Just got back late Wednesday night from a 4-day trip to Vegas to celebrate a friend's 40th birthday. He and I and our wives left pre-dawn Sunday and returned home about 2 a.m. in true vegas fashion. We had planned this trip about 6 months ago and really only coindentally planned it in conjunction with the WSOP going on. But for several months now my friend (Kevin) and I had comtemplated putting up the $1,000 needed to enter Event 17 - NLHE of the WSOP. Basically, procrastination and nerve resulted in neither of us ponying up the cash to pre-register, but we figured we would try our luck in satellites instead.
After touching down at McCarron, we head on over to the Bellagio in a stretch limosine (only ~$75 - definitely suggest this as opposed to cabs), we get checked in and grab lunch at Sensi. Great casual food & atmosphere. We then head on down to the Rio to check out the goings on at the WSOP and see about satellite opportunities. I was not prepared for what I saw. I mean I knew the room was big and all, but holy moly - it is HUGE! 206 tables with most of them in some sort of action. It just so happened that the $10,000 PL Omaha tournament was starting at 2 pm and we get there just as the players are making there way down the halls toward the Amazon Room. We watch the tables fill up with every name player that I can think of. At one table, Howard Lederer sits in seat 2, Mike Caro in seat 3 and Eric Seidel in seat 5. At another, Hellmuth, Scotty Nguygen and Chau Giang are playing. All the pros seemed very nice and stopped to sign autographs, pose for pics, etc. as they made their way in.
As we wandered about somewhat awestruck by the place and all the action, we managed to burn a couple hours. During that time I was told by a cage employee that they would not be running any satellites for the $1000 NLHE the following day. While this seemed a little odd to me, I figured he knew what he was talking about. Turns out he was clueless and at the other end of the room, they run satellites 24/7. Just pick your line ($125/$175/$225/$275, etc). These are strickly SnG. When ten players are ready and a table and dealer is ready, off you go. Since we had reservations for my friends birthday dinner at the Top of the World (Stratosphere) that night at 7 pm we had to split before we could get involved in a satellite, but decided to come back afterwards.
So we get to the Stratosphere and make our way up to the restaurant on the 107th or 108th floor. What an amazing view of Vegas....if you haven't been there it is at least worth a trip to the lounge. After a few seconds however, I realized the whole thing is revolving. Frankly I spent the entire dinner slightly nauseated....the last time I was in a revolving anything was a bar in Gainesville, FL when I was about 21......kinda made me sick then too. Anyway, I survive dinner (only OK food, in my opinion) and the friends we are with insist that we have to ride the rides on the top of the Strat. We poll some of the employees whom unaminously claim the Big Shot is the best ride there so it's decided. From the description, I thought the ride was like a big glassed enclosed elevator that goes way up on the steeple of the Stratosphere Tower, relatively slowly. Ummmmm, no. We were seated in an open air seat and they pulled down a bracket to keep you locked in (you hope). Then they mention something about keeping your head back against the headrest then -BAM!- that sumbitch takes off at 45 MPH and 4G's straight for top and it feels like the entire contraption is just gonna launch right off the top of the needle and you might land somewhere down on Fremont Street. But somehow the engineers at the Strat have figured a way to keep it on so then when you reached the top of the needle thing, it simply falls back toward the tower and the 4G's you experienced going up is replaced by pure weightlessness going down. Then it repeats a couple of times but not nearly with the shock and awe factor of that very first burst. This is a great ride - I highly reccomend that you do this if you have not. Why it is that spinning around at about 0.3 MPH in an enclosed space makes me sick but blasting off into orbit just strapped into a folding chair makes me giggle like a teenager I cannot tell you. I guess I am just wierd like that. PS - the best thing about the whole ride is the picture that is automatically taken of your group the moment the 4G's hits you - I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Yes, we bought it.
Anyway, back to Bellagio to drop off the wives and then to the Rio for poker. Kevin and I jump in line for one fo the $125 satellites. Obviously, we make sure there are at least 10 people between us, so we are not at the same table. Second place gets nothing, but first awards two $500 buy-in chips to any WSOP event, plus $120 cash. The house gets $130.
