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!
No further comment required—you said it all quite well. Thanks for keeping us entertained and informed (while playing world class poker).
ReplyDeleteY’all: I am sitting on my pool deck listening to a fountain and enjoying my cereal with berries and banana. My dog is unsuccessfully stalking a squirrel so it is a fairly tranquil environment. I just read all of Scott’s aka Scooter’s posts. Although I would have been happy to see him win lots and buys Boys Lunch meal, I am not upset that he is out!!!
ReplyDeleteThe tension was palpable!!! I could feel my stomach tightening up the last several posts and all I was doing was reading about it!!! I don’t know if it was as bad for Scott aka Scooter with his great sunglasses/ear buds strategy but it was too much like trial work for me!!! I am thinking poker may be a a younger man’s game to tolerate that much tension? Hawkins
You had him beat until the last card and there were approximately only 4 out of 46 chances that the last card would be a winner for him instead of you.
ReplyDeleteI would take that every time if I could get it.
Great tournament! Bert