WSOP Diary: Day Five

Just about at 8:30 AM, I looked at the clock and decided that I wasn't going to get any more sleep soon. I began to write up my experiences of Sunday. I realized that I was hungry, so I put myself together and brought my PowerBook down to the Plaza's coffee shop. I wrote while I ate my breakfast.

I saw a sign by the coffee shop cashier saying that the hotel lobby was a wireless hotspot. I decided to check it out after breakfast. I found that I got good signal, but the service was available if and only if one was willing to pay $8.95 per day of use. That's just not cost-effective compared to paying $0.75 per call to dial out using a 56K modem.

I returned to my room to finish my writeup. I got iTunes going, playing Steely Dan's The Royal Scam, music that is altogether too appropriate for Las Vegas. My hotel room window faces south, and I have an excellent view of the Strip casinos as well as the wider cityscape and the mountains in the distance. With the music playing as I wrote, it seemed that I could see the same cultural high-water mark on the mountainsides that Hunter Thompson claimed to see, looking out from his window in the Mint, now the east side of the Horseshoe, back in 1971.

(Aside to Thompson fans: fond though I am of tradition, and even though I have Surrealistic Pillow loaded into iTunes, I would never consider throwing my PowerBook into the bathtub, or even a grapefruit in its place, while it blared "White Rabbit" at full volume. I left all my adrenochrome at home, too. Melatonin just isn't the same.)

I finished the entry just after noon, so I dialed out to upload it to As I Please. I also brought iChat up, and found both Debbie and D. Potter online. I chatted with both of them while I cleaned up the latest round of comment spam from the blog.

When my online chores were completed, I disconnected, and got on the phone to talk some more to D. When I was done with her, I called Lynn Kendall. After taking care of my relationships, I sat in meditation for half an hour. Only then did I suit up to return to the fray at the Horseshoe. It was 2:30 PM. I might have gotten only five hours of sleep, but I had spent nearly twelve hours taking downtime.

I put my name on the list for the big stud/8 game. The brush was just calling down a no-limit hold'em game with $5 and $10 blinds, and saying that there were seats available. On a whim I decided to play while waiting for the stud/8 game. Only three people were actually seated. When I sat down, the dealer pitched the cards, and we played four-handed. At the table were Jimmy Chu Tran, whom I recognized from years of seeing him at WSOPs, although I had never before played with him, and an East Coast pro named Bobby. The identity of the fourth player didn't register with me. I bought in for $2000, enough to have some play, but the maximum I was willing to lose.

Jimmy Tran had always struck me, away from the table, as being mild-mannered and likeable. We had had a nodding acquaintance going for years. In a poker game, however, he is irritating, aggressive, impulsive, and loud – much the same sort of table image as Men Nguyen's.

We had a big confrontation when, after I raised the pot in early position with suited AQ, he called from the big blind. The flop was a very scary K-Q-10. Jimmy led into the pot with a big bet, and put me to the decision. I had no real read on him. I had no sense of whether his bluster represented a strong-means-weak bluff or a strong-means-strong trap. He's an experienced enough player, though, that he could be double- or triple-faking me, depending on how strong a player he thought I was; and at the table I was a complete unknown to him. He tossed the dealer a $5, saying "Give me two dollars back." This was a move, of course, but was it strong-means-weak or strong-means-strong?

I decided to put him to the test, and raised all-in. Now it was his turn to sweat. I made like a sphinx, and stared mutely at the chips in the middle of the table. Jimmy coffeehoused, presumably to try to elicit a tell. "Ace-Jack" he asked? I attended to my breathing, practicng zazen. Jimmy moved for his cards as if to fold. I attended to my breathing. Jimmy moved for his chips, as if to call. I attended to my breathing. Eventually, he waved a hand, saying "I call." I knew then I was beat.

"I think you got me," I said.

"You want to deal twice," he said, "for insurance?"

"Yes, let's do it." Dealing twice is a way that big-bet players often reduce variance in all-in confrontations, so that a draw gets a second chance (for half a pot) or a made hand can be protected somewhat against a draw's getting there.

The dealer put out a pair of turn and river cards. The second turn card was a queen. I showed my AQ; Jimmy showed offsuit KJ (representing top pair and an open-ended straight draw on the flop). My hand improved on one board, and his was good on the other. Offering to deal twice was a canny move on his part, because his was hand was such a huge favorite over mine. We split the pot, which should count as a bad beat for Jimmy.

In another hand, raised before the flop with pocket jacks, and Jimmy called me. The flop came queen-high. Jimmy checked, and I checked. The turn was a king, and Jimmy checked again. I checked after him. A small card fell on the river. Jimmy bet $150, which was about twice the pot. This time, I wasn't going to raise him. I had a hand good enough to call a bluff, and that's all. The question is, was he bluffing?

