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Poker is reaching the zenith of insanity.You may
have noticed. Sometimes when I play the side games (no
limit $20-$40 and $25-$50 mostly), the action gets to
the point where I don’t believe my eyes. But never
mind that. How about this new craze: giving money away?
That’s right. The WPT is giving away a half million
dollars five times a year in free roll tournaments.
(Yup, a cool 2.5 million up for grabs this year!)
I am here at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles for
the World Poker Tour’s second $500,000 give away.
The first one was in Foxwoods which, brutally, I had
to miss. First things first. Roughly, what is this seat
worth? Well, with 180 entrants in the event, a seat
is worth about $2777. Tidy. Now the hard part: cashing
in on it.
I took my seat and was like… huh? Where’s
the action? I am so used to having visible edge when
I gamble that I was in uncharted water here. I have
always been of the opinion that gambling is supposed
to be fun and easy, and I know I’m spoiled, but
let’s face it: having a guy play like a donkey
at the table is just plain better than not.
All the players at my table were either competent or
highly competent. Hmmmm. When is that table change?
Directly across from me were Stan Goldstein, Thomas
Keller and then Jeff Schulman. Even though this event
was a bit faster than a 10k event, it still felt like
there would be time to squeeze till the antes kicked
in. Ahhhh, the antes. Antes are great, as I am justified
in playing more hands. The junky in me would rather
play than fold.
By the time antes arrived, flags were popping up left
and right, “All In”, “All In”.
About two hours deep and it seemed there was an ‘all
in’ every few minutes or so! I was no different.
I kept drifting down to about 10 or so times the big
blind. I think I held that dealer flag 6 or 7 times.
I would lunge with something like A-T of spades and
someone would wake up with A-Q of diamonds (that one
was Susie Isaacs). Of course, I would suck out.
I started to feel like Jeff Bridges in Fearless, as
every hand I had would meet a stronger hand (J-J meets
Stan’s K-K). Of course, I would muster up a win
- runner runner straight that time. But in spite of
it all I never once cracked the original starting chip
amount.
My final moment felt like I had built a stupid hole.
With a table move (and about 15 times the big blind)
I found hand after hand and decided that, with my reputation
as a sometimes partially sick one, I might be able to
suck in a caller on some very sweet hands. A-K, A-K,
10-10 - they must have come all within 15 hands. Not
one caller. I failed to adjust to the current table
image I was giving off and so when I went all in against
Barry Schulman’s button raise with A-9, I kinda
got a bit of justice when his A-T held up and it was
down to the cash games for ol’ Philly Boy. This
$500,000 freeroll was not in the cards for me.
The cash games are an intimate part of my tournament
experience. In fact, I consider myself more of a money
game junky than anything else. The bread and butter
games at the Bellagio (LV), Commerce (LA), and Lucky
Chances (SF) are my oxygen. When I plunk down 10k for
one of these ‘positive expectation lotteries’
(a.k.a tournaments) I pull out the ol’ Irish work
ethic and do my best to get my entry fee out of the
money games either right before or right after the event.
The action seems to be at max bubble mania at these
times. With all the tourneys nowadays you are guaranteed
a heavy crowd of gamblers all trying to get unstuck.
The games at Commerce are superduper crazy-good for
the month of February, but sadly this was an ultra hectic
month for me and I was not able to be the degenerate
that I would have liked to be. Gus Hansen, Antonio Esfandiari,
Andy Bloch and I finished making a poker instructional
video and I took it upon myself to get involved in the
marketing (BeAllIn.com). Also E! has a new show called
Hollywood Holdem and as the dealer/ host on the show
I was off in T.V. Land instead of the regular Gamble
Land.
Regardless of the action downstairs, I was not going
to miss the final event. I love it. There were 538 players
all coming up with 10k. That never ceases to amaze me.
I get to my table and there were no ultra wizards -
a few competent winning players, but no complete wizards…
Ok, nice. When our table break went down I was moved
to a very lively table. We had the infamous Dr. Chuck
Pacheco, Gabe Kaplan, and Piano Dave to name a few.
And the antes had kicked in. I was in gamble heaven.
Sometimes strange things happen and you wonder if you
are experiencing a Jungian synchronistic moment. Dinner
break arrived, and with mayhem and chaos afoot, I opted
for a little drive to a nearby
Mexican food joint. Ordered my carne asada torta, dropped
a quarter in a random Galaga video game at the counter
and, whilst waiting for the food, I proceeded to wreak
video prowl like no other. I could not die. ‘What?
More shooting bees?’ Dodge, weave, dodge, shoot.
Next challenging stage. 40 out of 40. No sweat. This
was stuff I didn’t even muster back in the day
when I played the game. 30 minutes later and four ships
on hand. Looks like it is time to step away. So eat
I did. And there I was eating my sandwich pretty sure
that this was an omen.
It was. First hand back from the dinner break and voila,
two red aces. Poor ol’ Piano Dave picked up two
kings and, my oh my, I started to surf the Wa. What
is this? Tracy Phan flopped a full house? No problem.
Runner runner 9-9 and I have a higher full house. By
the time I had been moved to a new table I was dodging
real hands with my steals and had surfed my way up to
28k or so. The fateful moment came when I flopped a
flush and the finance guru Babak Razi had done the same.
Only thing was he out notched me.
Funny thing how a tourney goes. There are so many times
you are just cruising along, seeing the path, when whump!
Some hand comes along and that is the end of you. So
downstairs I went. And 14 hours later I was back to
even. Unstuck. The life of a gambler.
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