Just an average day...except completely not at all

Germany, Italy, Scotland, Sweden and the U.S. There were people from five different countries at my starting table. That's one cool thing about the WSOP. Many, many people from countless backgrounds and nationalities competing in the same event. That makes it even more enjoyable to be a part of. It's late, I'm tired, so here we go....

On the cab ride to the Rio, I was extremely relaxed and the cab driver even commented that he's had several passengers in the past on their way to the first ever World Series and some of them have been sweating bullets. He said I seemed "pretty cool", but then again when am I not? :) I had time to eat a giant assortment of fruit from Starbucks, made a call to the younger bro and entered the room. Just another 2,000 people started playing today, the largest field of the tourney thus far. After some obligatory announcements by some important people, some country guy sang some song that everyone paid some attention to. Then the famous words, "Shuffle up and deal!". Applause. And we were off...

For the first two hours of the day, I played flawless poker. I realized that at the first break. The most noteworthy hand was about an hour in, nice guy in a St. Louis Cardinals hand limped in for 100, I raised it to 400 with 10 9 of spades. Dude from Sweden called -- Oh yeah, quick side note. The guy from Sweden is a major celebrity there, apparently he is the Simon Cowell on Sweden's version of American Idol. He had people from the Swedish press stopping by, chatting and taking pictures throughout much of the day -- so he calls and the St. Louis guy calls as well. There's 1250 in the pot and the flop comes down 10 9 8 with two hearts. The St. Louis guy hesitates for a SPLIT second and reaches for chips, betting 600. He seemed pretty strong but clearly I was too. I opted to just call to see what developed. The other guy folded and the turn was the king of hearts. St. Louis bets 1100 and at this point I know I am behind, but the bet is not too large, I know I will win with any 10 or 9 and I think I can steal the pot if a fourth heart comes on the river. So I call and the river comes the 4 of hearts. St. Louis clearly doesn't like that card and checks. I wait three seconds and fire 2100 into the pot. He shakes his head and folds QJ faceup. I nod, pat myself on the back silently and move on. Always a good feeling winning a large pot with the worst hand. It's poker at its finest. It was calm, controlled poker I played the first two hours, slowly chipping my way up to 25,000 in chips at the first break from the 20,000 we started with.

The 2nd level, more of the same, but I actually had some hands this time. 66 was the big hand form me on the day, I won two medium sized pots holding sixes, and also one large pot. When I limped in after St. Louis limped and the Scotland dude raised it to 900. Scotland guy was using this play a lot, raising when there were limpers so he didn't necessarily need to have much of a hand here. St. Louis called the raise and I decided to come along for the ride as well. The flop comes down 6 4 2. Yahtzee. We both check, but unfortunately Scotland checks too. The turn is an ace, which I think is a great card since there's a chance they both could have an ace. St. Louis, checks, I check, Scotland bets 1500. St. Louis ponders for a bit and calls. Now, my decision here is between calling and raising, I think it's pretty close, there were two spades out there so I decided to raise it to 5000. Scotland folded pretty quickly and St. Louis thought for a minute ended up folding also, saying he had the flush draw. So the raise achieved its purpose and I had over 30,000 in chips after that hand. I also had one other hugie that I thought was going to be a monster but ended up being a bit of a letdown. I find the magic AA in early position and raise it to 600. Two people call, including a nice lady two seats to my right who was friendly but by far the worst player at the table. She was also playing pretty tight so I knew she had some semblance of hand. Well, the flop comes down A 7 7, which I thought was going to be bad because I was highly unlikely to get any action. But the woman bets 500, so maybe she has an ace or (fingers crossed) a 7. I just call and the turn is another 7. Well, now she had better not have a 7!! She bets 500 again and again I just call. The river is a 2 and she checks. OK good, no 7, but if she has an ace she almost has to pay me off, so I make a pretty large bet of 3500. She thinks for about two minutes and I think she is about to call but she ends up folding QQ faceup. Man. If only she had re-raised before the flop. Oh well. By this point everyone at the table knew I was solid and was really respecting my bets, which enabled to win a number of medium-sized pots with semi-bluffs with mediocre hands. I had my chip stack up to about 39,000 before I made really my only mis-step of the first four hours. The funny German guy on my right (he was wearing a mini-German flag in between his visor and his head, but it was placed so it looked like the flag was actually coming out of his head). I think I impressed with my limited knowledge of the German language over the course of the day and night. Ich spreche deutsch ziemlich gut. So in the hand German dude raises it to 600 from the small blind and I call from the big blind with K 10 offsuit. The flop comes 853 all diamonds. He bets 1000 and I call (I have the K of diamonds.) The King of Diamonds. That's a Minneapolis strip club. Wolff wants the hot ass shit...haha.....OK sorry, the turn is an offsuit jack, German dude bets 1000 again and I think I can take the pot away here so I raise him to 2500. He hesitates like two seconds and makes it 10,000. Ahhhh, plan backfired. I fold and he shows two red aces. Good thing no diamond hit the turn...whew. So head to the second break with 35,000 in chips and still feel good about the state of things. Sans the last head my reads have been spot on and I have had a few big hands. Always a good combination. Only one mistake in four hours is pretty damn good. So far, so great....

