So I had to go to Colorado for work for 10 days. The Golden Gates casino in Blackhawk had pretty awesome $120 tournaments every night at 7:30. Unfortunately, we were in Denver which was an hour away and then mid-trip we moved to Colorado Springs which was nearly a two hour drive from Blackhawk. I couldn't really justify the gas money on a company vehicle. Plus I was always too tired to go anyway. So no poker for 10 days! A record for me this year.
Actually, I've enjoyed the break. I was shooting in Vegas for one night a couple of days ago and I did finally return to the felt in an 11pm donkament at the Monte Carlo. I love the room, but I was basically lighting $60 on fire. A preposterous structure where a real poker player with 10 bigs finds himself jamming with A3 utg an hour and 20 minutes after the start time. The rest of the table shakes their heads and clucks their tongues when said real player runs into queens which hold. No worries. Good times.
Looks like I won't get too much more time on the felt before my WSOP Vegas trip on the 28th, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to my home game this Saturday night and hopefully I can avoid spazzing out like I did last time - snap calling for most of my chips with only an open ended straight draw. Yuck.
Recently all 3 of my horses and a good friend busted out of their events in the WSOP - I got mini trip reports from them and you can find 3 out of 4 on the Pepper Street blog.
All the reports I got back were pretty full of disappointment. Yes, the first timers were also grateful and excited for the experience - but overall they felt more than a twinge of sadness at having not cashed or done better.
This minor melancholy is inevitable for us recreational players I suppose, but I got a good dose of perspective last night watching the World Series of Poker online.
For those who don't know, the WSOP is streaming live every single final table in all 62 events this year at www.wsop.com. It's pretty awesome. I enjoy the young kid who commentates and his wide variety of guests (including big names like Hellmuth and the like).
Last night it was Event #36, a $3000 shoot-out event. The chip leader was Antonio Esfandiari, a one time bracelet winner and multi-WPT event winning semi-poker celebrity. He has occasional flashes of douche-ness, but overall is pretty likable and is certainly a formidable player.
He for 5 hours he put on a clinic on how to use a monster stack with very little risk to dominate a table and accumulate chips. It was pretty inspiring.
He got very lucky against the other big stack at the table and busted him by flopping the top end of a straight when his opponent had flopped the bottom end. Then it was 3 handed and Antonio cranked up the aggression even more.
His two opponents, professionals but clearly outclassed, did their best to hang on in a battle for second place.
Then, it was unclear from the webcast exactly how it happened, there was some discussion of a deal between them to split second and third place money, effectively removing the pay jump pressure that Antonio had been so expertly exploiting.
Antonio objected to the "deal" (this sort of thing isn't a chop or a deal, it's basically collusion if you exclude another player) and the WSOP stepped in and put a stop to it. You won't read any of this at www.wsop.com, it's conveniently expurgated, but as it turns out it didn't really affect the outcome after all.
Antonio had 80% of the chips and a few hands later he got all his money in as an 80% favorite, snap calling off with pocket nines - he was up against sevens.
Bam.
A seven on the flop and that was that. Antonio was hurt badly. 1.5 million in chips, over half of his stack, slid over to the sucker outer.
A hand or two later, Antonio got it in with AJ suited, a monster in 3 handed play, and found himself against the other short stack who had open shoved for the umpteenth time, and this time happened to have AK which held. A genuine cooler for Antonio.
Now crippled, Antonio made a stand with Q10 and ran into K10. He was out in third place.
He did nothing wrong, he played perfect poker for almost 6 hours - including the hands he went out on.
He's a hell of a cash game player who has been crushing the mid-upper stakes live levels for years, and he has millions in tournament winnings.
He had 80% of the chips, outclassed his opponents by a mile and got his money in as an 80% favorite on the most crucial hand of the tournament.
Poker smacked him upside the head hella hard and he didn't even flinch. It had to hurt, it had to sting, but Antonio was stoic and classy till the end.
Very impressive.
The announcer made a great observation - I'm paraphrasing - "To Antonio the money is meaningless, but I know he wanted that bracelet so badly. Still, he's a professional in every sense of the word, Antonio has had a million of these bad beats and he'll have a million more." True dat.
So I say to all my friends, the horses, Babs, Allen and Nick, and to my poker buddy Dog who took a shot in the largest single starting day tournament in history - it is unlikely you didn't make mistakes. But even if you were perfect, as Antonio was, and even if you were an 80% favorite (in chips or in odds) - you could still have gotten fucked. Hard.
Thems teh pokerz.
I'm very much looking forward to my WSOP odyssey next week - I plan to play two or maybe three Rio Deepstack events. The 2pm events have been averaging over 1000 runners with first place prizes of 50K or more - an incredible value for a $240 investment. I was going to try to satellite into a bracelet tournament, but I think I want to concentrate on going deep in one of the DS events.
If the poker God's are favorable and I cash and if the spirit moves me I can still put some of my winnings towards a seat in the Sunday 1K bracelet event.
Otherwise it's looking like this -
Thursday - $130 Noon event at the Nugget.
Friday and Saturday - 2pm Deepstack at the Rio.
Sunday - $150 Nooner at Binion's.
Monday - If I haven't cashed - a smaller daily like Aria or Mirage. If I have cashed then probably the Wynn Classic or maybe the Venetian DSE.
Can't wait!
