WSOP 2015.01

And so it was that I found myself Vegas bound on a Thursday afternoon, headed out to play in the largest poker tournament in history.  Thank goodness my flight had a crack cockpit crew. Or maybe they were just on crack.

Damn bugs.

With the bugs off the windshield and everything in order, we took off on time and arrived while it was still light outside.  My rental car had a mere five miles on the odometer...

Spankin' new.

And even better, it was named after the home of the World Series of Poker!

Fortuitous?  

But before I could make my way over to pick up my pre-registered ticket to the Colossus - yes, the aforementioned BIGGEST TOURNAMENT IN POKER HISTORY, I had some degenerate gambling to do.  No, not poker, well not a real tournament anyways.  I met up with my pal Jason and together we indulged in the silliness that is the Treasure Island 10pm $65 Donk-A-Ment.

Though the starting stack has improved, they now give you 10,000 in chips instead of 4,000, the structure has not.  If anything it is slightly worse, as they skip the 400-800, 500-1000, 800-1600 and 1500-3000 levels, among many others.

So it was, after the second break, Jason was long gone and I hobbled my way to the finish line, flipping coins for a min-cash of less than $200.  Ah well.

It was almost 2am and I thought I would be smart and hightail it over to the Rio where the line for pre-registration pickup would surely be short.

WRONG.

After 45 minutes in line, followed up by another hour waiting in the casino cage area, they found my lost ticket and I was well on my way to a delightful 4am bed time.

Morning came 3 hours later and I had scrubbed my sweaty bits clean and made my way to Mecca.

As I approached the convention center area, I caught sight of some old school goodness in a rather shitbox car.

Binion's - bitches.

And then, I was there...

I was quite a bit early, and so I commenced to people watching, occasionally staring at my golden ticket in hand.

And checking out the new Poker Hall of Fame banners - including cold blooded killer Benny Binion!

Finally they let me into where I would be playing - the vaunted Amazon room.  A bit smaller than the other two rooms with very cool lighting, this is typically where the higher buy in events and the day 2's take place.  It also has the final table tv area, which was dark when I was there.

My section, around the corner, where I've more than once watched the 50K players championship.

My table...

And my stack.

And so it went.  First they played the fanfare from the movie The Natural, which gave me goosebumps.  Then Jack Eiffel, the tournament director of the WSOP entire, gave an emotional and rather rousing speech just prior to the shuffle up and deal.  The actual announcement was a bit of silly business with a Roman gladiator in full costume that I ignored - he said, "Shuffle up and kill - I mean, deal!" which was barely legible at the time.

And we were underway.  My first table was surprisingly tight and soft.  I cued off of this and got engaged early, dragging a half dozen or so small pots within the first 40 minute level.  Barely into the second level, the table broke, as I knew it probably would.  We had been warned by the floor in our section that we would be first to go.

I found myself in the center of the main Amazon section, at a much more seasoned table, and this is where I took my first few couple of hits.  Tangled up with a fellow who knew how to get me to come along to value town almost willingly.

There was another dude who thought he was God's gift to poker, I spanked him a bit, ripping my flopped broadway straight on the river and he paid me off.  Despite my earlier missteps I found myself around 50 big blinds at the first break and I was excited.  I was playing well and reading my opponents expertly.

Shortly after my return, our table, and about ten other tables around us, all broke at once, and we were in the Pavillion room.  The Amazon room has the prestige, the Brasilia has the bracelets, but the Pavillion is still by far the most impressive.

Nearly 300 tables and 3000 poker players, going at it.  Still gives me the chills.  The first time I walked in to this room in 2010, I got a similar feeling that I had experienced at the Great Wall of China, the Taj Majal and the Pyramids of Giza.  Echoes of that still lingered in 2015, as I realized that every single table save for about a dozen set aside for high stakes cash games, was dedicated to one tournament.

That included tables down at the opposite end of the casino in the Rio's everyday regular poker room...

All the cash game players were kicked out at 9am to make way for Colossus players.

As well as about 20 tables jammed inside the food court!  Crazy!

Oh I'm sorry, did you need to eat?  Too bad.

There were in fact a few well known pros in the Colossus, including Greg Reymer and Antonio Esfandiari, and this guy Dan Heimiller, winner of last years WSOP Seniors event and a WPT champ as well.

And so it was that my third table was the toughest of all, with nary a limper in sight.  3 bets abounded and my stack began to shrink as the blinds and antes ate away.  I was a bit frustrated at my dearth of cards, even though I have long learned that it isn't cards I should be looking for, but rather spots.

I found what I thought was a good one with a baby ace in the highjack.  UTG, who was one of the only passive players at the table, had limped.  Another player who had been fairly active flat called to my right.  With 12 bigs I happily let it rip.  It folded around to the flat caller who hemmed and hawed and somehow found a call to my shove with 10-8.

