Intro | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6
During the early days of the series, thousands of poker players filled the convention center with the crackling sound of their chip-shuffling. Hundreds of tables lined the room from wall to wall, with only a few narrow lanes roped off for observers. Cameras and reporters scurried past harried floor staff, past swearing and celebrating poker players, to investigate the latest cry of “All in and call!” from a starched-shirted dealer.
On Day 6 of the main event, the Amazon Room was empty. Nine tables were collected in one corner of the immense room, 80% of which was utterly vacant. A single cocktail waiter patrolled between tables. Floor staff and press chatted idly as they waited for something to happen. Tensile cord stretched an oval around the 79 remaining players, so that every table was on the perimeter and observers could easily watch any of them.
Blinds 15K/30K with a 4K ante
Across the table from me, in the 1 seat, was Craig Stein, the guy from New Jersey who’d entertained my Day 4 table with Jewish jokes. To Craig’s left was a guy named Nikolay. Both were clearly playing scared at this point, making overly tight folds while trying to outlast players at other tables.
Of course, this strategy was not without appeal: jumps in the payscale today were going to be worth tens of thousands of dollars. Still, we all had $77K locked up already and were within spitting distance of the final table. The lowest prize there was $900,000. This was not the time to chicken out.
The players to my left were a little tougher, but thankfully they were mostly short-stacked as well, so they didn’t represent a huge threat. The only problem was that to steal from the weaker players, I generally had to make my raises from early position.
There was one “scared money” player a few seats to my left, an Asian man named Darius Suharto. Unfortunately, Darius had a hand every time I tried to tangle with him. The first time, I raised his big blind with Ace-Jack. After an elaborate act of contemplation, he made a huge re-raise, and I folded.
The second time, he raised to 100K from early position, and I called with Ace-Queen of spades in the small blind. The flop came J-5-3 with no spades. Not exactly what I was looking for. But we both checked, and I started to think my hand might be good after all. The turn brought another Jack, which was pretty harmless. I checked again, and Darius bet 100K. Though I had no pair and no draw, it was a small bet, and so far my opponent had mostly shown weakness. I called.
The river was a 9, another harmless card. I checked, and Darius bet 500K, which was more than the size of the pot. Suddenly, it was very clear to me that he had been trying to suck me in. I folded quickly. Darius proudly turned over his hole cards anyway, revealing the other two Jacks.
Blinds 20K/40K with a 5K ante
Our goal for the day was to play from 79 players down to 27. When three tables remained, we’d be done for the day. I’d feared that would take a while, but the staff was announcing a fairly steady stream of eliminations. We quickly cleared the mark where we were all guaranteed $100,000. Then it was $120,000. Not many of the eliminations were from our table, though, because of Craig and a few others who were essentially stalling by taking a very long time to think about even trivial actions.
In many ways, I was glad that the four and a half million chips with which I started the day put me well ahead of the next biggest stack at my table. It meant that I was in little danger of being eliminated early in the day. As the day drew on, however, this became a liability. As other tables played big pots and eliminated players, they were consolidating chips. More and more people were crossing the five million mark and leaving me in the dust. There just weren’t as many chips to be won at my table. When another big stack finally did get moved to my table, he ended up on my immediate left. That was the most dangerous place for him.
That mountain of chips belonged to a quirky, arrogant, motor-mouthed kid named Nicholas Sliwinski, who had just graduated from college a few months ago and moved to Las Vegas with dreams of becoming a professional poker player. He talked non-stop, mostly about himself, and the things he said made it clear that he was a pretty naïve kid. He bragged about winning three satellites into the WSOP main event, which were themselves financed by his winnings at the cash game tables. In other words, he won a few thousand dollars in some of the softest games Las Vegas will see all year, then parlayed that into some satellite entries where the fields are notoriously weak, then parlayed those into a deep run in the one of the softest big buy-in poker tournaments the world has ever seen. He was on the heater of a lifetime while playing against some uniquely weak competition, and it had served only to balloon his already inflated ego.
Before long, Nick was moved. The next new face at the table was a pudgy-faced kid named Scott Montgomery, who landed on my right. He carried himself with a cool competence that was just the opposite of Nick’s chatty naiveté. I’d played with Scott very briefly on Day 4 and I remember him showing a very strange and sophisticated bluff. I had a feeling he was going to be trouble, and I was very glad he was on my right.