I win a few pots early in the 3rd level and my chip count is just under 39,000. I have lots of greens, blacks, blues, many yellows and a few oranges. I have the most chips at my table, the day really couldn't have started out any better. But as is the case with so, so many tourneys, the switch can flip like that. It really all started with the Swedish dude, actually even though he was kind of pompous he really wasn't a bad guy. Anyway, he was pretty short on chips and decided to moved them all in the middle after I raised a limper with AK offsuit. It was about 5000 more for me to call after the 900 bet. I called and he showed AJ of hearts and I am in great shape to knock him out and move over the 40,000 mark. The flop was safe, but boom, a jack hit on the turn and just like that I am down to 30,000 or so. It isn't always about getting lucky in the tourneys, it's also about not getting unlucky and that hand sort of began to shift things. The rest of the level can really be summed up in two hands, one orbit I raise with A 10 of hearts, and the flop comes three spades, the next orbit I raise with A 10 of spades and the flop comes three hearts. Ugh. I check folded the first one, but bet the flop on the second one and had to fold to a raise. The last hand before the break I raised with KJ and a goateed fellow, who was arguably the best player at the table called out of the big blind. Flop comes 3 4 5. Check check. Turn 3. Check Check. River K. He bets 1500, I call and he shows 6 7 for the flopped straight. Stupid King on the end. That hand was about two minutes before the dinner break and I desperately needed the break as frustration was setting in. I went from 39,500 in chips at my high point to 23,000 and I needed to clear my head.

You know the feeling you get when you are kind of in a bad mood and you are stuck in traffic, not moving and it only makes things worse? Well walking with the sea of people through the hallways headed to dinner....we were moving so slowly and people were yelling and all I was thinking about was the last hour and a half of horribleness at the table. Not good times. I felt like my fish, little John the second, would have felt if he lived in a shot glass. Finally the line started moving, I ate some pizza, talked with some friendly guys from Long Island and the good vibes were flowing again. I was smiling again walking back from dinner, ready to turn the tide again.

