The end

Well, it's over.

After the last break, I was moved to Silver 617, Seat 1, in the feature room.

I was playing pretty well, and with about 90 minutes to go for the day, I get dealt JJ.  The guy in Seat 8 raises to 4000, and I call.

For the first time all night, my pair hits. The flop was AQJ rainbow. The guy in Seat 8 bets 4500 and I raise to 20,000.  He calls with what I later discover is AQ, or two pair.  The next card is a blank and then he hits an A on the river giving me a JJJAA full house and him an AAAQQ full house.  I suppose I could have given him credit for the AQ, but I guess I didn't.  He took all of my chips except for 1000, which I lost in the next hand.

The table was sympathetic, but I was the new guy and the other guy wasn't, so I left quietly and went to my room and started writing this down.

I'm not sure how far I would have gotten if I lived to Day 3.  With 300,000 chips, maybe pretty far.  But I think I did pretty well for my first Main Event.

Conclusions:

• The Main Event isn't for the faint of heart. I don't remember the last time I felt this drained.  The prospect of playing another ten hours on Saturday and another ten hours on Sunday before making the cash seems like climbing a Himalayan mountain in your bare feet. And it wasn't the poker play that was tough, it was being disciplined all the time that wears you out. I folded and folded and folded and folded and folded. You don't see that on TV, but that's the reality of this game. You fold and fold and fold and every once in a long while, you play a hand.

Is this fun? It depends on how you define "fun." At this level, it isn't a friendly home game where you make goofy bets and goofier calls because there's not that much at risk. This was fun in the same way that doing high-level MMA is fun - there's the mental game, and then there's getting punched in the face or choked out.

In the end, I'm glad I played, I'm proud of how well I played, and I'm sorry I couldn't bring the bacon home to my backers.  But I'm going to have to think long about whether I want to do this again.

• As always, it's wonderful to have such great friends. Anar, April, Samm, Suzie, Mike, Jolyne and Mark were great company here in Vegas, and the support I got from afar from all of you meant a lot. I am blessed.

• I am heading home tomorrow and will probably play some cards next Tuesday, as I often do, with my friends, my nephew and my son, and that's a pretty good consolation prize (plus winning $1000 in bingo ain't bupkis).

So, until next year, when Scott Plays the 2023 Seniors Tournament (for sure), I'm signing off and going to play some pai gow and get a little drunk.

Ciao!

 

Fourth break

I started Level 9 in kind of a funk. But I got a fast start…

KK, one behind the button.  Seat 6 raises to 3500, Seat 7 calls as do I.  Flop is a bunch of undercards.  Seats 6 and 7 check, and I bet 10,000.  Seat 6 folds, Seat 7 calls.  The next card doesn’t change anything, so I bet 15,000.  Seat 7 folds.

Two hands later, I have 55.  Seat 5 raises to 2400, and two of us call.  The flop is A79. I take the aggressive play and bet 7000.  They both fold.

At last my dry spell seems to be over!

_____________________________

And AA makes its appearance for the first time today. Without going into great detail (I am wearing down and not feeling particularly literate right now), I get some action and my stack grows to 128,000. This is where I need to be with three hours left in the day. My target stack is between 150,000 and 200,000.  Getting there…

_____________________________

The new Seat 9 is kind of hyperactive. He’s got a kind of twitchy energy that extends to his card play. Some of you may be too young to get this reference, but think Michael Keeton’s character in the great Eighties comedy Night Shift.

“Looooove brokers!”

______________________________

They are beginning to break tables up in our part of the tournament room. Basically, as people get knocked out of the tournament, their seats need to be filled, so they will take a table and send its people to the other tables.  We are five tables (or 50 people) away from being sent elsewhere. With 2:45 left, it is pretty inevitable that I will be the new guy at another table soon.

And as much as I enjoyed Table 666, I have hated playing at Table 555. With all of the movement, it has been uniformly unfriendly. I suppose I was part of that, being in my bubble, but even so, there is just not that same camaraderie as we had the first day.

I can’t get away from this table fast enough.

_______________________________

Up and down. I told my friend Mitch that I was going to play my favorite hand one time this tournament, good old Q 10.

I’d folded it three times so far this tournament, but it came suited in clubs so I called a 3500 bet to see what would happen.

The flop was A 7 4 with two clubs. On a semi-bluff, I bet 6000. Seat 4, one of the newish guys who looks a little like Grizzly Adams, called and then Seat 5 raised to 20,000. It was tough to make that call, so I didn’t.  But Grizzly did.  The next card was the ace of clubs, which would have given me the second nut flush.  But it was also a paired board which was really dangerous.

Grizzly bet 25,000 and Seat 5 went all in. Grizzly called and Seat 5 had A7 for the boat.  Grizzly lost a ton of chips and I ducked a bullet.

________________________________

If I make it out of here today, I’m going to have to change my flight home and get a new hotel room. Lisa’s given me permission to check out a more luxe location - maybe the Nobu. I got to get out of Day 2 first, though.

________________________________

AJ in the big blind against Twitchy in Seat 9. He raised to 4000, and I called. Flop was a bunch of low cards, so I bet 10,000. He called. Another low card hit on the turn, so I bet 20,000. Man, I never saw someone skittering furiously while sitting down. He kept looking at me and piling his chips like he was going to go all in, but I was the Sphinx.Disgusted, he laid it down.

137,500.

_______________________________

One more hand with Twitchy.  He raises to 8000 from the button. I have KJd and call, even though I have been told that KJ is fool’s gold.

Well, not this time.  The flop is KJ7.  I check to Twitchy, who check back.  The next card is a Q.  Scared of A 10, I check again, and he does too. The river card is another K, giving me the nuts.  I bet 12,000, but he ain’t buying. I suspect he was just firing at me because of the last hand we had and everything that followed was a slow fold.

