Bigger Deal

My annual trip to the WSOP isn’t what it used to be. I’m not single anymore for one thing. I’ve got responsibilities. A wife. A child. And I’m older. I’ve got hemherroids. I can’t sit on my ass for days on end. The Main Event? Forget it. Two weeks is about a week too long. Of course there are compensations for making it that far. But what if I don’t? God forbid I bubble and only play one week. That would be even worse: "Honey, the good news is I’m coming home a week early. The bad news is that I just spent the past five days playing marathon poker sessions for nothing. That’s right, I went to Sin City and left you with all the child care this week for absolutely no reason. Oh, and by the way, I lost–I mean we lost–ten gees."

I don’t think I have to tell you that the ten gees will be the least painful bill I pay there. No, my WSOP now is a surgical strike. By necessity. In, out, neat and clean. One, maybe two of the lower buy-in tournaments, depending upon how things go. Five days total, including travel…And yet I don’t sense a lot of enthusiasm coming from my spouse when I announce this plan over dinner. No jumping up and down. No high fives.

But that’s okay. I may not have the devil-may-care insouciance of my youth, but then the World Series isn’t exactly what it used to be either. What is it, exactly, you say? Well, it’s big, and it’s corporate, and it’s commercial, and it’s, well, at the risk of sounding like one of those people who wax nostalgic over the memory of that rustic little Mexican seaside fishing port they used to escape to that is now now a built-up seawall of resort hotel towers filled with loud people slurping tall blue drinks and slathering on suntan oil, it’s not quite the stuff of romance anymore. But you know what? I’m not in the romance market these days. I’m looking to make money.

Now my wife quite correctly points out that I’ve been making money right here in NYC in the underground clubs, with a fringe benefit being the authentic, romantic, non-corporate, Damon Runyonesque atmosphere. In fact, she points out, we’ve been getting by largely on account of my New York poker winnings. Why go risk the bankroll in Las Vegas at the World Series of Poker, which, as I keep complaining to her, is now soulless and sterile, an assembly line production in which "World Champions" are being spit out like widgets. "Well…" I stammer, "I’m going for the big score. I’m going to see all my friends. I’m going because no matter what they do to ruin it, it’s still the World Series of Poker."

Score one argument for this former pre-pre-law student. True, my wife doesn’t pack my bag for me, but at least she doesn’t unpack it. Without turning the rest of this tale into a book-length odyssey (a la my memoir of the 2005 Series Take Me to the River), I will tell you that my time at the Rio blows hot and cold, quite literally, from the Indian sweat lodge heat of the temporary tent outside the Amazon room where the spillover tables are located, to the meat locker deep freeze of the Amazon room itself (the air-cooled expense of which defies the penny-pinching logic that Harrah’s seems to apply to every other aspect of the event). In the yin and yang swings of temperature, my trip is defined by two tournament hands.

Both of these hands are thematically of a piece, and both reflect the pitfalls of the success that I’ve been having in live cash games. That success, if I can be immodest, has been marked by my ability to make really good reads and then act on them. Can you tell where this is going?

The first hand occurs during the June 16 $1500 NL, about six hours in, after I’ve built up my original $3000 stack to $15,000 through a series of judicious raises and reraises, rarely being forced to show down a hand. In the space of twenty minutes, however, the makeup of our table undergoes a radical transformation, as three short stacks bust out and are replaced by three chip monsters, each of whom have well over $25,000 apiece. Gentrification sucks. These new players are aggressive and annoying.

The hand that leads to trouble starts with me making a standard three times the big blind raise of $600 in middle/late position with pocket sixes. The button, one of the monster stacks, who at this point has been at the table for less than a round, reraises me to $1,900. I think about folding, but it’s only $1,300 more to call, and if I can flop a set, I might well be able to double up against him, which makes it worth the risk. The flop comes Q-5-3 and two diamonds. I check and he checks back. To my mind this means that he either has a monster, like a set of queens, a hand too big to bet, or he has pocket jacks or tens or A-K, and he’s afraid. Of these hands, queens and A-K actually seem the most likely, as I believe most players bet out jacks or tens in this spot. The turn card brings another queen. Hmm. An interesting card. This makes it extremely unlikely that he flopped a set of queens. I decide to check again to see what he does. He bets $1500 into the $4100 pot. A very weak bet. Now, I’m almost sure that he’s missed the board and is just trying to pick up the pot on the cheap. I’ve played the hand very timidly, so he must think I’ve hit air and he can scare me off. I decide to call again, and if no ace, king or jack comes on the river, and the flush doesn’t get there, I’ll check and call again. In retrospect, this would have been a great spot for a check-raise–but hindsight as they say… At any rate, the river is another five. So the board now reads, Q-Q-5-5-3. It’s a pretty damn good card for my hand. A great card, really. I check again, and he bets $2500, which seems perfectly consistent with my read. If he had A-Q or aces, I’m sure he would have bet the flop with a flush draw out there. He certainly would have bet more on the turn. Without giving the hand too much more thought or analysis, I call. My instinct is I’m good.

