EdFred
Taxi to Parking
Short version for those that don’t care:
Too bad, you’re going to read it and like it.
Long version for those that have a bit more interest:
(and some terminology and definitions thrown in for those who don’t know the game that well)
I should have known my luck wasn’t going to go very well at the WSOP when I went to finish up my registration on Friday morning. I had pre registered in April for the tournament and sent my money in. When I got to the Will-Call/Pre-Registration counter at the Rio on Friday my file was missing. They had boxes and boxes of files sorted by event number, and then further sorted within the box by last name. Well, the lady who was helping me couldn’t find it under Frederick, or Edward(s), or William(s). She checked the computer and I was at least on file, they just never printed it out, or it got misfiled or something. So after 15 or 20 minutes or so, I got my seat assignment (Amazon Blue, Table 38, Seat 4) and went into the Amazon Room to see where my seat was so that I could quickly get to it on Saturday when the tournament began.
I step into the room, and the sight was amazing; A sea of green felt and padded high back chairs so large that they became indistinguishable as individual tables and chairs as I looked to the other side of the room. I found my way through the maze of seating and playing surfaces to where I was to start my day on Saturday. There were a couple of cash games being played while I searched, but no one that I recognized was playing so I found my seat, made a note of where it was, and headed back to my hotel for the day – where I proceeded to lose $600 in less than an hour at the slots that my sister “guaranteed” would pay well. Right. I walked The Strip that night grabbed myself a bite to eat and put myself to bed.
Saturday morning. I was actually surprised at how nervous I wasn’t. I got to the Rio about one and a half hours prior to start time, and just walked around to get my last bit of exercise before the grueling 13 hour day was to begin. I was one of the first ones in the room, and the first one at my table. I turned in my registration card to the dealer showing that I indeed belonged there and my driver’s license to show that I am who I say I am. As our table fills up I’m seated next to a nice lady from Louisiana via Arizona who (or is it whom?) I can tell, and she admits herself, is very nervous. We talk for a bit as the seats fill in around us. 5 amateurs, 4 pros, and one empty seat. Great, there goes my plan of being aggressive early and taking some early blinds and padding my stack. We are given $3,000 in tournament chips and the blinds at this point are $25/$50. (For those that don’t know, blinds are mandatory bets by 2 of the 10 players at the table to guarantee that there will be betting on every hand). I am dealt my first hand of the tournament and get to see a Jack-duece off suit. Early position – that’s a fold, actually that’s a fold from any position. The first 15 hands or so is nothing better with at least 3 more J-2 some 5-7, and 3-9 hands until I finally get dealt pocket 7s. A pair, and in good position with it, good. I bet. Unfortunately I am re-raised and I (stupidly) make the call, only to see the flop bring me nothing, and before I know it, I am down $1000 in chips. My next hand is pocket 7s again, I bet again, get re-raised, and fold. A few more nothing hands, the blinds are starting to take their toll, I’m down to less than ½ the chips I started with and finally, I win a hand. A-Q suited, and I only take down a $75 pot, but I got a chuckle out of the table as I sarcastically celebrate that I won a hand. Somewhere in there the empty seat gets filled in by yet another pro, making a total of 5 at our table. One from Chicago, another from Toronto, and three from the European circuit. How quaint.
Only thirteen minutes into the tourney and before I had even been dealt my pocket 7s, our table hears an announcement from a table located diagonally from us that there’s an empty seat and we all sort of mock celebrate, knowing we won’t finish number twenty-seven-hundred out of twenty-seven-hundred. And as the first from our table gets eliminated, the lady from LA-AZ and I joke that we can at least say we weren’t the first to be gone from our table. Chips continue to get shuffled around at our table, but the pro from Toronto and one of the European pros are starting to build their chip stacks as a few of us just sort of wallow around where we started, and some of us, myself included, are well below where we started. By now the blinds have increased to $50 and $100 and if I am going to stay alive, I need to start being more aggressive, or at least assertive, or something…and then comes my Rounders moment…
There’s a scene in Rounder’s where Matt Damon tells Jon Turturro about the time he went head-to-head with Johnny Chan, a consecutive two time world champion at the Main Event at the World Series, and won…
I am on the button (meaning I am the last to bet, which is the position you always want to be in) and everyone has folded except for the small blind and big blind who are forced to bet – with the big blind being the European tour pro who has built his chip stack up. I have a 6-4 off suit dealt to me, and I decide I need to try and steal the blinds so I can get some more chips. So I bet $500 hoping the small blind and big blind fold. One does, but the Euro-pro calls me – not what I wanted. Oh well, I’ll just fold after the flop if nothing good comes and I’ll live to play another hand. The flop comes 7-7-4 meaning I’ve paired my fours and I don’t really want to see that because it’s something, but it’s not great, especially when he already called my $500 bet pre-flop. There’s a shade over $1000 in the pot, and the Euro-pro bets $350, and I decide I am not going to get pushed around any more, and bet $700, putting the pressure on him. He thinks about it for a minute or so and calls me. Crap, not what I was planning. The turn shows a King, and he checks to me. I check as well seeing what the river brings – another King. Well, that made my hand worthless as the board has 7s and Ks making my 4s no good. If he bets I have to fold, and I fully expect him to bet, which he does not do. So I bet the rest of my $800 and change in chips, putting my tournament life on the line not even two hours into the event, and he sits there staring at the table, and I sit there staring at the chips in the middle, waiting to see what he does. He folds. I collect just over $2400 in chips and get asked by the guy from Toronto “full house?” I smile and say, “Do you want to see them? Nah, I’m not going to show.” He gets a grin on his face, and nods to me with a look of “well played.”