154,500 going into the last break.

Dinner break

The last level was pretty rough.  About midway through it, I realized that I had not had a premium hand or a monster flop ALL DAY. I had AQ twice and QQ once, and none of them were playable on their merits (the QQ was counterfeited when an ace hit the board).  

As noted earlier, I was able to bluff my AQ into a fold on a big pot, but otherwise nada. I know this is how it sometimes goes, but when you go for two hours without taking down a pot, you kind of begin to look like the kind of guy who’s afraid of playing anything, and in the cutthroat world of high level tournament poker, that makes you prey to the sharks.

I’m at 90,500 going into Level 9. It’s more than I started with, but as players fall, it’s becoming proportionately smaller. This means that the big stacks might call me when they would fold to a larger stack because they have enough chips to gamble.

This means I am looking for a hand to make them do just that. But I am so, so, so card dead right now, I have to resist the temptation to shove with a marginal hand. I have to keep listening to my inner voice.

Fortunately, I had a nice dinner (chicken sandwich and salad) and I feel a little more energized. So in a few minutes, I’ll be back in the mine looking for that one gem.

Wish me luck!

Quick update

In the last hand of the seventh level, we lost one of the super-pros.  Frank Rusnak’s AA was cracked by Seat 5’s set of nines. He just couldn’t let them go, and that was the end of him.

Meanwhile, Gethy in Seat 9 is on life support with 26,000 chips. My prospects keep improving!

____________________________

And now Gethy’s gone. His 10 10 all-in loses to AK when Seat 7 spikes an A on the river.

He seemed like a nice guy. There are now only four of the original nine at Table 555, and one of them is the late registrant who is crushing this table.

____________________________

Well, I had my first major setback.  Details later, but I am now back down to 107,000. 

I did not listen to my inner voice.

Second break

Since the last break …

Big hand - I have AQ.  Three players - me, Seat 1 and Seat 6.  Flop is Axx, two diamonds.  Seat 6 bets 2600, I call, and Seat 1 calls.  Turn is another blank.  Seat 6 bets 4000, I call, Seat 1 bets 24,000. Seat 6 folds.  I call. River is a diamond. I bet 20,000. The pro tries to engage, but I have the sunglasses and headphones and 1000 yard stare. He folds. 144,900.

88 in the small blind.  Everyone folds around to me, including the button.  I raise to 2400.  Big blind calls. Flop is J67.  I bet 6000.  Big blind (the 4 bracelet guy) calls. Turn is 7, so I bet 12,000.  He instafolds. I’ve now taken pots from the two super-pros.

Who says this game is hard?

_____________________________

A note about my playing style today.  I’m still wearing the black suit, white shirt, with Texas cuff links.  But today, I’m also wearing sunglasses and headphones with the noise cancelling function turned on.

The Sphinx

This has turned out to be a boon. I am in my own bubble, barely any noise, giving away nothing. And the guys at the table understand that I am being antisocial for strategic reasons. They’ve pretty much stopped trying to talk to me at all.

In my bubble, the time feels like it’s flying by. The other thing that is happening is that I am listening to my own advice.  Don’t fall in love with this hand, I tell myself.  Don’t overbet this ace.  

When I was at dinner with Anar the other night, I asked him if he had ever thought one thing, but physically did something completely different. Because that happened to me all the time. I would be thinking No, no, no, don’t call that bet - you’re beat but my hands would involuntarily reach for chips to either call or, worse, raise.  

Almost inevitably, my inner voice would be right and I would be filled with regrets and recriminations. Being in the bubble has mitigated that, not completely, but pretty well.

The only time today I’ve ignored my inner voice was when I had A8c on the button with one raiser - Seat 4. My inner voice was telling me Call or fold, but I raised to 8000. When Seat 4 re-raised me all-in for 60,000 chips, my IV said Told you, and I heard it loud and clear.

____________________________

We’ve lost two players. Seat 2, as expected with his small starting stack, and Seat 6, who was playing too many hands. The new Seat 2 has about 70,000 and plays like an aggressive pro. The new Seat 6 has about my stack, but seems to be pretty tight.

The problem with new players at the table is that they have no history with me, so I have to play tight with them until I can reestablish my table image for their benefit. This turns out to be a good thing, because I should be playing tight anyway, especially now that I have built up a nice stack.

____________________

End of the seventh level, and I’m at 133,500. Taking my time.

First break

First action - I’m in BB with 56o.  Everyone folds to the small blind who just calls.  I reraise to 2500.  He calls.  Flop is J 2 8.  He checks, I raise to 6000.  He calls.  An 8 hits the turn. He checks.  I bet 12000. He folds. 89,400.

I’m wearing sunglasses and headphones today.  I haven’t said a word to anyone.  I am a sphinx.

Folded A2s.  Board had an A on the flop and two spades by the turn.  I was kind of glad to see a Jd fall on the river because the pro next to me bet 20k on the river.  I couldn’t have called that.  The mystery guy in Seat 3 ended up folding two pair to that bet as well.  Some tight play here.

10 10.  Called 1800 bet from the guy to my right. Mystery man in Seat 3 asks to see my chips and reraises to 6200.  I fold.  

Averaging about 20 minutes per orbit.  So far, the pros have been as aggressive as you would expect, but the chip leader at our table to my right has been pretty passive.  The guy in Seat 6 is playing a lot of hands.  Seat 4 made a pretty good pushback on Seat 1 after the turn.  The others are still mysteries to me so far.

AQo, one behind the button.  Seat 6 raises to 2400. I reraise to 6500.  He calls.  Flop is Qxx, two diamonds.  He checks, I bet 10000 to avoid the flush draw.  He quickly folds.  93,100.