"What are you worried about?" Jimmy said. "I have nothing!"

The pot was laying me 3:2; I should be folding three times out of five in that spot. I needed a random-number generator real fast. There were a number of people along the rail, watching the game. I decided to count them, modulo five, and fold if the count was 0, 1, or 2. "What are you doing?" said Jimmy. "Praying?"

"Counting," I replied. There were fourteen spectators on the rail. "I call."

"I told you I had nothing," Jimmy said, and mucked his hand.

The other memorable hand from that game was one where I was just a spectator. Jimmy opened in early position with a raise. Bobby called on the button. The flop was the queen of clubs, the ten of spades and the five of clubs. Jimmy led into the pot, and Bobby called. A small club fell on the turn, making a flush possible. Jimmy checked, and Bobby checked after him. A red king fell on the river.

Jimmy bet the pot on the river. Bobby paused, and then raised all-in. Jimmy went into a huddle, counting his stack. Bobby had enough in his own stack to cover him. If Jimmy lost the hand, he would need to buy more chips. to keep playing.

Jimmy waited and waited. We all waited to see what would happen. "What are you going to do, Jimmy?" Bobby taunted. "It's call or fold, one of the two. Which is it?" Jimmy stalled some more.

"I've had enough of this," Bobby said. "I'm going to go play in the tournament." He stood up. "Dealer, push the pot to my seat when the hand is finished." He walked around the table to the entrance of the poker area, and around the rail into the crowd of spectators. "What are you going to do, Jimmy? I don't have time for this. I want to play in the tournament." It went on like this for several minutes.

At length, Jimmy surrendered his cards. Then, quickly, he reached for Bobby's cards, still on the table in front of Bobby's seat, and turned them over: pocket fives, the hand known as "Presto." Bobby had flopped a set, and had been trapping Jimmy.

Bobby erupted with rage. "What the f--- are you doing, Jimmy?" he said heatedly. "You didn't pay to see those cards! There's no f---ing way I'm going to show my hand if you don't pay to see it. You've got a read on me, and you didn't pay for it!..." And so on, while he walked back to the table.

Two floorpeople came to the table, and some security guards approached discreetly. Jimmy had in fact committed a serious breach of poker etiquette. But the fundamental rule of public cardroom poker is that a player is responsible for protecting his or her own hand; and Bobby was in fact away from his seat when the breach had taken place. "You're never going to do this again, right, Jimmy?" admonished the floorperson.

The immediate edge went from Bobby's anger, but he walked away from the game. Not long after that, I was called to my $50-$100 stud/8 seat. I was happy to take away $13 in profit from the no-limit hold'em game.

I did no real good in the stud/8 game. Soon into it I caught a series of strong starting hands, and I pushed them strongly ... and lost. I went through my $2000 buy-in fairly quickly, and put another thousand on the table. I slowly, painfully clawed my way back up, but only some. I was moved to the main game, which was tight, without much prospect for recouping my losses.

I took a break for dinner in the Horseshoe's buffet with Andrew Prock, who was in the game with me. We discussed our prospects and some fine points of stud/8 play while we ate, and then returned to the game. I stayed for one more dealer push after that, then got up, down $1600. It was about time I took a dive in that game.

On impulse, I drew a seat in a $125 NLHE satellite and sat down. I was fed up for the moment with eight-or-better stud, and figured I had a decent overlay here. It turned out to be one of those tables of weakies that makes satellite play at the WSOP so profitable – people more-or-less completely new to cardroom poker, lured in by tournaments on TV and the dream of big bucks. One of the players was a loud, obnoxious drunk. I let him bluff me out on the flop of a pot I had raised preflop, and bided my time. He didn't last long. None of them did, really.

I played like an implacable poker machine, while at the same time being genial, outgoing, talkative. I ordered a beer to drink while I played, and started to feel the buzz from it towards the end of the satellite.

I wound up head-up with the only other good player at the table. I had never The satellite paid two $500 lammers and $120 cash. With me having a 6:4 chip lead, I offered him a deal where I took the cash and covered the dealer toke. He turned me down. The next hand, I raised him and he called me, then bluffed me out of the pot. "See, I can outplay you."

"Hey, I did offer you an overlay."

"I'm not dead money, you know."

In my big blind I had a big ace, and I reraised his open-raise from the button. He surrendered, and said, "We're in the exact same chip position as when you offered that deal. You want it?" I agreed. I took the cash and a chip, giving me two profitable satellite finishes in a row. I toked the dealer $30.

