WSOP 07 – Long Day’s Journey from 1 to 2
By Anthony Holden
‘It’s the worst moment of the year,’ says two-time world champ Doyle Brunson, doyen of living poker players, of the day you’re knocked out of the sixty-million-dollar ‘main event’ of poker’s World Series. From personal experience over the last 20 years – in which I’ve made it through to Day Two of the world title event all of four times out of eight – most recently in 2005, at the beginning of Bigger Deal – I can tell you that the dread, odds-against card that seals your fate socks you in the stomach like a sucker-punch to the solar plexus.
Whether already up on your feet or not, you reel away from the table winded, and stagger out of the room like a vaudeville drunk – dazed and alone, blind with rage against the world and all its works, maybe even (if you’re a real wimp) disappearing to a lonely, self-pitying corner to shed an over-the-top tear or two.
But hey, brother, come on, so what? Two-thirds of the field (i.e., this year, more than 4,000 people) goes out on Day One. Pull yourself together and go play in a cash game. That way, you can begin to feel better by thinking of all the time you’re not wasting by joining the Day Two, Three, even Four suckers who grind on red-eyed and wasted through those exhausting, interminable, 16-hour days – still without making it into the top 10 percent, and so the money.
The worst place to go out of this thing, we all know, is what’s called the ‘bubble’ – one off the money. You’ve played all that time, beaten all those world-class players, and what have you to show for your $10,000 entry fee (however you may have come by it)? Precisely nothing. Neither for professional or amateur players is that a good rate of pay for four long days’ extremely hard work. Better, by far, to go out on in a blaze of doomed glory on the first hand of the first day.
This year, Day One victims currently seconding Doyle’s sentiments include former world champions Amarillo ‘Slim’Preston, Johnny Chan and ‘Texas Dolly’ himself, plus leading American pros (and wannabe – PLEASE, pretty please – someday champs) Howard Lederer, Annie Duke, Erik Seidel, Sam Farha, John Juanda, Scott Fischman, Jeff Shulman, Kathy Liebert and Jennifer Harman, not to mention top European pros Andy Black, Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, Isabelle Mercier, Simon Trumper, Dave Colclough, Roy Brindley and the Hendon Mob’s Ram Vaswani and Barny Boatman.
Plus your correspondent, a.k.a. Holden Unbound? Ah, this wouldn’t be the grade-A, high-octane website it is if I were to give that away so easily, this high up in the piece. You’re going to have to relive the long day with me before you find out how it ended. And I think, if only to improve our stay-longer statistics, I might just spin it all out…
Day 1-D begins unusually promptly at 12.10 pm, after a rabble-rousing speech from ex-Senator Alfonse D’Amato, representative of all our interests in Washington DC as the leading lobbyist working to get poker exempted from the absurd new American legislation against online gaming. God alone knows how much Al D is paid by whom, but I’ve never heard anyone cry ‘Shuffle up and deal!’ with quite such passiosn, such intensity, to quite so much foot-stamping applause.
Among today’s players, apart from little old me, are reigning world champion Jamie Gold, former champs Phil Hellmuth and Carlos ‘The Matador’ Mortensen, Gus Hansen, Chip Reese, Ted Forrest, Antonio Esfandari, Robert Williamson III, Chip Jett, Mimi Tran, H.O.R.S.E champion Freddy Deeb and new Hall-of-Famer Barbara Enright. Plus my writer-player pal Michael Craig, intent on his third final table this year. As opponents go, yup, this is a not un-intimidating group.
My own table (37) gradually reveals itself to be quiet, genial, intense, and full of solid if occasionally brash players, Including, in my view, myself. I get off to a terrible start, losing a quarter of my $20,000 stack within 20 minutes, but it isn’t (of course) my fault. What are you to do if you raise pre-flop with A-Q red-suited, get called by what turns out to be 5c-6c, see a flop of A-Q-x containing one club, bet out big again, get (believe it or not) called – and watch your opponent pull a runner-runner flush?
Decide it’s not going to be your day, that’s what you do. Then pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again.