When he flips up pocket kings, I’m stunned. I was so confident in my read that I just can’t believe I was wrong. The kings reverberate on the table, zooming in and out like a movie shot, taunting me. The blunder chops me down to $9,000, which isn’t terrible, but definitely takes away my flexibility. Forced to play more conservatively, I find myself smack in the middle of a dead run of cards. Two hours later, blinded down to $3,000, I jam and lose a race, and that’s it, I’m history.

The next day is almost the same exact story. Playing the $1090 deep stack tournament at the Venetian (which I decide is a better value in a nicer venue than the Rio), I build up my $10,000 starting stack to $20,000. With the blinds at $100-$200, I raise it up to $800 with K-Q from the button after the UTG [under the gun – ed.] player, an older man dressed all in black like Johnny Cash, and a middle position player limp in. I’m a little wary of the UTG limp, not least because the guy’s something of a cipher to me, but when he just calls my raise, I don’t give him a big pair, thinking he definitely would reraise in that spot, since his call also invites in the other player, who sure enough calls the additional $600. The flop comes down a very nice Q-7-4 with two spades. It’s check-check to me, and I bet $1400. UTG calls me and the other player mucks. The call is a bit worrisome. It certainly occurs to me that he might have flopped a set, but with the flush draw out there, I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t raise me. Unless he’s on the flush draw. The turn card is a 5, which makes a straight if the guy is playing a 3-6 or 6-8, both fairly unlikely holdings unless they’re spades. But the way he checks a little too quickly makes me suspicious.

So I check back. I’m not afraid to let him get a free card to his flush if that’s in fact what he’s drawing to. The river is a nonspade 8. The flush draw doesn’t get there. He pauses, then flings out a bet of $10,000 into a $5,200 pot. [What the f--?!?] Almost as quickly as I can process the numbers, my B.S. detector lights up. It’s such an absurd overbet that all I can think is he was on a flush draw and missed, and this is the only way he thinks he can win the hand. With a hammer. So I call. Fast. Just blurt out "I call." And he immediately flips over his hand like it’s the mortal nuts. Two kings. Again. Wow.

Well, what can I say? That I got outplayed? That I was hoist by my own petard? That if you live by your reads you can also die by them? Because as bad as these reads turned out to be, the worst read of my entire trip comes the next day, in a Starbucks, while I sit flipping through a just-purchased copy of the New York Daily News. There, on page three, my eyes fall on a story headlined "Poker Den Robbed, Owner is Busted," that instantly gives me a bigger jolt than any double shot of espresso I could possibly quaff. Even though it’s not one of the New York clubs I’ve been frequenting, it might as well be. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that with armed robbery involved, the cops are not going to have much choice in the matter. They’re going to have to shut down the rest of the clubs, too. It’s not just a vice issue anymore. They can’t just look the other way. With guns involved, it’s hardcore criminal activity and has to be stopped.

Sure enough, two days after I get back to New York, two of the other biggest clubs in New York are busted, the doors padlocked. My world–my real world–keeps getting smaller while my fantasy world–the World Series–keeps getting bigger. It’s like watching a final table and the guy you’re rooting for, a friend of yours, keeps losing chips while some other guy, a pro who’s become increasingly obnoxious in the glow of the TV lights, keeps doubling up. What are you going to do? It’s the way of things. The world isn’t as romantic as you’d like it to be; it keeps changing and evolving and usually not for the better. If you’re a poker player, you just try to stay positive, keep trusting your reads, and hope enough of them are good to keep you a winner.