The Main event

On the 4th of July I was at a raging party at Tom Dwan’s penthouse condo.  In the midst of the raging party I noticed that 40 of the best poker players in the world were there - shitfaced drunk and surly wouldn’t be playing Day 1A.  So with this information in mind I drove over to the Rio (I wasn’t drinking) and registered for Day 1A.

My first table broke within 15 minutes and I moved to what appeared to be a very soft table.  It featured several middle age men, two older gentlemen and a woman and only one kid under 30.  I often stereotype people’s play based on their sex, age, race etc., I alter this thinking once I have information on how they actually play, but until then I’m normally excited to play with anyone who is not an under 30 year old male  So I was happy with my table!  No surprise there though since World Series of Poker main event is undoubtedly the softest $10,000 buy-in tournament of the year.

Several players at my poker table were telling bad beat stories from past tournaments, and many others discussed the strategy involved in the playing of every hand.  These are both terrible ettiquie violations. No stranger in the whole world cares about your bad beat.  You are only inflicting emotional pain on them and this will make them hate you and try their hardest to bust you.   Stratgery talk on the other hand can only educate the players worse than you - and worse it lets the players who are better than you exploit the way you think.

A note to amateur players: You will not impress a top professional player with your strategy observeations guessing people’s hands etc.  They will just think you are a stone idiot.

The majority of players at my table played very loose and passive.  They limped in with many bad hands such as Q3s and K9o.  I frequently raised in position to isolate these weak players.  A gentlemen in a UB.net took great offense to this and started giving me the death stare whenever I played a pot and kept talking about how he was going to catch me.  With my lack of poker experience I was very terrified by this player, I mean what would I do if he got aces and limp re-raised me!?!?

Anyways, I ended up playing a pot where the lady on my right limped (like she did every hand), I raised with A8s and we both checked a J6233 board down to the river.  She showed pocket 7s and I mucked my hand.  Mr. Douhcebag (he lost gentlemen status), exploded and yelled I want to see that hand! While pointing at my mucked hand.  He technically could ask to do this due to a WSOP rule that players can request to see any hand that goes to showdown.  This rule is in place to prevent collusion and chip dumping, and abuse of it can result in a petantly. Now I quite certain that Mr. Douhcebag did not expect me of collusion and merely wanted to show the table what trash hands the aggressive lagtard kid was raising was raising with.  I could not let him Mr. Douchebag get the satisfaction of doing this so i quickly threw my hand into the muck and mixed it into all the other cards.

At this point Mr. Douchebag was quite furious and yelled, “HE CAN’T DO THAT!” and demanded the floor be called.  He explained to the floor what, “The fucking kid”, had just done, and asked for the floor to give me a penaltly.  I interrupted that I was greatly offended by his language and I knew that according to WSOP rules that use of the F word consisted a one-round penatatly.  The floor didn’t seem assumed at the situation and gave us both a warning.  All the yelling and tension had caused quite the stir and the table was now surrounded by ESPN cameras and journalists.

The next hand Miss Limp limps in front of me for 200 I make it 1025 with AQo, Mr. Doucebag calls from the Small Blind and Miss Limp folds.  The flop comes A45 and he check calls 1600. A 9 on the turn and we both check.  A 6 comes on the river, and I bet  7000 and he snap calls and flips up ATo.

I look at him flip up my hand and yell ship it and the pot is pushed my way.  He stands up and starts mumbling some things about me and said he needs a break.  I apologize telling him the last thing I wanted was for the fish to take a break and leave the table.

I am probably going to look like a brash, rude, arrogant kid on TV, but  suppose it won’t be the first time :).  I’m a little upset at myself for losing my cool, this is the first time it’s happened at the poker table in a long time, but at  least I got the best of Mr. Doucebag.

Alas, by the time I got around to editing and posting this I am already out of the main event.  Will try to start blogging with some regularity now that the WSOP is winding down.