In, for a while, vain. By the end of the first two-hour session, I am still down at 15K. There follows a soul-searching, ten-minute cigarette break with friends old and new in the 120-degree heat. By the end of the second level, however, after some manful bluffing, I am back up to all of 25K. During the third, I bumble my way back down to my original 20. It is around this time that uber-blogger Simon Young tracks me down, despite my out of-character shades – see fetching pic and report at: Pokerstars Blog
Now, after six hours’ play and the welcome 90-minute dinner break, the $50 antes are about to kick in. In Antonio’s, my eponymous Italian restaurant in the Rio, there is much futile discussion of tactics as Mike Craig, ESPN’s Gary Wise and I are bought dinner by – well, yes, since you ask – Cornish champ Des Wilson. Living up to his surname, Wise proposes a touching toast to ‘Poker and the Written Word’. Then Craig and I head back to the combat zone.
Some ten hours into Day One (or seven hours’ play, plus breaks) – around 10pm, with a mere six hours to go to Day Two – I am dealt Ad-Jd in the cut-off seat (the one before the button, often even better for running a bluff if you smell weakness around the table). I raise 5,000 and the whole gang folds apart from a dour, bearded Yank with twice as many chips as me, who thinks long and hard before calling.
The flop brings Jc-10d-8d. I’ve got top pair with top kicker, and four to the nut flush. With 12,000 left in front of me, and much the same in the pot, I pretend to think for a while, then push all-in. Beardy thinks rather longer – then calls. We roll them over. He has 9-8 off-suit, both black. The turn brings the J-s, giving me trip Jacks with top kicker. This pot must now be mine, doubling me up to a very respectable, workable-with 35,000. The bearded one has only six outs – for Q-d or 7-d, which would give him a straight, would fill my flush. With eight cards seen, and so 44 unknown, I make that 44-6, i.e all but 8-1, in my favour, If I’m wrong about that, no doubt one of you will let me know. Mental arithmetic has never been my strong point.
The dealer bangs the table, burns a card, and shows … a black 7, giving Beardy a beyond-flukey straight. He rakes in my chips as if they were his natural due – without even looking at devastated me, let alone offering any gallant apology or embarrassed sympathy – as I suavely rise above the Matusow routine of telling him in many colours what a lousy call he made on the turn, if not the flop, and before it.
‘Wow,’ says the guy on my left, ‘that was a really bad beat.’
‘Can I have that in writing?’ I ask him with a smile, and true-Brit insouciance, as I gather what’s left of my worldly goods, nod knowingly to the rest of the table, and make a relatively dignified exit.
But who, apart from me, cares? It’s just another Day One exit, in impressive company today: Gold, Hellmuth, Reese, Williamson III, Steve Zolotow, Cyndy Violette, David Benyamine, Paul Darden and (alas) Mike Craig – along with myself, just some of 4,000 departees not to have made it through this last Day One, leaving a third of this year’s starters to struggle on tomorrow. I’ve outlasted maybe half the field, but that of course means nothing. I must square up to the fact that I’m not going to win this year’s $8.25 million dollar first prize, nor even the $20,320 which goes to 621st place out of the 6,358 starters.
No, I’ve just got another ten days here to watch the others battle it out, and send you lot occasional reports on what’s going on, while attempting to restore my shattered pride in the cash games.
Doyle is so right. Soon after 10pm, until which point I’d really enjoyed myself, this has turned out to be the worst day of my year.
But I’m fortunate enough to know that the consolations will swiftly kick in. Unlike most poker pros, I will soon be able to wrench my mind back to the real world so blithely absent from Las Vegas, enjoy the rest of what passes for my summer vacation, savour the company (even here) of family and friends – and remember that, in the immortal words of the Sage of Stratford, there’s a (wonderful, most of the time) world elsewhere.
Posted by Anthony Holden on July 10th, 2007 in Poker, WSOP.
Comments: 18
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Comments
Comment from Andrew
Time: July 10, 2007, 4:19 pm
Good article.
I know this probably isn’t the best time to say this, but I noticed it a lot in Bigger Deal too. It doesn’t matter what the odds are of a certain card on a certain street, it only matters what your odds are when the money goes in. In this case, your equity was 0.723 and his was 0.277 when the money went in. It’s therefore not 8:1 in your favour, but 3:1.
It makes it easier (though not easy) to deal with bad beats if you calculate them in the right way, plus it helps your game.
http://twodimes.net/poker/?g=h&b=Jc+10d+8d&d=&h=ad+jd%0D%0A9c+8s
Comment from cindy
Time: July 10, 2007, 5:01 pm
Whoa. Forget odds. This sucks. Poker is a terrible, terrible, merciless game. All I can say is: ****’em if they can’t take a joke. And that guy will get his come-uppance and it will hurt him even more when he does because he’ll be having delusionary dreams of glory, if there is such a word as delusionary. Challenge anyone there to an anagrab tournament, make the stakes high , give out gold bracelets and you’ll be Champ.