Another AQo.  Seat 6 again raises 2400.  This time I just call. The flop is a bunch of baby cards with two clubs.  He bets another 2400, I call.  The turn is a king.  He check and I check.  River is a J of clubs. He bets 6000. I reraise to 24000, representing the flush.  He tries to engage with me but I literally can’t hear him with the headphones.  He folds. 104,600, and still haven’t shown a hand yet.  

With fifteen minutes left in Level 1, I’ve bet into 4 hands - won three of them and folded one preflop. Tight, tight, tight.

Small blind - 10 6c.  Everyone folds around to the button, who just calls.  I do the same, and the big blind checks.  The flop has two clubs.  I check, big blind checks, button bets 2300.  I call.  Big blind raises to 7000.  Here’s the math problem:  The pot has the original bets (2400), our two flop bets (2600), and the big blind’s flop bet of 7000. Button folds. Total is 13000 - it will cost me 4400 to see another card.  Do the pot odds dictate a call out of position?

I fold. At 102,600 at the first break.

________________________________

My friend Jolyne is playing today too and is doing well at the break.  We went over the math problem above and she agreed with the fold.  “You’re out of position, you don’t know if your flush would be the best, and you’re playing 10 6.”

Her logic is sound.  Now, back to work.

Day 2

It's about an hour before I head down to start Day 2. I am much less anxious today than I was on Monday because it's not a mystery anymore.  Here's what I mean:

In 1994, I ran two marathons - Houston and New York.  I ran Houston first and I was terrified about the race.  In training for the race, I had run a 30K as part of the Marathon Warm-Up Series, but I never actually cracked the full 26.2 miles.  I had been told that the "wall" that marathon runners hit was literally your body running out of fuel and turning on itself.  

There was also the fact that the first guy that ran the race - a Greek named Pheidippides - had run from Marathon to Athens to announce the Grecian victory at the Battle of Marathon (26.2 miles), said, "Joy, we win!" and literally dropped dead.  I ran the race, all the time waiting for that mortal moment.  

It never came - although I was really sore (never run in Asics Gel-Lyte Ultras when you weigh over 200 pounds), I finished the race.

Ten months later, I got to run the New York Marathon with my dad and my brother. It was not scary at all. In fact, it was a great time, running with my dad for four and a half hours and seeing the sights.  If I had brought the same fear from the first race to New York, I would have not enjoyed it nearly as much.

It's the same today. Yeah, I'm sitting next to guys who pass the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hour rule. And yeah, the blinds are going to be coming faster and furiouser today.  But I am determined that today is going to be about soaking up the event itself and playing my own best game.  If I lose, that's poker.  But after Monday, I feel so much more confident that I can hang with these guys.

_______________________________

And I am really quite relaxed from the two days off. Yesterday, I had lunch at Gordon Ramsay Burger at Planet Hollywood, and they accidentally brought me both fries and onion rings. First, the big Bingo win, and now free food!  I can't lose!

I watched my friends Anar, April and Mike play yesterday.  They all bagged, maybe not for what they wanted to bag, but they are all playing Day 2, which is better than the alternative.

I had a nice hanger steak at Alexxa's in the Paris Casino and a tuna poke appetizer.  I won some more money at the tables.  And I went to bed at a reasonable hour!

Okay, it's now almost 10:00 a.m.  Cards fly in an hour, so I need to get ready to go.

Next dispatch will be at the first break (approximately 3:00 CST).  Wish me luck!

My days off; my tablemates for Day 2

After closing out Day 1, I finished my last blog entry, then intended to go to sleep, but then I decided that I had two days off, so playing a little pai gow poker wouldn't hurt.

I like pai gow because the pace is stately, as opposed to blackjack, in which you shed money like a guy making it rain at a strip club.  Unfortunately, the pai gow table was completely occupied by people with big piles of money, so against my better instincts, I looked for a blackjack table.

Bally's live blackjack tables were priced at $50 a bet, too rich for this suburban dad.  What now?  I shrugged my shoulders and put $200 into a video blackjack machine.  I am not a fan of these things, because I'm sure they are finely calibrated through doctoral studies at MIT to psychologically strip you of your money while subliminally flashing messages like: 

"DON'T WORRY, YOU CAN MAKE MORE WHEN YOU GET BACK HOME"

"WOMEN LIKE MEN WHO LOSE MONEY AT BLACKJACK" 

"CVS IS HAVING A SALE ON SALTED CASHEWS - $4.49"

Somehow, I paced myself and won $100.  Ignoring the subliminal message "WASN'T THAT FUN?  NOW BET IT ALL," I extracted myself from the machine, cashed out, and went to bed.

___________________________________

I didn't sleep long.  Vegas time is like no other.  In the evening, you look at your watch and say, "It's only 10:30.  The night is young!"  But in the morning, your body says, "It's 8:00 in Houston.  Time to get up!" at 6:00 a.m. local time.

That's what happened to me.  After going to bed at about 12:30, I was up at 5:30 and couldn't get back to sleep.  I had also left the blackout curtains open in my room and it seems like Vegas sunlight attacks awfully early.

I did the Wordle (solved in 4 guesses) and the Tuesday New York Times crossword (9 minutes, 30 seconds, not good).  I read the Times and the Chronicle online, turned on CNN, and made an appointment for a pedicure at 11:00.  I then rolled over and tried to sleep some more.

At 9:00, I woke up, showered and went down to play some pai gow.  This time, it was just one very lady at the table with bad tattoos who wanted to tell me how GREAT pai gow is.  I put down $200 and smiled.  About 30 minutes later, I was up $235 and had enough of hearing how GREAT pai gow is, so I cashed out. 

