Poker Articles

Even after a fairly late night I was still up before ten, so I took the Chan sisters to the breakfast buffet at the Bellagio. Lisa loved the pizza and had four slices and then some fruit “for the vitamins”. Sandy took advantage of the oriental offerings and had a big bowl of gongee with all the toppings. Susie was all over the board, and had pancakes, bacon, fruit, and an interesting assortment of pastries. I indulged the carnivore within and had three plates full of filet mignon before I settled into some fruit and pastry.

It was all so good that we hated to leave but it was almost time for me to go to work at the Rio. So we all got on the tram back to the MGM and I reluctantly left them to meet Carl.

I was quiet when we met in the lobby. I was quiet on the ride to the Rio. I was quiet as we walked to the wsop area. I just couldn’t bring myself to talk to Carl about Susie. He was just so focused on the game. He wished me luck as we parted and found our respective seats. I still didn’t feel like talking so I just gave him a thumbs up.

We were only about 15 minutes early for the start of event #2 so a lot of folks were already seated. I settled into table 198 and said hello to the 6 other guys there. Because of the amount of entrants we were going to be starting 11 handed and an involuntary shiver ran through me at the thought of being cramped at the table. Just one more thing about poker to unnerve me. I put on my headphones and tried to calm myself.

Once the game got going I relaxed a bit into the music I had brought with me. I patiently folded every hand I got for the first half hour and even once folded an AQ suited when I saw that a guy across from me had an AK. I basically just wanted to stay out of trouble and wait until the field thinned enough so we would get rid of the extra chair.

But the cards had other plans, and I picked up QQ on the button a few hands later. The pot was raised early on by an aggressive player and there was a flat call before it got to me. As I pretended to agonize over my decision, I quickly read their minds and their hole cards. The raiser had a pair of red tens and the caller had snowmen so I was a pretty big favorite with the ladies. Still, it was poker and anything can happen so I bided my time and just called for another two hundred chips and the three of us saw a flop.

I was glad I had just called as the flop came 9 10 J and was getting ready to muck my queens when the aggressive raiser who was first to act checked. The guy with the 8s was as surprised as I was and quickly checked behind him. I took my time again and then checked along with them. The dealer burned and turned up a beautiful eight. I could feel the anger coming from the guy with the trip tens as he forcefully threw a single 500 chip towards the pot. The other guy was much more thoughtful and detached, but he reluctantly slid his call into the pot. Again I took my time. I knew I had the best hand, but I also knew there were ten cards left in the deck that would beat me. I decided to try to win the pot right there and slowly slid all my chips forward. “I’m all in.”

Mr. aggressive slammed his chips into the pot much too quickly and jumped out of his chair, leaving the guy with the three eights wondering just how sane his opponents were. He hemmed and hawed as the other guy stalked around like an animal and then finally resigned himself to his fate and called. We turned our cards up and I prayed for anything that didn’t pair the board as the river card came, a 7 of hearts. I gave a silent nod of thanks to the powers that be and started stacking my now tripled chips.

I won a few more pots and stole some blinds over the next 90 minutes so I had almost 10,000 chips at first break. I walked quickly through the throng to the Pokerstars hospitality suite to meet Carl. He was still in with 4,000 chips and we talked quickly about how many players were left and how to adjust our strategy, then we wished each other luck, grabbed a piece of fruit each, and went back to work. As we parted, Carl said something interesting, “Accumulate, don’t speculate.”

For the rest of the day I tried my best to play by those words. I stole blinds, raised people out of pots when I sensed they were scared, and folded to any coin flip or speculative situation. By the day’s end I had over 125,000 chips and was one of the chip leaders. It was almost scary how easy it was to play this way. For the first time in a long time I was enjoying playing poker and I didn’t even have much of a headache. I was however, really tired as play went until two in the morning.