The first break comes, and I’ve made it through two hours of playing against five pros – one of which has been eliminated, and one of which I went head to head with and won on a bluff. I talked to the guy from Toronto during the break, and told him that the King killed my hand. He looks at me, laughs, and says “you had the four!” complimented me on my play, saying there’s no way he put me on that. I looked way too strong to have had nothing, and I had to have at least a full house, maybe four of a kind the way I played it. I said thanks and went on my way to stretch my legs.
Returning from the break, I got no more good cards as the blinds went to $100/$200 and I saw my chip stack get whittled away until I was forced to play A-3 of hearts, made two pair on the turn, but lost when my opponent made a flush on the river and my tournament was done. I shook hands with the guys at the table and that was it. I walked out to the shuttle back to Harrah’s and talked to a few other people out there, and one said they were already down to 1300 people, so I guess I didn’t do too bad considering the biggest tourney I’d ever been in to that point was only 20 people. All in all I’m happy with my play, and wouldn’t have played any had different than I did, and I’ll go back next year.
Too bad, you’re going to read it and like it.
Long version for those that have a bit more interest:
(and some terminology and definitions thrown in for those who don’t know the game that well)
I should have known my luck wasn’t going to go very well at the WSOP when I went to finish up my registration on Friday morning. I had pre registered in April for the tournament and sent my money in. When I got to the Will-Call/Pre-Registration counter at the Rio on Friday my file was missing. They had boxes and boxes of files sorted by event number, and then further sorted within the box by last name. Well, the lady who was helping me couldn’t find it under Frederick, or Edward(s), or William(s). She checked the computer and I was at least on file, they just never printed it out, or it got misfiled or something. So after 15 or 20 minutes or so, I got my seat assignment (Amazon Blue, Table 38, Seat 4) and went into the Amazon Room to see where my seat was so that I could quickly get to it on Saturday when the tournament began.
I step into the room, and the sight was amazing; A sea of green felt and padded high back chairs so large that they became indistinguishable as individual tables and chairs as I looked to the other side of the room. I found my way through the maze of seating and playing surfaces to where I was to start my day on Saturday. There were a couple of cash games being played while I searched, but no one that I recognized was playing so I found my seat, made a note of where it was, and headed back to my hotel for the day – where I proceeded to lose $600 in less than an hour at the slots that my sister “guaranteed” would pay well. Right. I walked The Strip that night grabbed myself a bite to eat and put myself to bed.