I went to my video blackjack table - the hypnotic command subliminally implanted in me the night before must have worked - and won another $100.  Up $435 at the tables for the day, I went back to my room and deposited the money in the room safe and headed for my pedicure.

Since I had all of this ill-gotten gain, I upgraded to a pedicure with a scrub and a paraffin treatment.  The pedicurist was very nice and spent practically the whole hour talking about her mostly unsuccessful love life and how hard it was to go dancing in Vegas without running into her ex or one of his friends.  I don't dance, so I couldn't relate.  But she gave me a pretty excellent pedicure and foot massage, so I was happy when I left.  Why don't I do more of that at home?

Spa Man!

I then hopped into a cab and raced to the Gold Coast for the 1:00 Bingo session.  I bought 129 cards for $60 and loaded them onto this iPad device that keeps track of them all as the numbers are being drawn.  After returning a call to my friend Lise, I settled in to "play" bingo, which really means sitting there sipping cranberry juice and vodkas while getting caught up on my email.

They played 11 games and I had nothing.  That was okay - winning wasn't really why I was there.  I just wanted to decompress some more after yesterday's long session of poker, and bingo is just the cure: meditative, quiet, and linear.

The last game was a blackout - your card wins when all the numbers have been called.  There would be three winners: the first bingo wins $1000, then the second bingo wins $1000, then the third bingo wins $1000.  I half-watched my device as the numbers accumulated until I saw that I had a card with just one number left.  Would I win the jackpot?

Nope.  Two people bingoed on the next number and split the first jackpot, $500 each.  I looked around to see if everyone else was packing it up for the day and remembered that there were two more prizes to be won.

I bingoed the next number.  The floor verified my winning board and since no one else had bingoed, I didn't have to split it with anyone.  A nice lady brought over $1000 in nine hundreds and five twenties.  Taking the hint, I tipped her $20.

Three people bingoed on the next number and split the last jackpot. I gathered myself up and called my Bingo sensei, Tammy, to let her know.  Tammy and our friend Marena had introduced me to the joys of bingo on a previous trip and I was sad that I had missed out on playing with them last week.  Tammy was excited for me and told me to put the winnings in the safe and forget about them until I left.  

Sound advice, which I mostly followed.

__________________________________

Returning back to Bally's in triumph, I changed into a swimsuit and went back to the spa at the Paris and sat in the sauna for fifteen minutes with a guy from San Jose, who told me that rents are going down in California, but housing prices are not.

According to the temperature gauge, the sauna was 165 degrees and humid.  In other words, just another day in Houston.

I went back to my room, showered, and finished an early Robert B. Parker Spenser novel, Promised Land, before heading to Caesars for dinner at the Gordon Ramsey Pub and Grill with my poker buddies Anar, Samm, April and Suzie.

Dinner was excellent, as was the conversation.  I am really lucky to have these wonderful friends.

Beef Wellington at the Ramsey Pub

_____________________________________

I went to bed at 10:30 and woke up at 6:30, a nice eight hours.  Anar had texted me that my table listing for Day 2 was available and he sent me the names of the guys I would be playing with on Thursday.

They haven't filled the third seat yet, but this is going to be much tougher table than Table 666.  My internet searches yielded the following information about these guys:

Seat 1, Francis "Frank" Rusnak:  843rd all-time money list with 2.3 million dollars.  Definite poker pro.

Seat 2, Peter Nagy:  Talented amateur.  Cashed in a deep stack in June, but otherwise not much there.  Small stack will be gone by the end of the first level if he doesn't improve quickly.

Seat 4, Wee Yee Tan: Looks like a hedge fund guy, but Poker News showed him bubbling a final table in 2010 in Macau, so who knows if he has undocumented history.

Seat 5, Daniel Ferketa: Talented amateur with $93,206 in total winnings.  He cashed in two deep stacks last week.

Seat 6, Alexander Dombroff:  Talented amateur.  Cashed in the Mini Main Event last week.

Seat 7, Casey Carroll: Table chip leader and looks like he's a pro, but no major wins.  Nonetheless, I'm glad he's to my right.

Seat 8, Me: Semi-talented amateur.  $13,677 total winnings.  One final table.  I'm sure that Carroll is glad that I'm to his left.

Seat 9, Michael Gathy: Best player at the table, good enough to have his own Wikipedia entry.  419th all-time money list with 3.8 million in winnings, and four WSOP bracelets.  And he's to my left.  Sigh.

So to summarize, I have a medium stack, the two players to my left are world-class pros, and the chip leader is to my right.  But there might be a saving grace in that if Gathy is thinking about bullying me off a hand, he has to worry about Rusnak to his left.  But all things equal, I'd rather be in Seat 2.

Rather than obsess about this, I plan to hit the M&M shop for some personalized candies for my kids, and then get a Gordon Ramsay cheeseburger for lunch.  Then I'll finish another Parker book and go swimming.

See you tomorrow!

Done for tonight

Since the last entry …

I got up to about 80,000, and found a pair of sixes in the small blind. Everyone folded and I raised to 2200. MM in the big blind called. The flop was J 8 4. MM bet 2400, and I called. The next card was an ace. Representing an ace to the aggressive bettor, I bet 5000. He fired back with 17,500. Sigh …

70,100.

_________________________________

JJ - Seat 8 raises to 1400 on my BB. I re-raise to 5000. He calls. Flop is a bunch of undercards - I bet 10,000. He folds.

75,100. I really need to slow down now.

________________________________

45s in the big blind. Seat 6 raises to 1500. I call. Flop is J 5 2. Seat 6 bets 1500 again. I raise to 4000. He announces his pocket treys are no good and folds.  