Comment from Short-Stacked Shamus
Time: July 10, 2007, 5:10 pm
Other stats not picked up by Google Analytics: 3 nods of affirmation (the most animated @ “absurd new American legislation”); 4 chuckles (one audible @ “PLEASE pretty please”); and 2 moments of pleasurable, scroll-hastening suspense.
Total length of visit: 11 minutes (minus detour to PStars site), all very well spent. GG, sir!
Comment from Peter A
Time: July 10, 2007, 5:27 pm
Tony,
I feel your pain, and am proud of you for not engaging in a JM-like screed against the idjits (or in this case idjit) who can at times like these make the whole damn enterprise seem ludicrous. Very nice report of a day that would reduce even the toughest pokeristas to tears.
Comment from Richard
Time: July 10, 2007, 5:28 pm
And to make you feel a bit better, when 44 cards left and 6 outs then the odds become (44-6)/6 or 38/6 or
just 6.33 to 1.
Bad beat nonetheless.
Still, there was always my advice to back the total number of runners and pick up a 7/2 winner!
Have a drink on me anyhue and get into those cash games!!!
Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: July 10, 2007, 6:27 pm
Just blinking into consciousness after ten hours dead to the world. Thanks to all, friends and strangers, for their (overnight, this end) responses and sympathy. Now to score brunch off Craig - and, well… another day, another dollar…
Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: July 10, 2007, 9:33 pm
A few hours later, in the cold (ie air-conned) light of day, even I can see the elementary, late-night math(s) mistake in the above : forgetting to subtract the six outs from the 44 cards available - making it 38-6, ie 6.33-1 in my favour (as Richard points out). Well, I did say mental arithmetic was never my strongest suit. Whatever way you work it out, I still don’t regret playing the hand the way I did. If probability had prevailed, it would have taken me to the chip average at that time.
Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: July 10, 2007, 10:48 pm
Further update on the above : late Day 1-D victims also included H.O.R.S.E champ Freddy Deeb and Erick Lindgren. But not the oldest competitor in the field, 94-year-old Jack “Jeffrey” Ury, who survived the 16-hour stint which ended just before 4 a.m.
At one point Jack doubled up in middle position, calling after two players before him had limped. After the flop the big blind raised it up to 3,000 and the third player folded, but Jack made the call. After both checked the turn, the river paired the board, and the big blind fired out a 10,000 bet - enough to put Jack all in. He then said he couldn’t see the board properly, so the dealer moved it over right in front of him. Jack looked back and forth betwen the board and his hole cards several times before announcing: “I got a straight, I call!” He rolled over pocket sixes - no straight, just two pair, but enough to win him the pot. Jack’s opponent mucked, and the gallery let out the loudest cheer of the day. Jack’s now got 24 hours to recover before embarking tomorrow on Day 2-B.
Comment from des wilson
Time: July 11, 2007, 4:43 pm
i am pleased to report to what i know will be a sceptical world that Mr A. Holden Esq bought me dinner last night - jumbo prawns, veal chop, white and red wine, coffee. And he is joining with me in buying dinner for someone else tonight. Does anyone know if this is the same Anthony Holden of Bog Deal fame ? des wilson
Comment from des wilson
Time: July 11, 2007, 4:48 pm
sorry - I DID mean to say BIG Deal ! honest !
Comment from Al
Time: July 12, 2007, 4:04 pm
The Book of Bad Beats is longer and more bitter than the Bible - or, for all I know, than the Koran, but yours has to be up there with the worst of them. Maybe that in itself is immortality of a kind, but who needs it? Console yourself with the thought that reason was on your side, even though God had other ideas. As for Lady Luck: she’s a bitch with the morals of an alley cat. Always was, always will be.
Comment from John David Morley
Time: July 12, 2007, 8:47 pm
I’ve been pondering what’s going on over there, after reading your blog, trying to understand the processes behind those self-inflicted wounds incurred when losing at poker. And I wonder if the experience of losing isn’t in fact a much keener, more thoroughgoing, more genuinely felt one than the experience of winning. The shock to the system must vibrate in all the echoing chambers of that overweening ego that is demanding all this attention, this feeding, this cajoling and flattery.