We get started right away. One guy, BJ from California, suggests a $10 last longer bet. Myself and 5 others agree. The first thing I was struck by was how friendly everyone at the table was. This game could have been my regular every other week $40 tourney that I host. Everyone was very comfortable and having fun. I should say at this point that the main reason I did not invest $1,000 upfront was that I have been on a terribly frustrating streak for the last 2-3 months. In my regular game, CT tourneys, and others I just could not seem to do anything right. The harder I tried to "play better" it seemed I either tightened up too much or called away big bucks on second best hands. I just did not think I had the game to compete with the talent at a WSOP event. For some reason, I felt totally at ease and in control the whole time. I also caught some cards, but when I did, I really felt like managed the betting to maximize the pots when I believed I had the best hand. Anyway, it got to HU with me and another guy. I had about 60% of the chips and he suggested that whomever wins chop the $125 entry fee back to the loser so we would both be freerolling. Even though I had a slight chip lead, I agreed since anything can happen heads-up and I figured if the cards went his way more than mine, I still felt good about the way I played and could just get in another one. After about 7-8 hands of PF raising-fold, I raise on the button with Ah9h. He calls - flop comes 2-3-4 rainbow. He pushes all-in and if he wins will have about 80% of the chips. For some reason I just sensed a bluff - you know how you sometimes can just "feel" it? - and called. A loose call?.......yes. But he shows Q8o and is beside himself asking how I could call with A9. The A holds up and I win. The floor comes over and awards my 2 $500 buy-in chips. I'm feeling great! The only downer was that Kevin finished 2nd in his game. He claims that he was told by the dealer that his chances of getting in to Event 17 were "slim-to-none" as the WSOP had closed the entries. Evidently the dealer did not know or explain clearly the process of alternates in these events. Kevin also claimed he had 6 Jack Daniels while he was playing so it is possible that Jack may have whispered the part about the "slim-to-none", instead of the dealer. Buy hey, he was enjoying his birthday!
Monday - 12 pm start time for Event 17 - $1000 buy-in, NLHE - no rebuys. I was told the night before that the event was closed at around 2200 entrants and probably up to 500 alternates would be allowed to play. The alternates will need to show up to register at 9:00 am the next morning but it was suggested to me to get down there in line by 7 am as the line would begin to form early. I actually get about 3 hours sleep and make it down there by 7:15. There are about 30-40 people ahead of me. About 8 a.m., I have to have some caffiene and since we are 1 hour from the cage opening, I get my line "mates" to hold my spot as I make a Starbucks run. I am back in about 15 minutes and CAGE IS OPEN AND THEY ARE SIGNING PEOPLE UP!!!!! My line mates are nowhere to be seen, they have already been to the cage and are signed up! OMG! I have no choice but to get in the back of the line and wait it out. Man, am I pissed. Well, I finally get up there and am given table 308, seat 2, which they explain to me is really alternate 82, as they started the alternates at table 300. All of the alternates were asked to muster in the bleachers around the final table at noon and we were seated in groups of 11, one table at at time. That was a great way to seat the alternates, instead of seating them individually in an ongoing table where some people might have dramatically different chipstacks. The first elimination was roughly 2 minutes after the tournament started, and it took me about 40 minutes to get in. That left 20 minutes of blinds at the first level - 25/25 - so it wasn't too bad. Oh, another thing was that the WSOP had decided to give all the $1,000 buy-in tournaments $1,500 in starting chips, instead of $1,000. This allowed a much more "normal" game to take place.