Scott and I first tussled when I was in the big blind and he the small. He opened with a raise to 120K, and I called with 54s. The flop came Q-6-2, all different suits, giving me a gut-shot straight draw but not much else to work with. Scott checked, and I checked as well. The turn was an 8, giving me a second gutshot. Scott bet 150K, and I called. He was an aggressive player, and after checking the flop, he was going to bet almost anything on the turn. The river brought a K. He checked, and I bet 250K. He folded.
The second time, he tried to just call from the small blind, but I blew him off the pot with a raise. He let me know as he folded that he wasn’t happy with my bullying.
Blinds 25K/50K with a 5K ante
I was waiting to come back into the Amazon Room when a guy several years my senior approached me with a special WSOP edition of Bluff magazine. “Hey, are you still in it?” he asked me. I told him I was. “Could you autograph this for me?” He tentatively handed over the magazine along with a pen.
I gave him a bit of an “Are you serious?” look, but he seemed genuinely nervous and I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I took the magazine and signed my name.
He started to ask me a question, but just then Nick Sliwinski swooped in and literally grabbed the magazine out my hand. “I can sign that for you now,” he told the guy. “My name’s Nick.” I smiled, shook my head, and walked back to my table.
Before long, we had $150,000 locked up. It was like a dream where I was just floating up the ranks, making money simply by watching others get eliminated. I was in for a rude awakening.
For the third time, the action folded to Scott in the small blind. He called, and I raised 100K more with A-T. Scott called. The flop came A-5-2, all different suits. I was nearly a lock to have the best hand right now, and I knew that Scott would expect me to bluff no matter what I had. So when he checked, I bet 150K again, hoping to induce a bad call or raise. Scott cooperated and called.
The turn brought a King. Against weaker players, I would often just check here. Though my hand is strong, it’s difficult for them to call another bet with a worse hand, because they have to fear yet another bet on the river. But though we’d been together only a brief time, I didn’t think Scott was a weak player. I thought he was smart, and I knew he was suspicious of me. This was a good spot for me to fire again on a bluff, and I’m pretty sure he knew that. In my best “why-are-you-being-so-stubborn” voice, I quickly announced a 350K bet. Scott thought for a moment and then raised to one million.
I didn’t want to groan out loud and give away any information, but inside of my head there was a whole pissed-off orchestra playing a symphony of disgruntlement. From most players, this was a really strong betting line. I’d shown nothing but strength, betting or raising at every opportunity, and still he was committing… I eye-balled his chips, only about a million left after the million he just put in the pot… yep, he was committing his entire stack, and more than half of mine.
But Scott wasn’t most players. I knew he was tricky. And didn’t I play my hand this way precisely because I didn’t want him to believe me? What could he really have, anyway? Three of a kind? I think he would have raised any pocket pair pre-flop. A straight? A hand like 4-3 suited was a possibility. Two pair? But I thought he would have raised any Ace pre-flop, and probably not played 5-2 at all, so that didn’t leave many ways to make two pair. Not to mention that I’d seen him bluff in some strange places before.
At last, I decided I just didn’t have enough information to make my decision. I didn’t think he’d ever fold a better hand, if he had one, and that with most worse hands he’d be committed to put his last million in anyway, so it didn’t really matter if I gave him some information. I groaned out loud and stared at him. “I feel like you’ve got a little bit of crazy in you.” Up until now, we’d had a decent banter going, but now he was staring stone-faced at the table. That was maybe a sign of nervousness?
I just kept thinking what a good spot this was for me to bluff and how Ace-Ten was really one of the best hands I would play this way. If I was going to fold it here, that would be very exploitable. Of course, not just any player would be capable of exploiting me with a check-raise bluff on the turn. But Scott wasn’t just any player. “All in,” I declared, the words stumbling uncomfortably out of my mouth. I hated playing such a big pot in so uncertain a situation so deep in the tournament.
Now Scott looked a little uncertain. “I don’t think I can get away from this,” he told me. I started to think my hand was best. But then he said “Call,” shoved in the last of his chips, and turned over K-5 for a turned two-pair.