There seems to me to be much more urgency about the experience of losing than winning. Winning is … banal. The consequences of winning occur within a merely materialistic context. After a brief sense of his triumph, the winner must soon go back to winning again - and losing, because it is this experience that reaches into his core as winning never can. Losing rubs him up against the hard grain of life. Losing reaffirms what he is afraid may be the subtext of his life - the uneasy perception of not being on a winning streak, of having the odds stacked against him and not succeeding in defying the odds. The reality shock — that blow to the solar plexus — bringing you up smack against a world suddenly and utterly denuded of all its previous enticement, of any hope, of any self-delusions, may well be the experience you continually seek to recreate at the poker table.
At the poker table sit people in pursuit of a life other than the one they have. Repeatedly they want to see new configurations, new patterns, new perspectives of alternative games of life.
Faites vos jeux !
Comment from Johnny Hughes
Time: July 12, 2007, 10:56 pm
That’s what I was telling these folks down at the truckstop this morning.
Editor:
Was that you? I thought you were talking about marriage.
Comment from cindy
Time: July 13, 2007, 7:31 pm
Morley - wow - philosophy comes to the blog. And sorry, but no; as equal a core feeling is that moment the other guy had, the fluke winner, who sees the river card save him, who triumphs and has the solar plexus gutshot out of him by the recognition , finally, granted by the gods , single or plural, or even pleural (and I haven’t had a drink I’m just on a roll before flying out of here) that he COUNTS. That the world is aligned rightly on its axis and the heavens are shining and singing and it is all for him. That it’s ok to be human and have all that shit that goes with being human as long as just this once - and who knows? maybe again…. and again - he is seen in all his glory. That is a core, fleeting feeling :as you said, being a loser is a constant one - which is why losing is boring and winning , well, winning is sublime.
Comment from Armgard
Time: July 13, 2007, 9:47 pm
Loosing on the one hand is winning on the other. The sum of the two is experience.
As a German, I would like to quote Goethe:
Wer nie sein Brot in Tränen ass
wer nie in kummervollern Nächten
auf seinem Bette weinen sass
der kennt Euch nicht, Ihr himmlischen Mächte
Ihr führt ins Leben uns hinein
und lasst den Armen schuldig werden,
dann überlasst Ihr ihn der Pein,
denn alle Schuld rächt sich auf Erden.
Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
In my humble translation:
Who never ate his bread in tears
who never in sorrowful nights
sat crying on his bed
he does not know you heavenly powers
You lead us into life
you let us poor humans err
but then you leave us with our pain
for we have to pay for all our errors on earth.
Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: July 16, 2007, 9:06 am
Thank-you, JDM, Cindy and Armgard - &, sorry to lower the tone, but :
No problem, Des. It’s all to do with the eccentricities of the q-w-e-r-t-y keyboard. In my time I myself have typed (then hastily corrected) the ‘Dyke’ of Edinburgh - and, more recently, ‘Bugger’ Deal…
Comment from Andrew Bruce
Time: July 27, 2007, 4:06 am
I am reading ‘bigger deal’ and lovin the inside track. Your humor and insight to the game are awesome to read!
I am a semi-professional poker player with delusions of grandeur(does such a thing exist?….if not maybe should start a league or sumpin’).
……my question to you is this…..
Why do we as poker players (and men) continue to mis-label the A+K as Anna Kornikovea (spelling?).
The standard giggle and “all-show no final” retort has to cease and desist.
Anna was ranked 16th I believe in womens tennis. It seems as though only those poker pro’s ranked 16th or better has any gag rights to label big-slick by her name!!
Besides, I saw Doyle B. go ‘all-in’ pre-flop at the televised “High Stakes Poker” putting his super-stack of $1.25 million dollars on “Anna Kornikovea”!!
If she good enough for Doyle to go all pre-flop why not us?
So, what-if anything can we do as men and poker players to stop the carnage in Anna’s name.
Will you help me form the “Semi-Professional Poker League” ?Hardy..ha…ha.
Talk to you soon,
Thanks sir
Andrew Bruce
Comment from Anthony Holden
Time: July 29, 2007, 7:43 pm
Sorry, Andrew, can’t help you save Anna K - but am starting a movement to rename A-A “Al Alvarez”. Any takers?
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