I was wiped at that point, so I returned to my room to get some rest. I had some hopes of returning to the fray in the middle of the night, when players were tired, some drunk, with their noses open. I went to bed at 9:00 PM, with my phone alarm set for 12:30 AM.

I dozed, getting rest, if not actual sleep. I put myself together and went out once again.

I checked out the Golden Nugget poker room again (no real prospects) and then returned to the Horseshoe. I played in the $1-and-$2-blind NLHE game for a few minutes, then got into the stud/8 game. But it wasn't much better than before. I folded hands for a while, and jumped at the chance when Linda on the satellite side announced that there were seats left in a $525 NLHE satellite. They let you buy into the $525 satellites with lammers, and that's what I did.

No one was actually seated at the table when I drew my seat and paid, but when the game got started I discovered what a mistake I had made. Seven of the nine other players were experienced tournament pros, including Carlos Mortensen, Ron Stanley, and my friend Jimmy Tran.

The play was slow and tight. I got a run of amazing hands – aces three times, kings, AK, AQ, etc., and used them to take substantial pots down preflop and get comfortably ahead for a while. It took an hour of play before we lost our first player, a bracelet-wearer whom I did not recognize. In quick succession he had his aces all-in before the flop against pocket tens with a ten flopping, and AQ all-in against A-10 with a ten falling on the turn. He got up angry, complaining about the "bullshit dealers here."

"I can get really mad about, a beat," I said to the dealer, "but I never think it's the dealer's fault."

"It's got to be someone's fault," the dealer answered as he scrambled the cards for the next shuffle. "Whose fault is it if it isn't the dealer?"

"Why, it's Jimmy's fault, of course!" I pointed across the table to Jimmy Tran.

Jimmy promptly described our AQ-vs-KJ confrontation to the rest of the table, intending, no doubt, to rattle me and get me self-conscious and angry. He made a point of saying that the chips in my stack were his. (I had limp-reraised with aces in an early round, forcing him to lay down Presto.) Between us, we put on a show of trash-talking each other. Meanwhile, I was actually playing in implacable poker machine mode.

Not that this did any good at that table. I had my AK fall to KK, losing a third of my stack, and another quarter of what was left in a mis-timed steal attempt. After that, the blinds were big enough that any hand I would be playing was to be an all-in hand. Eventually I made a stand with a suited king, and got taken out by the player next to me, who reraised with AQ and flopped a queen. "I told you those weren't your chips!" I said to Jimmy. The player who took me out put his hand to shake mind. So did Jimmy across the table. I went around to shake it.

I felt good about my performance in that satellite, except perhaps for my atrocious game selection, so I went for another $525 satellite, using my other lammer. This time I looked at the game before I got into it, and it looked more like the beery fish-fest I would prefer to play in.

It exceeded my wildest expectations. In the second hand, six players (including me, holding 98) saw a flop of 6-5-4. The big blind bet out small, got called in three places (including me, willing to take off a card in hopes of hitting my gutshot and busting someone). Then, the player immediately after me put in a substantial raise, and got called by the player on the button. The big blind reraised all-in, and got called. I instantly folding, knowing that the action signaled that at least two of my four gutshot outs were in other players' hands. The player after me called, and so did the one on the button. The big blind turned out to have 73 for second-nut straight, the player to my left had pocket eights, the button had A7, and the first caller had 32, drawing completely dead. The big blind's hand held up, and three players walked away from the table, without a clue of just how terrible their calls had been.

The winner of that hand was seated close to the rail, and he was talking with his daughter as he played, pointing out the pros and big names as they walked by. "And I don't know Z.Z. Top over there," (pointing at me) "but I see him around every year, he knows what he's doing." I nodded and smiled in acknowledgment.

Again I played like the implacable poker machine that I was, and held my ground while everyone self-destructed around me, and wound up head-up with the man who started out so strongly with his straight. I trapped him into giving me a 3:1 chip lead, and then got him all in holding QJ against my A9. A queen flopped, and we were tied in chips. He offered an even split. Even though I felt I could outplay him, I figured the better part of valor was to take it. I had parlayed my two lammers into five! And counting the lammers as equivalent to cash, I was now
just about even for the day.

Andrew had been watching my finish. We went for a walk. I credited him for some ideas he had given me on Thursday that gave me something to work with to get over my feeling that my no-limit hold'em game was off. I was putting them to work, and they seem to be working.

It was 3:00 AM. Andy went back to play, and I returned to my room. Between one thing and another, I was awake until 5:00 AM, when the melatonin kicked in and I slipped into spacey, REM-y sleep.