A few hands later, I have A8s. I raise to 2000. The Romanian guy calls. The flop has a king and not much else. We check. An 8 hits the turn, and I bet 4000. He folds.

84,600. 35 minutes left.

_________________________________

At the end, I have 84,500. The Romanian guy and MM (whose name turns out to be Sam Haddad) both complement my play. The Romanian guy says, “Something happened over the day. You became tricky. I think someone caught you bluffing one time, otherwise you just kept taking pots and not showing.”

This is what I love about tournament poker. We played for ten hours, and eight of the original nine survived to Day 2. The scary Asian guy turned out to be very nice, as were the other seven guys.  We really didn’t get to know the replacement players in Seat 9, except to take their chips, but the rest of us are now, if not friends, at least rooting for each other going forward.

I really liked playing with Sam (who ended up being the big stack at the table with about 110,000 chips), so I gave him my contact information and offered to take him out to Nobu next time he visited Houston. He told me he’d send me an email - we’ll see if he does.

I don’t play again until Thursday the 7th at 11:00, PST.  My new table is Orange 555, Seat 8.  And I’ll get to know a new bunch of players as we slog on through the tournament.

Here are some pictures of Table 666 and my final stack:

Table 666

Seats 3, 4 and 5

The final stack!

And here’s what the room looks like:

Thanks everyone for reading this and for your kind words over the day - it means a lot to me.

But now, I'm off to bed.  I'll sleep in and then get a pedicure in the morning.  

Ah, the retired life!

Fourth break

Since the dinner break . . .

I had a quick Phil Hellmuth sighting while I was on my way to my room.  He and Norman Chad are pretty much the only poker celebrities I've seen so far at the tournament, although MM may be someone famous for all I know.

The dinner break (75 minutes) went faster than I thought.  After a quick meal, it's back to the grindstone.

_________________________________________

My son Josh gave me his usual excellent advice during the break: "Play smart!"

I can't argue with that.  In fact, I may get it tattooed on the side of my right index finger to remind me every time I play a hand.  But I'm not sure if Lisa would approve. She likes me just fine the way I am.

_________________________________________

It’s been pretty uneventful until just now (one hour into Level 4).  I had 55 on the button.  The hand folds around to Scary Seat 8, who raises 1200. I call with position and hope to improve.

I don’t.  The flop is three clubs and two overcards, but no ace.  Seat 8 bets 2000 and I can tell he doesn’t have the flush.  We check the nothing turn, then I hit my set of fives. Since I checked, Seat 8 bets 4000.  I re-raise to 12,000. He stews and then folds.

If he had a better set, my bet represented the flush which scared him off. If he had two pair, I think I got all I was going to get out of him.

Now at 78,800.

_________________________________________

The worst thing about tournament poker is being on a draw against an aggressive bettor. You know you are going to get paid if the hand hits, but it’s still a draw and you might end up with bupkis.

My friend Anar has been counseling me to be more sensitive to the pot odds when calculating my bets.  He probably would not have approved of the last hand.

J 10 spades, and Seat 4 in position raises my small blind to 1200.  I call, and the flop gives me two spades.  I check and he bets 2400.  I call, and the turn is not a spade, but it does complete the nut straight if I have AJ.  I think about re-raising a substantial amount to represent the straight, but I don’t think my story would make sense to him.  Why would I call the 2400 on an inside straight draw?  I think better of it and retreat.

But man, I wish I’d hit that spade.

73,700.

________________________________________

We lose our first player at Table 666.  Seat 9 has a queen and hits top pair, but the laughing Romanian has KK and dispatches him easily.  Seat 9 doesn’t say goodbye as he leaves.

_________________________________________

Ouch.  AQh and two hearts on the flop.  Scary Seat 8 just won’t go away, and I bluff off 12,000 on the turn and river. Back to 60,700.  This game is HARD.

Now that I have my one idiot play behind me, I will buckle down for the rest of the night.  Nothing but AA, KK and maybe QQ.

__________________________________________

Well, I lied.  Last hand before the break, I look down at AK.  I raise to 2200 and MM calls.  The Giggler re-raises to 6000.  I call and MM calls.  The flop is a bunch of nothing.  First to act, I bet 10,000.  MM folds and Giggler goes into the tank for three minutes.  He then tells me he has AK and folds.

Whew.  Now at 74,200 and on break.

Third break

Since the last dispatch:

I love listening to players during the breaks. They’re telling anyone who will listen why they are not doing as well as they expected.  For example, a guy with a bedazzled Affliction shirt and bandanna is telling someone on the phone that he’s now established his table image and being lucky on Day 1 is overrated.  I think there’s an 80% chance he is gone by the end of the day.

_____________________________

Mr. Massage confirmed that he’s the rich guy at the table. When I offered him a snack from my backpack, he declined, announcing, apropos of nothing, that he was having dinner at Nobu.  He said, “Poker players are cheap, so there won’t be many people from here going there.”  He grandly added, “It’s a $500 meal.”

Meanwhile, I plan to have a nice cheeseburger at the dinner break.  So there!

________________________________

JJ.  Boston guy raises it up, and Seat 9 calls.  I hate JJ, but I make the call instead of re-raising.  Glad I did, because a newly energized Mr. Massage raises to 4200.  The first two raisers fold, I show MM my JJ, and he cheerfully shows me his JJ.  “These are the worst on Day 1,” he counsels me, as he pulls in the pot.  

The scary guy in Seat 8 replies, “AQ is worse.”  A spirited debate ensues about which of these premium hands sucks the most.

Two hands later, I look down at AQs.  I raise it up and take down the blinds and then show Seat 8 my hand.  

“I wasn’t talking about suited ace queen,” he protested, laughing.  This is only funny to poker players, but we all laugh with him.