Saturday morning. I was actually surprised at how nervous I wasn’t. I got to the Rio about one and a half hours prior to start time, and just walked around to get my last bit of exercise before the grueling 13 hour day was to begin. I was one of the first ones in the room, and the first one at my table. I turned in my registration card to the dealer showing that I indeed belonged there and my driver’s license to show that I am who I say I am. As our table fills up I’m seated next to a nice lady from Louisiana via Arizona who (or is it whom?) I can tell, and she admits herself, is very nervous. We talk for a bit as the seats fill in around us. 5 amateurs, 4 pros, and one empty seat. Great, there goes my plan of being aggressive early and taking some early blinds and padding my stack. We are given $3,000 in tournament chips and the blinds at this point are $25/$50. (For those that don’t know, blinds are mandatory bets by 2 of the 10 players at the table to guarantee that there will be betting on every hand). I am dealt my first hand of the tournament and get to see a Jack-duece off suit. Early position – that’s a fold, actually that’s a fold from any position. The first 15 hands or so is nothing better with at least 3 more J-2 some 5-7, and 3-9 hands until I finally get dealt pocket 7s. A pair, and in good position with it, good. I bet. Unfortunately I am re-raised and I (stupidly) make the call, only to see the flop bring me nothing, and before I know it, I am down $1000 in chips. My next hand is pocket 7s again, I bet again, get re-raised, and fold. A few more nothing hands, the blinds are starting to take their toll, I’m down to less than ½ the chips I started with and finally, I win a hand. A-Q suited, and I only take down a $75 pot, but I got a chuckle out of the table as I sarcastically celebrate that I won a hand. Somewhere in there the empty seat gets filled in by yet another pro, making a total of 5 at our table. One from Chicago, another from Toronto, and three from the European circuit. How quaint.
Only thirteen minutes into the tourney and before I had even been dealt my pocket 7s, our table hears an announcement from a table located diagonally from us that there’s an empty seat and we all sort of mock celebrate, knowing we won’t finish number twenty-seven-hundred out of twenty-seven-hundred. And as the first from our table gets eliminated, the lady from LA-AZ and I joke that we can at least say we weren’t the first to be gone from our table. Chips continue to get shuffled around at our table, but the pro from Toronto and one of the European pros are starting to build their chip stacks as a few of us just sort of wallow around where we started, and some of us, myself included, are well below where we started. By now the blinds have increased to $50 and $100 and if I am going to stay alive, I need to start being more aggressive, or at least assertive, or something…and then comes my Rounders moment…
There’s a scene in Rounder’s where Matt Damon tells Jon Turturro about the time he went head-to-head with Johnny Chan, a consecutive two time world champion at the Main Event at the World Series, and won…
I am on the button (meaning I am the last to bet, which is the position you always want to be in) and everyone has folded except for the small blind and big blind who are forced to bet – with the big blind being the European tour pro who has built his chip stack up. I have a 6-4 off suit dealt to me, and I decide I need to try and steal the blinds so I can get some more chips. So I bet $500 hoping the small blind and big blind fold. One does, but the Euro-pro calls me – not what I wanted. Oh well, I’ll just fold after the flop if nothing good comes and I’ll live to play another hand. The flop comes 7-7-4 meaning I’ve paired my fours and I don’t really want to see that because it’s something, but it’s not great, especially when he already called my $500 bet pre-flop. There’s a shade over $1000 in the pot, and the Euro-pro bets $350, and I decide I am not going to get pushed around any more, and bet $700, putting the pressure on him. He thinks about it for a minute or so and calls me. Crap, not what I was planning. The turn shows a King, and he checks to me. I check as well seeing what the river brings – another King. Well, that made my hand worthless as the board has 7s and Ks making my 4s no good. If he bets I have to fold, and I fully expect him to bet, which he does not do. So I bet the rest of my $800 and change in chips, putting my tournament life on the line not even two hours into the event, and he sits there staring at the table, and I sit there staring at the chips in the middle, waiting to see what he does. He folds. I collect just over $2400 in chips and get asked by the guy from Toronto “full house?” I smile and say, “Do you want to see them? Nah, I’m not going to show.” He gets a grin on his face, and nods to me with a look of “well played.”
The first break comes, and I’ve made it through two hours of playing against five pros – one of which has been eliminated, and one of which I went head to head with and won on a bluff. I talked to the guy from Toronto during the break, and told him that the King killed my hand. He looks at me, laughs, and says “you had the four!” complimented me on my play, saying there’s no way he put me on that. I looked way too strong to have had nothing, and I had to have at least a full house, maybe four of a kind the way I played it. I said thanks and went on my way to stretch my legs.
Returning from the break, I got no more good cards as the blinds went to $100/$200 and I saw my chip stack get whittled away until I was forced to play A-3 of hearts, made two pair on the turn, but lost when my opponent made a flush on the river and my tournament was done. I shook hands with the guys at the table and that was it. I walked out to the shuttle back to Harrah’s and talked to a few other people out there, and one said they were already down to 1300 people, so I guess I didn’t do too bad considering the biggest tourney I’d ever been in to that point was only 20 people. All in all I’m happy with my play, and wouldn’t have played any had different than I did, and I’ll go back next year.
No money at stake....Loser has to take the red-coat lady flying. 