One important aspect of tournament is that when someone gets knocked out of your table, someone else gets moved in to take their place. Depending on who this player is and what their style and chip stack is, they alone can affect the overall flow of the table. If the person has a ton of chips or is playing a lot of pots, they immediately demand the respect and attention of the rest of the table. Or sometimes, someone comes to the table and just will not lose a pot. Every hand they enter, they end up raking in chips. Which brings me to....the dude from Austria (yep, another country), who came to our table with a fairly small stack but just started winning pots immediately after he sat down. Which brings me to....the hand I have the most questions about from the day/night. Austrian dude was seated to my left (actually, I was in the 9 seat and he the 1 seat, so the dealer was between us). Blinds were 150 and 300, German dude limps in and I raise it to 1400 with KQ of spades. I'll occasionally just call here, but I think raising is the better play. Austrian guy calls, German dude calls, three of us see the flop with already 4500 in the middle. The flop comes 10 3 2 with all different suits, German dude checks, I bet 2500, the Austrian guy thinks for a bit before calling and the German dude folds. Now, this is the key moment of the hand. I put the Austrian guy on a pair, possibly a big pair but I thought medium pair was more likely, something like 88 or 99. So when the turn came another 10, I had another decision to make. I could check and basically surrender the hand or bet again and force him to figure out if he really had me beat. I went with door #2 and bet 5000. Austrian guy thought even longer this time, I really needed a fold here but he ended up calling. At this point I only had 14,000 left and couldn't bet again. The river was a 7, I checked, he bet 7000 and I had to let it go. He didn't show his hand, but on another night betting again on the turn might have forced a fold and been the right play. Tonight it didn't work out that way. In retrospect I should have checked on the turn and saved 5k in chips, but I'm always going to err on the side of aggression, I just think that's the best style. But tonight, the wind went out of my sails even more after that hand. The icing of the level came when I raised with A 10 (yep, that hand was no good to me) and a middle aged guy who may have smelled bad called out of the small blind. Flop comes Q 10 5 with two diamonds. I bet 1500, he calls. Turn J. Check check. River 6. Check Check. He shows AJ. Of course. I was resembling the Titanic at the last break, down to 9,000 in chips. The question is, could I avoid the iceberg....

The reality of the situation was that I wasn't too keen on barely getting into day 2 because I wouldn't play again until Wednesday and staying in town for another three nights just to come back and play for a few hours short on chips on Wednesday...I mean....not ideal or cool or something I wanted to do to myself. So I was definitely looking for spots to double up early in the last level. I had one pretty early when the possible smelly dude raised to 1500 (blinds at 200/400 now) from middle position and I looked down at 10 10 in the big blind. Now, little know fact, 10 10 and I rarely seem to lose with it and I had enough chips to make him fold if he wasn't too strong. But I opted to just call, the flop came A83, I checked, he bet and I folded. He showed me an ace. I asked if I pushed all in before the flop if he was calling and he said yes. So I dodged elimination there, good news. The bad news of course is that I was down to 7000 in chips and in a heap of trouble. The next orbit, I found AQ and raised it to 1300, I had about 5000 behind. I was planning on callin a re-raise, so when the new guy at the table, who had a mountain of chips and was wearing a sock as a wristband, made it 4000 to go, I didn't think too long before getting the rest of my chips in. Unfortunately, he had AK and I was in bad shape. The turn actually gave me some hope a third club (I had the ace of clubs), but neither a club or a queen hit on the river. And that was that. Nothing you can do but tap the table and wish everyone good luck. I shook a few hands and that was all she wrote. It was a friendly table, I actually liked everyone which is a little rare. Walking out of the room, past all the tables and the spectators was definitely a walk of shame. It's fairly obvious when someone gets up and walks through the room that they have been knocked out of the tournament. I avoided eye contact. It seemed like the right thing to do. I took one last look back as I got to the door. And gone.....

I needed something to cheer me up and I knew where to find it. One ice cream bar later, I felt a lot better. On the cab ride from the Rio to the Mirage, the cab driver commented that it's "fucking hotter here than it is in hell. I'd take hell over this weather." I got a kick out of that.

So that's the story. Quite a day to say the least. Clearly I'm disappointed at how it played out, but sometimes you just can't hit flops and the wheels start to come off a bit and getting things turned around is like trying to stop a Honda Accord from rolling down your friend's driveway when you accidentally left it in drive when you got out. It's just not gonna happen. All the ups and downs, swings good and bad, massive momentum changes with the turn of one card. But that's what I love. It's why I think poker and baseball are so similar. There are so many little things that are going on, little details to keep aware of, but sometimes it's one big play or hand that changes everything. Every game is different and many, many times you are left disappointed but the journey fucking rules and the times you get to the top the view is more wonderful than you could have imagined it. I know I've got the game to go deep in this tournament someday. It's no longer a question of if.....

Also thanks to everyone who wished me well and sent the good vibes. It meant a lot. I wish I could have done a little more. But all the kind words really made me smile. You're alright kids.....


See ya when I see ya,

Adam