2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Nine and Ten

Bill Chen mulls one over...
Originally uploaded by waldo483

This time it was back to the Rio. There was a seat waiting for me in a forced-move 50-100 stud/8 game, and I took it. The game was okay but not terrific. I wanted to play more of the BOTERS (or "STROBE") mixed game, so I put my name on the list. Turnover in the mixed game was very slow. My name was second of two on the list at 9:15 PM; and I wasn't called into it until 12:35 AM. I didn't do so well this time. The table was a lot more serious, a lot less live. Variance got to me in the badugi and triple-draw rounds. (One time in triple-draw I was dealt 8-7-3-2-brick in late position, and drew one when the big blind called my raise and drew three. I caught a five on the first draw, making my hand; my opponent kept drawing. After the final draw he bet into me and I called; he had 8-6-5-3-2, notching me by one pip.) I got fed up with losing, and at 4:30 AM I left the game when it was just about to switch to razz.

I returned to the stud/8 game, hoping to recoup some of my loss. Things didn't go well at first. Cyndy Violette had joined the game after a 75-150 mixed game had broken. Not long afterwards she was joined by my nemesis from the stud/8 tournament, whose name I now know to be Yuval Bronshtein.

I was originally sitting in the #1 seat, not ideal from the point of view of visibility, but it was a good position for me to be playing, given how the other players were sitting. Yuval was sitting to my immediate left in seat 2. I took a bathroom break at one point, and came back to find an attractive young woman in a cocktail dress chatting Yuval up, giving him her phone number and making sure he got it into his PDA. Another young woman came up, also dressed for clubbing, and joined the conversation. It was a bit distracting to me, in a too-much-talk way, not a fine-looking-women way, but I tried to focus on playing my cards. The conversation ended, and the women said their goodbyes to Yuval. The one who had been talking to him longer touched her hand to my shoulder, smiled, and said goodbye to me, too.

When they were gone, a man across the table from us chuckled and said something about working girls. That made a lot of sense to me. I can see why club girls might want to check out the high-rollers throwing money at each other in the high-stakes poker games in hope of catching some rich guy's attention. But why would a club girl, focused on a handsome and stylish young man, turn some of her charm towards a hippy biker dude who had been ignoring her?

Players left the game, players joined the game. I moved to the #4 seat to get better visibility, and Cyndy moved to the #1 seat to get better position. Yuval started pushing to raise the limit. $100-$200? $75-$150?

Then came a big hand for the three of us. Cyndy and Yuval had small cards in their doors; I had an ace, with another in the hole. Cyndy completed the bring-in, and Yuval raised. I liked my aces, so I three-bet. The bring-in dropped out, Cyndy called the two extra bets, and Yuval reraised again. I was slightly afraid of Yuval having rolled up fives, but figured he would be doing the same with other card combinations too, combinations of which I was ahead. I put in the fifth bet, and the other two called. The hand went to hell from there, with both of them catching low and connected. I caught low, too, but I didn't like my hand so much. I was in a position of having to represent strength when I was very likely an equity dog, in hopes of getting one of them to fold should they catch bad. If that were to happen, the now-dead money in the pot would make it worth getting freerolled by the scary low hand of whatever opponent remained. But it was not meant to be: I couldn't get either of them out, and so was at high risk of either being chopped up by them or scooped by one of them. As it happened, Cyndy's three eights and a low scooped my aces and fives and Yuval's two smaller pair. The pot was huge, and my stack was crippled.

Yuval suggested bumping the limit to 75-150 once more. This time, I and the other players agreed. I put more cash on the table in order to have a reasonable stack for the new limit.

I was dealt another big hand — two kings in the hole with a third in the door — and again went up against Cyndy and Yuval, both catching very scary low cards. I was trapped for three bets on one of the later streets, but this time, with no low possibility, I was much more careful. My hand didn't improve on the river, and Cyndy bet and Yuval raised. If I stayed it would have cost me five bets by being jammed between them; so I folded. Cyndy had a straight six, and Yuval had a 6-5-3-2-A low. Although it was not cheap for me to see the river card, I hadescaped a brutal beating. But I was starting to feel like I wasn't allowed to win the big ones.

Some refugees from the big pot-limit Omaha game showed interest in our game. Yuval suggested bumping the limit once more, to 100-200. I reluctantly agreed, and the PLO high-rollers sat down. I put still more cash on the table, and buckled down to focus on playing aggressive ABC poker, just as I would if I weren't playing the for highest stakes I'd yet played in my life.

"Aggressive ABC poker" turned out to involve a lot of folding, sometimes completing or raising on third street and folding when I caught a bad card on fourth. Andrew Prock calls folding on fourth street "the Hammer of Thor," the real secret to beating one's opponents at eight-or-better stud. I wielded the Hammer of Thor mightily. Eventually, as the morning progressed, I built my stack up to within reach of breaking even. I was exhausted. The game was good, and I knew exactly who the live players were and how to exploit them, but I was approaching the limits of my stamina. I ordered cup after cup of coffee from the cocktail servers. I kept nodding off between hands. Yuval got back to even, and picked up and left, saying his girlfriend was waiting for him.

Then, in this damnably streaky game, I caught hold of a hot streak. In short succession I was dealt decent hands that held up, or terrible hands that I was able to turn into winners, or (one more time) rolled up kings that this time scooped a three-way pot. I came up from under water, and kept winning, getting to the point where I was ahead almost as much as I had been behind.

The noon tournament, triple-draw lowball, had just begun. I began racking up my chips. I sold some of them to other players, but what I had to take back to the cage was one of the biggest payouts in my life. I wound up coloring my chips up rather than cashing them in.

Now it was time to head back to my hotel, get some food, and get some sleep. I was reeling with the emotional impact of what I had done. Much as I hate to lose at poker, sometimes I think that winning is almost as bad, at least in terms of what it does to me physiologically. (As far as the money is concerned, winning is definitely better than losing, thank you very much.) Many people enjoy the thrill of the gamble, and to them gambling and losing is almost as rewarding as gambling and winning. Not me: gambling to me is stressful, and the aftermath of gambling to me is like the aftermath of traumatic stress.

Lynn was awake and working when I got back to the room; and she dropped what she was doing to make me lunch. What a sweetie! I didn't need her to wait on me; and at the same time it was great to be able to sit there and stare into space while she brought me a sandwich.

From there, it was an effort to get off the couch and into bed. I slept for a couple of hours, until it was time for a phone date I had arranged with Debbie back home. But Debbie discerned how groggy I still was, and we rescheduled for later in the evening.

I went straight back to sleep, and woke at 8:30 PM. I puttered around on the Internet until it was time for that rescheduled phone date. Afterwards, I went to bed, and slept until morning, waking to the news that Bill Chen had made it to day 2 of the triple-draw event. (He later busted out in 24th place, barely into the money; but that's today's news.)

2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Zero
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day One
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Two
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Three
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Four
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Five
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Six
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Seven
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Day Eight
2008 World Series of Poker Diary — Days Eleven and Twelve

Tags: poker wsop world series of poker las vegas trip report travelogue eight-or-better stud omaha triple-draw razz badugi cyndy violette yuval bronshtein bill chen