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#1
07-18-2005, 02:36 AM
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WSOP 2005 Trip Report (Long)
Hey guys, here's my trip report of the 2005 WSOP ME. I wrote it very fast, so there's probably a lot of shifts from past tense to present, back to past again, etc. I will be doing a ton of writing at work tomorrow so just tried to write this up as fast as I could. What is it that Sklansky says? You can buy all the Hemingway novels you want after you read this. Something like that. I just wanted to get as much poker content in there as possible. One last thing: I'm not as arrogant as the first paragraph makes me seem. I am actually pretty humbled at qualifying for the tourney in the first place. Enjoy. -Dan
Instead of writing this trip report, I hoped I’d be house shopping right now. I planned on looking for something in the suburbs with a lawn big enough for nine holes of a mini-golf course to be installed, a pool with adjacent fake tropical plants and waterfalls, and of course, a poker room. I wanted to be talking to a financial planner, a professional I haven’t yet needed the services of in my life. You see, I envisioned myself leaving Las Vegas with $7.5 million and a World Series of Poker bracelet, as I’m sure 5,619 players did when the tournament began. But lofty goals and conspicuous consumption aside I’m happy with my first WSOP appearance, since I won more money than I even have in my life. I played on Day 1C, so there was two days of play before I was up. When I arrived at the Rio to play, word was that Lee Watkinson and Sammy Farha had a boat load of chips. My table assignment looked okay. No pros. To my left was a 30 or 40-something gentleman from Maryland who seemed pretty easy to read and was playing passively (his name was Steve Dannenmann. He went on to place second for $4.25 million). To my right was an approx. 40-year-old Canadian man (who finished in the 70s and cashed for $107,000) with a Paradise or Pacific Poker shirt on. I was a Pokerstars FPP qualifier, so I had all the gear on. There was one other Pstars qualifier at my table, a European guy with a shaved head. Chip Jett was at the table next to me and busted out fairly early on Day 1. I didn’t take any notes, so Day 1 is kind of a blur to me. The first hand I remember playing took place during Level 2, with the blinds at 50/100. I had about 9,500 and was in MP with KK. Folded to Canadian guy who min. raised to 200. I flat called. Folded to the BB who called. Flop was 3-4-7 rainbow. BB checks. Canadian guy bets 300. I raise to 900. BB folds, Canadian guy calls. Turn is a 6, for a board of 3-4-7-6. Canadian guy bets 2,000. I make it 4,000 and he calls. River is a Q. I hate that Q. He checks though. I contemplate a value bet, but I would be in a real quandary if he came over the top then. I thought QQ was a real possibility here. I just flip up my KK and he mucks. I guess he had JJ, TT, 99, or 88. During the same level I make it 300 to go w 9To from MP. SB (other Pstars qualifier) and BB call. Flop is K-J-7 rainbow. Checked around. Turn is an 8. Checked to me again and I bet 600. SB calls and BB folds. River is a 9, for a board of K-J-7-8-9 with three diamonds. He checks. I bet 700 and he calls. I show my straight and he mucks AK face up. He says “nice river” even though I had him on the turn. Another guy sarcastically says “nice raising hand.” Interesting. I’m at the World Series of Poker and they all act like they’re shocked to see someone play a hand in a way that’s not straightforward. I take the blinds down in two consecutive pots a little while later with AQ and KK. The guy who said “nice raising hand” is in the BB for the KK hand and says “Stop stealing. Stop Stealing” to me, like I’m a cat who’s been clawing the furniture. I wish he took a stand. I think that guy was primarily an Omaha player, because he did some odd things. He opened for 300 w AK in EP late in the level and I made it 800 to go behind him w 99. He folded the AK face up immediately. Early in the 100/200 level, I made it 600 to go in MP w 77 and he raised to 2,800, which was half his stack. I folded and he showed 93o. Pretty soon another Pstars qualifier came to the table with a stack of about 40K and it became apparent to me he didn’t know what he was doing. It looked like this was his first live tournament and I made it a point to play any pot I could with him, since he was calling down with some very marginal hands. In other words, every reasonable hand had good