Twelve hours later the 108 remaining players took our seats and prepared to do battle once again. I picked up where I left off and started bullying the table again, which was fairly easy since all of the very aggressive pros were at other tables. To my immediate left was Can Kim Hua, but he was very tight and I decided to avoid any confrontations with him altogether.

Why is it that every time I decide something about my future fate changes my plan? The very next hand I picked up my first pocket aces of the tournament. I quickly scanned the rest of the table to see if anyone else had a hand and sure enough, the unflappable Mr. Hua was positively beaming over his pocket kings. The guy under the gun only had about 20k and was wrestling with the thought of going all in with his A7 clubs. After about 30 seconds, the side of caution lost and he pushed the 20k into the center. Of course Can came over the top all in to try to shut the rest of us out of “his” pot.

Can had about 70k and the pot now held 135k total. It would cost me almost half my stack to call. I knew I had a pretty good edge and though math was never my strong suit I thought I had to be at least a 60% favorite to win the whole pot. Still I hesitated. I could see Carl at the rail mouthing the word “fold” over and over. My headache was back in full force and I just wanted to leave the room and go float in the lazy river with Susie. I didn’t even notice that someone had put a clock on me. Next thing I heard was the tournament director telling me that my hand was dead as time had expired.

I threw my cards in the muck, got up from the table and pushed my way through the rail. I found an unoccupied bench outside the room and sat and breathed deeply with my head in my hands. Carl found me still in the same position about a minute later. He gently laid a hand on my shoulder. “You had aces didn’t you?”

I didn’t look up at him. “So are you the mindreader now?”

He laughed at that. “If it makes you feel any better, a king came on the flop and you would have lost.”

I sat up and looked at him. “Liar. You know I can see you’re bs’ing me.”

“Yes,” he said softly, “but for a second you felt better. Didn’t you?” I nodded and he continued. “Just try to relax and play your best game. If you lose, you lose. You are doing great. You know what to do, now just go and do it.”

I felt a little better as I sat back down. There were 76 players left and I was still in the top 20. I picked up where I left off and started stealing and raising people off of their own steals. By the time we got down to three tables I was back in the top 3 with 450k in chips. They broke our table and I drew a seat at the table with Phil Helmuth and the current chip leader Allan Cunningham.

I avoided almost all hands for about an hour and then, with 25 players left I picked up AK hearts in the big blind. Phil raised to 50k holding the 10 K of spades and Allan and I both called. The flop was a JQ of hearts and the 4 of spades. Phil bet another 50k and Allan folded his A 10 off. It was cheap enough for me to call so I did so quickly to put the fear of God into Phil. The turn brought the 6 of spades giving Phil a flush draw in addition to his straight draw. He checked and I saw in his mind that he intended to check raise me so I took the play away from him and checked behind him. The river card came – a 7 of clubs.

The ESPN cameras were rolling and Phil took his time mumbling to himself and playing to the cameras. “Check”, he finally says, and again I see he is planning to check raise me. This time I play along and bet purposely small, only 100k so he can carry out his plan. Again he takes his time, studying me. He says out loud, “I think you don’t even have a pair. I think you have a busted flush draw and you’re trying to buy the pot.” He looked at my Pokerstars hat. “You online players think you know something. Who do you think you’re playing with here?” As he says the final sentence he pushes all his chips into the pot.

I forgot all about the cameras and the crowd and everything else and I just started laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Phil had made a perfect read and a great play that would have worked on anyone else. But I knew he only had K high and that my ace high was a winner and I really wanted to stick his smug attitude right back in his face.  I looked right at him and said, “Two things Phil. First of all, Pokerstars blows away Ultimate Bet.” I straightened my Pokerstars cap. “And second, I think you have a busted straight draw and that my ace high is good. I call!”

As the hands were turned up and Phil walked away from the table mumbling about how he couldn’t believe I had made that call, applause broke out from the rail. Carl started a chant of “Never Wrong Wong” and soon more than a few voices were chanting with him as the game went on.