________________________________

Getting hot - after showing my JJ, I’ve gotten some hot hands (QQ, the aforementioned AQ, even a humble 10 3 offsuit in the big blind that paired a 3 for the win).  I’m now at 71,300!

_______________________________

K 10.  I end up in a hand with MM and the Romanian.  The flop was 789, giving me an open-ended straight draw.  The Romanian bets 2000.  MM and I call. The turn is an A.  First to act, I check and so do the other guys.  The river is a Q.  I got nothing, so naturally, I bet 7000.  MM and the Romanian both fold, and MM starts trying to guess my hand.

I don’t give him anything.  82,700.

________________________________

Fun hand - 10 6 on the button.  Everyone folds around to me.  I raise to 1000, MM folds, but Seat 2 calls.  The flop is 10 6 4, giving me two pair.  I bet 2000, and Seat 2 calls.  The next card is kind of scary - a 7 - but I bet 5000 out of turn. The dealer announces my misplay and I tell him, “Sorry.  I’m committed.”  Seat 2 stews for awhile and mucks his hand.

86,300, and I think I’m becoming the scary player at the table.

________________________________

Or not.  I look down at A 10h and raise to 1000.  The giggling Romanian is the only caller.  The flop is 10 high with three clubs.  I bet 2000 to see where I’m at. He re-raises to 7000.  I run away sobbing.

A few hands later, I have J 10 in the small blind and I call a 1000 raise from Seat 6.  The flop is J 8 4, giving me top pair.  I check and Seat 6 bets 2000.  I raise to 6000.  He comes back to 16,000. With some reluctance, I let it go and he tells me, “If you folded your set of 8s, that was a great fold, sir.”  I had made him for an overpair, but could he have had the other two jacks?  Good Lord - he had the super nuts. Glad I got out of the way. (And at the dinner break, he confirmed that he had the set of jacks.)

68,200.

_____________________________

Interesting fact: through nearly six hours of play, no one has been knocked out of the tournament at Table 666.  The smallest stack appears to be 9,000 in Seat 9, then 41,000 in Seat 3.  

Seat 9 is going to have to make a move soon, which means you have to worry that your 1000 preflop raise is going to turn into 9000.  While I am still up for the tournament, I can’t take a body blow like that without some pain.  So weirdly, I have to be as careful with him as I would be with one of the big stacks at the table.

Meanwhile, the blinds keep coming…

67,100 with 8 minutes to dinner break.

_____________________________

Last hand before dinner break, I look down at AK on the button.  Boston guy raises to 1000, Seat 9 calls, so I raise to 4000, hoping to get Seat 9 to commit his remaining 5000. Boston folds, and Seat 9 goes into the tank and then gives it up.  Too bad.

68,300 and off to dinner.

Second break

Since the last post…

QQ against the guy from Boston.  He raised preflop, i smooth called.  Q on the flop, we check-check.  Ace on the turn, he bets 800, I reraise to 2500, he folds.  I was hoping he had a big ace, but he must not have.

Big hand - raised to 1000 with 89s.  The button calls.  Flop is Js 10d 5s, giving me an open-ended straight draw and a flush draw.  I check, button checks.  Turn is a 7, giving me the straight.  Button bets 4000, I raised to 8000, button calls. River is nothing, so I bet 15,000.  After a long deliberation, he folds.

Two hands later, I get QQ.  Scary guy in Seat 8 raises to 1200, Seat 9 calls, I raise to 4000.  Seat 8 folds, Seat 9 calls.  The flop is a bunch of undercards, so I raise to 6000.  Seat 9 calls.  We check the turn and the river.  My QQ holds up.

Now at 68,600!

________________________________

Guy to my left gave up his masseuse and his mojo went away - lost a big hand to the giggling Romanian in Seat 5. The Romanian started to apologize, and Seat 2 wasn’t having it.  “Luck!” he said, with the same emphasis you’d use for its rhyming word.

_________________________________

As I sit here and look around the room, I am struck by how ordinary these guys are (and it is vastly masculine - in the tables surrounding Table 666, I can see one woman playing). Where do these guys come up with $10,000?

It’s weirdly comforting.  If I was playing with a bunch of millionaires, I’d be worried that they would be playing loose because the money doesn’t mean anything to them.  I get the sense that Seat 2 - Mr. Massage - is one of those guys, and he plays like that.  Early on, he told me, “I will see more flops than anyone else at this table,” and he has.

Me and Mr. Massage

Everyone else, however, seems like they are happy to be here and are in no hurry to put their tournament lives on the line.

______________________________

67,300 at the second break!

First break

50,000 chips, down 10,000.

I had aces on my second hand.  Raised to 600, and I got one caller, who folded to my 3000 bet on the flop.

The next hand I played was calling a preflop raise with 67 diamonds.  A spade flop was scary, but the check on the flop made the turn bet easy to make when I paired my 6.  Guy called 2000, and river was a 7.  I bet 4000 and he folded.

At the one hour mark, I was up 6200.  I got one more decent hand - QQ - before I caught a bad run of cards.

AQ - Q on the flop, preflop raiser raises again, I reraise to 4000. He reluctantly calls.  We checked the turn (big mistake) and then he hits a heart to make the nut flush.  I called his 5000 bet like an idiot.

QJ - Q on the flop, one caller to my flop bet of 3000.  He catches a K on the river to take the pot with his KJ.

A10h - Aggressive player raises preflop.  I call.  Junk flop with inside straight draw.  I stab at the pot, he reraises to 10,000.  I think he knew I was a little on tilt.  I fold.

