My WSOP--Post #1
I was truly hoping to have this be at least a four part series on my experiences at the "big one" this year, but it will probably only be in 2 or 3 sections. I arrived to Vegas Sat. night, checked into the Golden Nugget and felt right at home seeing how I had spent a good part of April there playing in the one tables, supers, and live action acrossed the street at the Horseshoe. I took it easy, watched a movie, and got a good night's sleep. Sunday was more of the same, met with one of the owners of Absolute Poker.com, had a good time shooting some small stakes craps for fun, worked out, had a nice dinner, and started mentally preparing for Monday. My goal coming in was survival on day one, you know like the golf pros say "you can't win a tournament on the first day, but you sure can lose it", so survival was priority. This idea changed for me very quickly upon arriving at my table.
I got seated in the 6 seat at table 60 upstairs and quickly surveyed my table. Everyone quickly showed up who wasn't present except the 3 seat who I overheard was Tom McEvoy. I was happy to hear this because I have logged quite a few nlhe tourney hours with him and feel very comfortable against him and usually having a great idea where he is at in the play of each hand. He seems to truly "play by the book," but this image gets dashed also.....but that is for much later in the post. My table looks like this--seat 1, somewhat of a maniac, british fellow in his 50's, nice guy, he was all in the very first hand of the tourney with 2 kings and the only hand that could have called would have been 2 aces, it was a crazy, crazy play for hand #1. seat 2 solid player named Jeff Norman, seat 3 McEvoy, seat 4 tough and gruff looking cowboy, played tough, seat 5 seemed like a nice guy who had no clue, i mean zero, maybe 1st tourney ever or something, no reason or flow to his play at all (i could post just on the crazy things this guy did!!) seat 6, me, seat 7 Patrick Bruel, the French pop and movie star and big cash game player, seat 8 Chau Giang, super high limit player who is well know for incredible reading skills, and seat 9 a guy from New York who seemed to be a good player with bad luck from the start. So there is my line up and off we go............After the first hand fireworks which included 4 preflop mini raises and 2 people seeing the flop seats 1 and 5, featuring the all in bet on a rainbow flop, things settled down quickly. I will post a few key hands or moments and then my big question, then a follow up post shortly. The first level of 25-50 blinds in fairly uneventful I pick up jacks twice and come out about even with them (probably like you are supposed to in nlhe!!) I have AK once and raise preflop get 2 callers and flop and a king, I get no callers on the flop. I get a truly big chance to double up in the first level when I limp after 2 other with K-10 or spades from the cutoff and P.Bruel raises to 250 from the button. The blinds fold and the early limpers both call. I hate this hand, my position, and especially calling a raise with it, but I think maybe I'll get lucky.....so I call and the flop is a gorgeous A,Q,J rainbow. The flop is checked to the button who bets 500 and I do my best wait but don't stall call. You know no Hollywooding but giving off my best A-10 or Q-J feel because I can tell he has a BIG hand, I am thinking A-Q or a set, but not Aces for some reason, that was just my read at the time and I felt good about it, if the board paired I still could have got away from my hand very easily without much afterthought. So I call and the turn is a very ugly 10. I check he bets 800 and now I think maybe it was A-K and check raise him 2000 expecting to get called. No luck as he debates and curses in French for 60 seconds or so and mucks, continuing to say stupiiiidd teeeennnn, like he had me trapped, oh well. End of level 1 I have about 12,500 and feel great about my table image and chips because they are right where I wanted them to be. Level 2 was also very smooth for the first hour and a half. I have worked my chips up to about 15K and am continuing to try and avoid big pots and just chop away. I get pocket Jacks on the button and get one caller after a medium sized raise, flop comes down K,8,9 rainbow and seat 4 the tough playing cowboy quickly checks, too quickly I thought, so I checked behind him. I didn't love doing this, but I really wasn't sure where I was at at all in this hand. The turn brought an offsuit 10 which I liked alot, he checked again and I led out about 700, which was promptly check raised to 3500. Now I really, really hate the way I played this hand. I look like I am stealing on the turn, I didn't raise much preflop, free turn card, and I am drawing virtualy dead to Q-J which is a slight possibility and I am in trouble against a King or a set. I didn't define my hand and then made a weak play on the turn. I should have checked and either won or lost a showdown on the river if there was no bet and my straight draw missed, or re-evaluated if I was bet into on the river. Anyway I layed it down after quite a bit of thought. The last hand in this post was the defining one for me. I have about 13K in chips and we are only about 10 minutes before the end of the second level--the British maniac in seat 1 is under the gun and opens for 500 (a bit bigger than standard preflop raising for the table at this point) everyone folds to me and I look down at one red and one black Ace. I make it 4000 to go, knowing this is an overbet, and sort of expecting either no call or to get played back at preflop. I was in the cutoff and after the button and blinds quickly fold and the table gasps! at the size of my bet (it was far and away the largest preflop bet of the day) the raiser beats me into the pot, literally, he says CALL!!?? and has his chips in instantly. I say a quick prayer for no kings on the flop and see a Q,J,2 flop with 2 spades. And he is instantly, and I mean instantly, all-in. I have him outchipped by maybe 2500 to 3000 and now it is up to me. Comments so far and conslusions along with a few more stories to follow, hope you all enjoyed this one so far---J.Brown
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05-26-2003, 05:44 PM
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