in a mean way or insulted him at all. So I planned to approach him one-on-one after the first break and ask him very nicely if he could maybe take a bit less time to act. I couldn’t find him, though, and he was late getting back, so I never had the chance.

After another half hour of this foolishness, I’d had enough. I waited until there was a dealer change, which gave us a minute or so break in the action, and I reached over to tap him on the arm. “Excuse me, sir,” I began, as politely as I could manage. “Um, when you have a legitimately tough decision, I encourage you to take all the time you need. But if you could maybe, when you don’t have such a tough decision, if you could possibly act a little faster, I sure would appreciate it.”

By this point, he’d figured out what was going on and was already staring evilly at me. He said nothing and just stared, so I stammered on. “I mean, you don’t have to, but, well, I’d appreciate it, and I bet the rest of the table would to. We’d probably all get to play some more hands, you know?” After a few more seconds of staring, he turned away from me again, still saying nothing. I glanced around at the other players and saw several appreciative looks from them. Oh well, I’d done what I could, and I was ready to be done with it.

A few hands later, though, Bubba turned back to me and said, “Do you realize how much of a douchebag you look like asking me that question?”

I was somewhat taken aback, but I kept my cool. I stared at my chips and took two deep breaths before answering. “I tried to ask as politely as I could. I don’t think it’s an unreasonable request,” I told him calmly.

“It makes you look like a giant douchebag,” he informed me.

This time, several other players at the table leapt to my defense. “I don’t think it was douchey,” one guy chimed in.

“Neither do I,” said another. “I’d appreciate it if you played more quickly, too.”

Now Bubba was really unhappy. “Call the clock if you want. I know the rules,” he grumbled.

He may not have known the rules, though, because technically I could have gotten him a penalty for what he said to me. Directing abusive language towards a player or dealer can result in 10 minutes away from the table, with blinds and antes still taken from your stack. Bubba was already the shortest guy at the table, and a penalty would have been devastating to him. I wasn’t going to do that to him.

That was pretty much the end of it. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but it did seem like he played a little faster after that. I thought about thanking him of acknowledging that, but then I thought better of it. He might not want to admit that he’d given in, so I just let it drop. He didn’t last more than another hour or two anyway, and then the pace picked up.

Once he was gone, the whole table started collectively griping about him. He was a common enemy that gave us all something to bond over and socialize about. I’d accrued some goodwill with everyone else for saying what we were all thinking, plus I got a new nickname that the guy on my right jokingly used every time I raised him.

Bluff Catching

Not much else happened to me before dinner. We lost a few of our weaker players, and they were replaced by stronger ones. The table got tougher but still wasn’t too bad. Plus I was in a good mood from my good fortune earlier in the day and in no rush to make anything happen. I went off to dinner with a smile on my face and a stack of more than 100,000 chips, which felt good given that I started with just 26,000 a few hours earlier.

The only other interesting hand occurred at the 400/800/75 level. An aggressive French player opened to 1900 one off the Button, and I called with ATo in the SB. This guy had been raising a lot from late position, and I’d been defending my blinds pretty loosely since his raises were small. Basically, the conditions were ripe for him to try to move me off of a hand.

The flop came JJ6, all different suits. I checked and called a bet of 2400. The turn was a T, and I checked and called 4900. The river brought a 6, I checked, and he bet 9000.

The small size worried me a little, but eventually I decided he probably wasn’t three-barreling less than a J for a value, and he probably wasn’t betting that small with a J on the river. Plus, I was getting good pot odds on the call. I called and he mucked.

I finished the day feeling good, with 110,000 chips. I believe the average was somewhere in the 80-90K range, so I was in quite comfortable shape headed into Day 3.

2010 WSOP Trip Report: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3