Impressions of the table:

• Guy to my left is a good player who has been getting a massage the entire tournament.  He told me he’s budgeted $20,000 for massages.  I believe him.
• Guy to his left (Seat 3) is from Dallas.  Solid but not scary.  Wearing a hoodie.
• Guy in Seat 4 is from Utah, looks like the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.  Playing obvious hands, not a lot of imagination.
• Seat 5 is a Euro who laughs too much.  Not serious at all.
• Seat 6 is just a guy.
• Seat 7 is a guy from Boston.  He originally claimed this is his first tournament, but later amended it to say that this is his first Main Event.  He got hammered on the first hand by the guy to my left, but has played solidly since then.
• Seat 8 is a scary young Asian guy, playing very aggressively and having the goods when he shows. When we got back from the break, I had AK and raised to 800; he called and when I didn’t catch anything on the flop he attacked in position.  I think he is not scared of me AT ALL.
• Seat 9 is a guy.

46,500 two hours and ten minutes into the tournament.  Just need to stay patient.

Day 1

At Table 666 now, five minutes to play.

Six players at the table so far - four older guys (including me), and two young guys.  The young guy in Seat 8 is the one to watch.  He has that look of a guy who is going to reraise my raises.  I plan to stay away from him for awhile.

I’ll be taking notes and updating the blog as time allows.  Decided against the tie.  I thought it would look gimmicky to this crowd.

Shuffle up and deal!

Main Event eve

I am now safely ensconced at Bally's after an uneventful flight from Houston.

When I told my cab driver at McCarron Airport that I was a retired lawyer, she volunteered that she was an ex-con with two children in the penitentiary.  I recommended Keri Blakinger's memoir, Corrections in Ink, to her as I got out of the cab - I hope she reads it.

I then moved into my room, changed out of my suit and went down to buy my ticket to the tournament.  The registration line was long, so I started a conversation with an Israeli guy rebuying his way into the Bounty tournament.  I asked him how he had gotten bounced from the tournament.

"I had a set of sixes.  I thought I was good when I called his all-in," he said, grimacing.  "But he had a set of sevens.  That was better." 

"What did you think the guy had?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.  "But I knew he didn't have a set of sevens."

"Why?"

"Because I had quad sevens the hand before."

Poker logic.

Another guy in line was from France (or Quebec, I guess).  I usually think of French as one of those accents that I can suss out if I'm patient enough, but this guy's accent was thicker than road tar on an August afternoon.  He was emphatic about doing something twice, but what that was, I had no idea.  I just nodded a lot and he seemed satisfied.

I then texted my poker buddy Mark and found out he was in my line, just around the corner.  I hadn't seen him because the registration line is worse than a Disney ride - just as you think you're at the front of the line, there's another set of switchback cordons.  

Mark D. in Paris's bespoke registration room

He was trying to buy into a 1:00 satellite, but it looked like he was going to be too late since it was now 3:30.  Lucky him, a WSOP guy came into the registration room and asked if anyone was looking to enter the 1:00 tournament.  Mark raised his hand and got moved to the front of the line.  After paying his entry, he raced off to join the game.  I'll let Mark describe what happened next:

Well, that was short and not so sweet.  Started with $10k, on my first BB someone min raised and I called with 79 suited.  Flop comes and I have two pair, he goes all in with AJ and I called.  Four hearts flopped on the board and he beat me with his j of hearts.  Drats I say!

Mark took a second crack at it:

Well, strike two.  Was in $500 satellite, three of us all in.  I had QQ, other guys had AJ and A7.  I'm feeling pretty content at that point until one of the remaining As flops.  Man, I love this game.😫

Meanwhile, I got to the front of the registration line.  The lady in the booth was really nice, and completely unimpressed by the stack of $10,000 I passed to her.

 

As she updated my profile in the WSOP database, she asked me what my profession was.  When I told her I was a retired lawyer, she lit up.

"I had to do jury duty once," she said.  "I hated it."

I gave her the secret to getting out of serving on a jury.  "When they question you, let them know what you think!  If you have strong opinions, one side or the other isn't going to like them.  They'll strike you off the jury every time," I said.

She nodded.  "That makes sense," she said.  She then printed out my ticket.

Oh my.  I am in Seat 1 at Table 666.  How weird is that?

This number has some strange mojo.  My friend Yonny pointed out to me, "All the numbers on a roulette wheel add up to your table number."  Yikes.

I am not going to worry about this.  As the Israeli guy told me, "Don't be superstitious.  Poker is math."  Of course, this is coming from a guy who thought the deck was out of sevens because he had all four of them the hand before.

_____________________________________

After getting my ticket, I went back to my room and put it in the hotel safe and then went to the Luxor for the Blue Man Group show with my friend Art and his family.

I was a little nervous about Art's kids, 2 and 3 years old, being entertained by the Blue Men, but I didn't have to worry.  That show is made for small kids - lots of lights and noise, no dialogue, and humor that even three-year-olds get.  At one point, a Blue Man ate a Twinkie and then spewed Twinkie goo out of a hole in his chest.

"Gross!" Art's older daughter said, but she was laughing while she said it.  The kids danced and tried to catch the smoke rings and laser beams flying from the stage.  Art enjoyed the show too from his seat in the Poncho Section.

We had dinner and then I caught a cab back to my hotel.  I'm going to watch the new episode of "Westworld" and then go to bed.

It's nearly midnight in Houston right now, but not yet 10:00 here in Vegas.  Time to start adjusting my body clock.

Good night all!

At the airport

Today was a throwback day going to the airport.

When I was a kid, my dad worked for Xerox as an engineer.  Being a poet with no interest in the hard sciences, I had no idea (or to be frank, any interest) in what he actually did at work, but I did enjoy listening to his accounts of the internecine office politics in a big corporation.  My dad’s stories were real-life plot lines from “Mad Men” and “Dilbert” with duplicitous peers, comrades in arms, and clueless bosses.  