Again, the most surprising thing to me was how everyone at the table, the dealers, the tournament staff, etc., were incredibly friendly and enjoying themselves. I guess I figured that most would be uptight and all serious. Perhaps just because it's a small event, I don't know, but everyone was happy. I play at the same table (Table 9) for 6 hours until the dinner break. I didn't play a pot for the first several orbits because I had no cards. I finally bluff a small raise with 7
2
on a flop that missed and take down a small pot. Then I started some geting some raising cards and am able to take down some blinds, along with force some people to fold on other hands. After a few hours I win a nice pot with JJ on a board of rainbow undercards. My opponent went into the tank on my 3/4 pot sized bet and folded the other JJ face up. I could not bring myself to show. At the dinner break, I am up to roughly $12,000 in chips. After the break, our table breaks and I am sent to Table 135. My $12K is one of the top 2-3 stacks at the table when I sent down and go on a card catching run for 30 minutes. I was agressive with the cards that I caught and got a couple calls from players that just couldn't believe I was getting good hands as often as I was. That table was broken after only 30-40 minutes and I was sent back to vicinity of where I started - Table 8 with about $18K in chips. I play here for the next 5 hours or so and just try to play good, solid, conservative poker. I don't take too many risks and but do get a smaller stack all-in holding JJ versus his QQ, but I get lucky and river a straight. The big move of the night was when I had a 2-time bracelet winner, Tom Graham or something like that, sit down to my left. He is an older gentlemen whom won the a WSOP lowball tourney in 1996 and 2000 and he was sporting a bracelet with both dates engraved on it. He was an agressive HE player but seems to playing a lot of pots - a few too many. On one hand, with him in the BB, an early position player raises, I get AKo and just call from the SB. Tom re-raises (from $3000 to $7500) and the EP guy folds. Even thought he had been agressive, he had also laid down hands that he raised with to a big bet so I moved in on him, another $18,000. He spent about 2 minutes thinking about it which make me figure he didn't have AA of KK and I put him on something like 99 - JJ. He called (I had him covered by exactly $100) and turned over QQ. Luckily for me, a K came on the flop and that was all it took. The pot was a monster, roughly $54K. It took me about 3 hands to get all the chips stacked up and I had $42K in just black chips alone. The was 21 stacks of black, which I arranged in a triangle 6-wide at the base. He is then replaced by another bracelet winner, Isaac "The General" Galazan, whom won the $2500 shorthanded NLHE event last year. This guy owns nightclubs in Thailand......seemed llike a really nice guy. Anyway, I manage to pick up some more blinds and win a few small pots before the night ends at 1:30 a.m. - nearly 14 hours including breaks and dinner. I have $64,000 in chips and I think that I have to be in the top 30 or so. As it turns out, I am 11th in chips, out of the 2,891 players that started. Oh, I forgot to mention, they announced that we all made the money at 11:00 pm, the top 270 players. By the end of the night, we are down to 136 or so.
Day 2 - the second day starts at 2 pm - we arrive (same players and same seats as when we ended the day before). We unbag and count our chips and get ready to play. On the very first hand I am dealt 6
6
UTG. The bllinds are $800/$1,600 so I open with a raise to $4,000. From my experience the prior day, about 3 times out of 5 this would take down the blinds, which is really what I am hoping for. The table folds to the BB who says something about stealing his blinds before popping it to $8,000. There is $14,800 in the pot so I call. The flop comes 6
10
7
. So I have hit my set and just need to protect against the flush, in my mind. He bets $16,000, which says top pair to me but perhaps also a flush draw (I can't see him with 89 or a bigger set) and I can't let him hit his flush on me so I re-raise to put him all-in (another $22K). I am positive that I am raking this pot at this point. He is wondering aloud if I hit a pair on him.........then calls and flips over A10 offsuit (I cannot recall the suits!). At this point, I am 95-96% to win. The turn is an A and he rivers the miracle 10 to make a bigger boat. I am stunned. I have lost $46,000 in the first hand on a runner-runner 5%'er. I get a lot of head shakes from the other guys at the table, but the worst part of it is that the villian now becomes an arrogant a-hole. After a couple orbits where I pick up the blinds once or twice and have to fold my own blinds a few times, I am down to $17,000. With the blinds almost about to increase to $1,200-$2,400 with $300 antes I decide to push PF with AJ offsuit. Again, it folds around to the same BB whos says "I might just call you for the hell of it" and proceeds to do just that with 10-7 offsuit. A 10 comes on the flop and that is that. I am out in 113th place - good for $3,157. A decent payday for a low stakes guys like me but crushing nonetheless as I should have won that first hand and increased my stack to $112,000 (only $22K behind the chip leader at the time). The guy that busted me went on to be the final table chip leader, starting the final table with a 2:1 chip lead. He ended up going out 3rd for a $157,000 payday.
Even with the horrible beat, it was a tremendous experience and I loved every minute of it. I definitely look forward to returning next year to try again. If you have read all the way to here, I appreciate it. If you haven't, I sure don't blame you!
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