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In a tournament of 5,600 players, you expect to meet
quite a few weak players. Sure enough, I felt pretty
comfortable with my table draw on Day 1 and opted to
play aggressively from the outset. On the very first
hand of the tournament, I picked up pocket jacks. The
guy to my left had pocket eights, which, by fourth street,
had transformed into quads. I lost about 2,000
on that pot and continued to lose steadily for the next
two hours, to the extent that I had depleted about half
my stack before the end of the first session. The problem
was that I was getting a stream of premium hands, but
they weren’t holding up. The other players were
shooting me looks for playing so many pots; I think
they had me tagged as a maniac and people were constantly
moving in on me as a result. So I slowed down a bit
and slowly began to
build my stack back up.
I was pretty much the chip leader on my tables from
the end of Day 1, and throughout Day 2 and Day 3, so
I was able to get aggressive again, take a lot of stabs
at pots and generally boss people around. Day 2 was
much tougher than Day 1. I sat down with Gus Hansen
on my left and Paul Wolfe on my right. Rafe Furst from
the Tilt Boys was there, as well as a couple of other
guys I’ve seen playing at big events. Gus got
knocked out the very first hand, so I didn’t have
to tangle with him. With only 7,000 in chips, his two
nines ran into two jacks. I was disappointed, as I’d
never played with him before – but with him being
on my immediate left, I was also
kind of happy to see him go.
On Day 3, I had a good draw. The only person I knew
as a good player was Olga Varkonyi, Robert Varkonyi’s
wife, who, in a recent issue of Bluff, was described
by the 2002 World Champion as the best player in the
world (he may, of course, be a little biased). Andy
Black, the fifth place finisher, moved to the table
near the end of the day, but all in all, I felt comfortable
enough. Most of the table didn’t seem too impressive,
and I felt like I had pretty good reads on them.
On Days 4 and 5 I found myself with Tim Phan and Phil
Ivey at my table. That was when I decided to slow down
again. I wasn’t picking up a lot of hands and
I had transitioned from being an aggressive chip leader
to a tight, solid player with a medium stack. I was
just trying to keep my game flowing rather than firing
at the pot all the time.
In this situation, I tried to go after the amateurs
much more than the pros. Phil Ivey had taken a big pot
off me and that gave me some problems. I decided that
there wasn’t much reason to tangle with any of
the big pros, unless I was really strong. Occasionally,
because they hadn’t
seen me play a pot with them for a couple of hours,
I was able to raise them and bluff them, but, in general,
I tried to work my way around them.
Day 7 was the first day in front of the cameras at
Binion’s, and I was getting some great hands that
day and raising quite a few pots. It was during this
period that I crippled Greg Raymer. I got real lucky.
I tried to make a move on the defending champ with four
to a straight and a flush draw on the turn. I put a
raise in, and he re-raised me. I was pretty much committed
at that point, so I had to call, and the 2
hit the river to save me. I took a couple of million
off him.
Later in the day, I busted Phil Ivey. Phil’s
a great player; I’ve a lot of respect for that
guy, and he was unlucky. I raised four times the blind,
200,000, with K-K; one guy in between Ivey and me, called,
Ivey moved in for about 2.2 million with J-J, and I
called with the kings. When I said, “Allin,”
he didn’t look happy. He knew I was solid, and
he knew he was beat. He didn’t
say anything; he just got up and walked away –
the classic Phil Ivey response. But that was a real
turning point for me. I think I had over $6 million
in chips after that pot, and was one of the chip leaders.
The night before the final table was the first night
I was able to get more than four hours sleep. I think
there was a sense of relief that I’d made the
final nine with a healthy stack. My ultimate goal going
into the tournament had been to win $100,000. But here,
I was with a million already
guaranteed and it felt like the pressure was off.
The final day started off well. It was a pretty tight
game, especially after Mike Matusow left. I was taking
it easy, trying not to do anything that could get me
in trouble and managed to pick up a huge pot against
Andy Black. He’d been the most aggressive player
at the table for a while, so it was nice to slow him
down a little.
Then came a hand that killed me. I made a huge mistake,
moving all in with top pair, middle kicker, against
Tex Barch’s two pair, kings and sevens. The moment
I did it, I knew I had made a mistake. I lost $11 million
and I have the dubious honor of losing, at $22 million,
the biggest pot in WSOP history (prior to the final
hand where Hachem busted Dannenmann).
But I didn’t give in. I felt I was able to come
back and make some good moves and I managed to build
my stack back up to 10 million. Then came a disastrous
hand for me. I had 9-9 and Joe Hachem re-raised all
in. He was trying to make a move on me because he was
tired of me raising. I called and he turned over Q-7,
spiking a queen on the flop. That was a $14 million
pot, which kind of took the life out of me a bit.
I tried to battle back, but the cards had run cold.
Shortstacked, I picked up A-9 fourhanded, went all in
and ran in to Tex’s JJ. That was it. I had finished
fourth in 2005 WSOP. I picked up $2,000 cash, received
a check (with my name misspelled!) for the rest, tipped
the dealers what I thought was fair, and still overwhelmed
by the whole experience, went to bed.
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