I exhaled hard. There were nearly 5 million chips in the pot, more than twice as many as were in my stack. Eight cards could save me on the river. But it was not to be. The river was a 7, and Scott took the pot. I felt sick.
The next time I entered the pot, Craig was in the BB. Though I was in early position, I raised with K-9 of hearts, counting on Craig to fold way too many hands. Darius put a stop to that plan by calling on the button. Then the action got to Craig, and he started thinking, going on for a long time even for him. At last he moved all in. I threw my hand away without a second thought. Darius requested time, but at last, I heard the dealer shout “All in and call!” I glanced over to see Craig holding Ace-Jack and Darius a pair of Queens
The dealer exposed the flop: Q-8-2, all hearts. I grimaced, as I would have flopped a flush. And since Darius would have flopped three Queens, it was pretty much a lock that I would have gotten all my money in with the best of it. I was eager to see whether the board was going to pair, making Darius a full house that would have hypothetically beaten my flush had I hypothetically seen that flop and hypothetically gotten all my money in.
At a cue from the tournament director, the dealer turned over an off-suit 6. My hypothetical flush was still good, and Craig was one card closer to elimination. But then Boom!, there it was on the river, a deuce to pair the board and eliminate Craig. More importantly, it would have hypothetically eliminated me. I congratulated Craig and shook his hand. Silently, I was thanking him for that all-in play that saved my life. It’s strange to think how close I was to an elimination that would have cost me $50,000. Craig nearly folded his hand, and if he had, I would have been out on a bad beat.
I wasn’t able to make anything happen before dinner, and I went to eat in relatively low spirits. I had less than half the chips I’d had at the start of the day, and the blinds were now twice as high. Several friends reminded me that I’d come back from worse earlier in the tournament, and I knew that was true. But the players were better now, and that makes it tougher to pull off a big comeback.
Blinds 30K/60K with a 10K ante
I couldn’t pick up a big hand, and by now I was too short to get involved with anything speculative. But all was not lost. My stack was the perfect size to move all in over someone’s open raise. Of course, if they called, I was likely to be in trouble, but hell I was going to be in trouble if I kept folding, too. So when Owen raised and I found T8s in the small blind, I moved all in. He quickly folded. So far, so good.
Another player was eliminated, and we were down to four tables. I had $193,000 guaranteed.
Next orbit, Scott raised from middle position. I had Ace-Queen, so I moved all in. He looked unhappy and told me, “You’ve been tight, but I don’t see myself getting away from this.” He called and turned over a pair of Jacks. No, I don’t see you getting away from that either, sir, since I’m shoving with any pair in this spot.
“This is the fourth time I’ve been all in for my life against a pair of Jacks,” I told him as the cameras took their places.
“So you’re due to lose one?” Scott quipped. I forced a smile.
The flop was no help, something like T82. I went from being a small dog to being way behind. The director took forever to prompt the dealer for the next card. I don’t remember what it was, I just know it wasn’t an Ace or a Queen. “That’s not good,” I muttered.
I blinked hard, held my breath, and waited for the last card. It was about a 12% shot, my last glimmer of hope. I flinched and sighed as another little card sealed my fate.
It’s impossible not to think about what could have been. I know better than to wonder about what would have happened if I’d won that coin flip or if an Ace had come on the river in that huge pot with Scott. I don’t waste time and mental energy on stuff that’s beyond my control. But it’s far from clear to me that I played that critical Ace-Ten hand well. I’m still not sure whether I did or not, but truthfully I’m leaning towards the latter. Even if the reasoning behind my call makes sense, I have my doubts about whether betting the turn was really a good idea.
But whatever, I can’t control that either, not now anyway. Overall I’m of course very happy with how I played and how I finished. As I was headed to collect my check, a Poker News reporter shook my hand and told me he’d enjoyed following my progress and that I seemed like a nice guy. It was goode to hear that at a time when I was feeling pretty glum. And it was nice to see what he wrote about me on the site:
“He’ll collect $193,000 for his 35th-place finish. He made an extremely gracious exit, shaking the hand of each player at his table.”
Given the number of hotheads, loudmouths, and all-around jerks I encountered along the way, I think that’s something to be proud of, too.
Well done. I enjoy your videos on youtube as well.