Well he had a monster stack right?  Wrong.  He barely had me covered.  How he found that call, to this day I will never know.  I had not been particularly active, I had even shown pocket queens once.

A 10 in the window and that was it, I was walking the long halls of the Rio.

It was a great playing experience, and best of all I had made no colossal mistakes in the Colossus.  I now had time to decompress a bit.  I decided against playing a 7pm tournament in favor of picking up my old homie Noah at the airport, a dear friend who was the best man at my wedding.

We had a great time catching up and getting our grub on before heading back to T.I. and the ridiculous but fun lottery that is their 10pm tournament.

Saturday morning came a bit later than Friday morning had, which was great because I needed the rest.  I meandered down to the Rio just before kickoff; and rather than firing another entry bullet (which I couldn't have anyways because it was sold out) I chose to rail my buds.

Noah in the Pavillion

And Jason, trapped in the regular Rio Poker room.

The Colossus - Colossally impressive.

Noah managed to bust out before I could leave to go play poker elsewhere, so he joined me on a sojourn downtown.

Dorkus-Maximus

               

Old school shiz...

The closest Noah or I ever got to a 7 figure score.

 And so we were in plenty of time to register for a $160 tournament at Binion's.  Noah lasted quite a bit longer than me, as I managed to suck fairly hard.  I underestimated my opponents as they were almost all older than me and very passive at the table.  Of course, I realized in hind-sight, that most of them that I tangled with, likely play tournament poker just about every day.  In any case, while I had been gently led to value-town once in the Colossus, in this Binion's tournament it seemed I was determined to take the grand tour.  Over and over and over and over.   I sucked pretty hard.

So I bid Noah adieu, but not before I saw this guy sit down at his table.

 Yes, Oakland A's fans, that's Jose Canseco!  Noah said he was friendly and chatty as all get out.  Too bad I missed out.  But I didn't miss out on the Aria 7pm.  I arrived well over an hour before start time, plenty of time to register right?   Wrong.

Yep, a line.

 Yep, there was a line alright.  The Aria was also running a high roller and a charity tournament so they only had 20 tables available.  I was alternate 51, and by the time the first break rolled around, I still wasn't in and there were over 250 more alternates to go after me!

Still, I got to sit down in the third level with over 50 bigs, which wasn't too bad.  I dragged a few pots before stumbling with my top two pair losing to a set and me once again visiting my favorite town.  Thankfully my opponent didn't just shove on me, I likely would've given him my whole stack.

And so, down to 15 bigs, I found a good spot to rip against a very active big stack.  I was in the small blind with A10 and he had opened from the cutoff for the umpteenth time.  This time though, he had queens.  Oh well.

I finished off the night with another trip to T.I., though I was far too late in arriving to get into the tournament.  I said goodbye to Noah and Jason, who had both failed to make day 2 in the Colossus, and headed for bed.

The flight out the next morning was uneventful and I was happy to be home with the fam.

I wish my results had been better on this trip, but I can honestly say that everything else was fantastic.  If online poker somehow manages to become legal in California and then eventually the country, we are for sure headed into another poker boom.

The game to me seems almost as popular as it's ever been.  Over 20,000 people played in the Colossus, and every other poker room I visited while it was going on was packed to the gills as well. Even better, even at my toughest table, the third table I sat at in the Colossus, I never felt intimidated in the least.  Even in 2015, most people know how to play the game with only some amount of skill - there is a lot of profit to be made by playing aggressively and by paying attention as I know I can when I have had enough sleep and am in the right frame of mind.

So that said, when I return, maybe this year maybe next, I will do a better job of getting sleep the night before a big event, and I will schedule my return better in advance.  This year I set my hotel and flight basically assuming that I would bust.  Next year I'm scheduling my return on the day of the final table, so I'll be well into the money when and if I have to make any changes.  I think this will help my mental state as well, as I don't think I was feeling competitive enough this time around.  I also plan to fire multiple bullets like Jason did.  Even though he failed to cash, he did get quite a bit farther than I did, and I know the multiple entries helped him play more aggressive and more effectively.

As for the looming Monster Stack in two weeks, I'm not sure if I'm going or not.  That will all depend of course on family, job and other commitments - right now it is looking like about 50/50.  We will see.  In any case, I look forward to playing the Colossus again and again and again, as many years as they'll have it.   I really think, despite the occasional wrinkles such as losing a few entry slips here and there (mine included) it could not have gone much better.  We started on time, and the event, as 'Colossal' as it was - seemed to go exceptionally smooth.

Stay tuned, there may or may not be a part two.