Many years later, I cut to the chase and asked him what he did at Xerox, and it turned out to be extraordinarily cool: he managed a team that designed the packaging for Xerox’s products.  It’s like those contests that where kids have to package an egg in the least amount of materials to survive a drop from the roof of a school, except that my dad got paid to do it and could save Xerox millions of dollars by figuring out how to use 5% less cardboard in the package carrying their toner cartridges.

For some reason, my dad travelled a lot in his job and I guess he didn’t get to expense his airport parking, so after I got my drivers license, one of my jobs at home was to drop him off at DFW airport. It was about thirty minutes from Lewisville to the airport, and we had some nice father-son conversations on those trips.

I remember one time he said, “You know I love you, that’s always been the case, but now … now, you’re becoming interesting.”  

I think he said that around the time that I was dating a pretty girl with long legs who liked to wear fishnet stockings.  He was probably trying to figure out the math on how I had pulled that off.  If you could have seen what I looked like in those years, you’d have been stumped too. It was like the Collatz conjecture of teenage dating.

Anyway, getting dropped off at the airport was one of those things that people did way more in the seventies and eighties than they do today.  I think it’s less about the drop off and more about the inconvenience of getting picked up.  Easier to pay two dollars a day at a remote lot and not worrying about when your ride will get there.

But today, my wife told me that she would drop me off at the airport. It was nice: she gave me advice on mask-wearing in the crowds (“Wear the KN95 in the airport, then switch to the N95 on the plane.”), we calculated how much I would need to win at the WSOP for us both to retire (with the 60-40 split, I pretty much need to win the whole damn thing), and she told me that she was going to start cleaning out our junk room (we are junior grade hoarders, mostly because I am convinced that things like old Nintendo Wii cables can be resold on eBay [spoiler alert: they can’t]).

When we pulled up to the curb, she kissed me and wished me luck.  When I told her that I was probably not going to win the event and she would have to keep working, she smiled and told me she was okay with that.  She then told me to pinch the nose piece tight on my mask and I waved goodbye.

As my dad liked to say about her, she’s a keeper. And for her, I hope I win the whole damn thing.

Final preparations

It's Saturday morning, and I'm in the home stretch for the trip to Vegas.

"I've never seen you like this," my son Josh says.

"What?"

"You are obsessed about this trip.  You've been reading poker books, playing poker online, talking about the tournament constantly.  You just need to chill out."

At first, I didn't get it.  But then I realized that he was right - this has become an idée fixe for me.  I'm worrying about things I cannot control.  Am I going to be at a table with someone who can see right through me?  Am I going to lose my composure and throw chips away on an ill-advised bluff?  Am I going to wear down and chase a draw I wouldn't have even looked at early in the tournament?

When I'm playing in a $100 tournament, I don't let these things slow me down.  When I'm playing in a $1000 tournament, I take things a little more seriously, but I play my game and let the cards come to me.

But in a $10,000 tournament, the thing I worry about is that, when the cards come to me, the professionals at the table will either (a) run away like scalded cats because they know I'm good; or (b) throw such an aggressive bet at me that I will second-guess myself and throw away the winning hand.  I've seen it before (skip to 9:00):

It really comes down to confidence.  A few weeks ago, my poker buddy Anar (who cashed in 121st place last year in the Main Event) and I were congratulating each other for winning seats to the Main Event in this year's poker league, and he told me, "You know, I stayed out of hands with you this year."  This was high praise from a guy who hung in with the best players in the world.

I've gotten similar encouragement from many other people I respect.  My friend Michael told me, "Stick with what works no matter what."  My poker sensei Wojciech (who finished 91st this year in the Seniors tournament) has been reassuring me that the structure of the tournament (deep stacks and slow levels) favors my game.

So, like Josh says, I am going to chill out.  Like this highly underrated Saturday Night Live sketch counsels, I just need to give up the ham.

"Everybody needs to just cool out."

_______________________________________

My poker friends were all in Las Vegas last week, playing the Seniors Tournament, the Super Seniors Tournament, and various other smaller tournaments.  I had planned to join them to play the Seniors again as a warm-up to the Main Event, but in the run-up to that trip, reports were coming in about a COVID outbreak.  Worrying that any virus I caught in the Seniors week would carry over to the Main Event week, I cancelled my trip.

Man, I wish I had gone.

For me, the poker has always been secondary to spending time with my friends.  I usually split a room with my great friend Bert, and all of my friends eat and drink in various combinations as we celebrate each other's wins and commiserate over our losses.  

There was a lot to celebrate.  Wojciech and our buddy John did really well in the Seniors, and Billy did well in the Super Seniors.  The others on the trip had cashes as well - it turns out there are poker tournaments everywhere.

I am hoping that this week will be just as fun for me as it was for them.  There are four of us playing in the Main Event: me, Anar, April and Mike.  My friends Mark and Samm are also trying to win a ticket to the Main Event by playing some satellites.  We will be on a group thread sending each other furtive dispatches from inside the battle, then planning a place to meet and recap.

I'm also planning to see the Blue Man Group on Sunday night with my friend Art and his family.  It's a 5:00 show, so I won't lose any sleep over it.  He and his wife have two small children and I got second row seats (including one in the Poncho Section) so I'm bringing some noise-cancelling headphones to minimize the sensory overload for them.

I recognize this is kind of a business trip and if things go well, that's what it will be.  But if they don't, I'm not going to stew in my room doing crosswords all day.  Maybe dinner at Momofuku?  Maybe Piff the Magic Dragon?  I got options.

_________________________________

Two days till cards fly!