implied odds when against him. During the 100/200 level (maybe there was a 25 ante), the new Pstars qualifier made it 600 from EMP and I called in MP w QJs. No other callers. Flop is J-J-7. He checks. I bet 800 and he check-raises to 1,600. I call. The turn is an A, for a board of J-J-7-A. He bets out 1,200 and I make it 2,900. He calls. The river is a blank, though it completed a runner runner flush draw. He checks and I bet 5,000. He thinks for a long time and finally calls me. I show my trip jacks and he shows A3o. Good pot for me. A little while later I knock out the original Pstars qualifier at my table in a small all-in pot with my KK against his AK. I kept accumulating chips by stealing and re-stealing when prudent. I finished the day with 38,825. Steve Dannenmann jokingly says to me “So you’re Mr. Re-steal huh?” referring to the times I came over the top of a LP raiser. Sometimes I was, but many of the times he was talking about I had AK or TT or something like that. I didn’t get AA until there was a half-hour left in the day, but I got it twice. I only won the blinds each time. Play ended at 2:45 a.m. and I wasn’t back in my room until 4 a.m., since there were hundreds of players waiting in line for a cab. I returned on Day 2 at noon, still pretty tired. I was seated to the left of G6Dragon on Day 2, who had a pretty good stack. I was only at that table for 30 min., but we did play one hand. Blinds 300/600 w a 75 ante. Folded to him in the cutoff and he raises to 2100. I call in the SB with 33. The flop is 6-6-4. He checks and I bet 3,000. He check-raises to 8,000. I think for a while and fold, though I considered re-raising. He told me when the table broke up that he had quad 6s. I believe him. Seems an odd hand to make up. I get my new assignment and it says “table 51.” When I get to my seat, it looks like someone is already in it. I look at the assignment closer and it says “table 81”, but the 8 has been worn down and looks like a 5. As I approach the table I notice a Green Red Sox had in the 7 seat. Could it be? Yes it’s my favorite player, Dan Harrington. I owe him immensely for Harrington on Hold’em and for Harrington on Picking Up Chicks Volume 1: Pickup Lines (HOPUC. See my book review), but I don’t want to do the whole gushing fan thing. I just want to take his chips. He is on a short stack of about 12K. My first orbit I steal the blinds from the cutoff. The next hand I get 99 on the button and raise to 2K. A Pstars qualifier in the SB goes all in for 27K. Wow. A very big bet. I have 38K. I think he thinks I’m stealing. After some deliberation, I decide there’s more of a chance I’m a 4.5-1 favorite than there is that I’m a 4.5-1 dog and I call. He raps the table and says “good call.” But was it? He flips over AK. Hmmm. I was really hoping he turned over 77 or something. Flop is Q-x-x and the turn and river blank. I’m up to 65K. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. Sweet. Someone else gets knocked out a few hands later and we’re 7-handed briefly. D. Harrington makes it 2,000 to go in the cutoff. Folded to me in the BB. I look down at ATo and make it 8,000 to go, putting him to a decision for all of his chips. He lets out a small sigh and folds pretty quickly. A couple hands later we get broken up. My new table is almost exclusively made up of young guys. I’m in the 4 seat and Chris Hinchcliffe is in the 1 seat, making some sort of funny comment every time he puts chips in the pot. I do very well at this table, going from 65K to about 140K winning small pots and re-raising aggressive players. Hinchcliffe busts with KT vs. JJ on a flop of T-7-7 and is replaced by John Finkle (sp?), an ex Magic: The Gathering champion. With the blinds at 400/800 w a 75 ante, I made it 3,500 to go with KTs from EP. He reraised on the button to 10K. He looked weak, so I made it 30K. He gave me a surprised look and assessed the situation for about a min. before mucking. After flashing my fast gear a few times, I played the 500/1,000 level using the KIRSS model of play, Keep It Relatively Simple Stupid. I anted myself down to about 135K when the final hand before the dinner break came up. It was folded to me on the button w Th3h and I raised it to 3,600. The BB called. The flop was 4-6-8 with one heart. The BB checked and I bet 4,500. He called. I picked up a tell on this particular opponent and knew he was weak. The turn was the Jh, giving me a flush draw. He checked and I checked. For some reason I checked, despite knowing he was weak, but my brain was getting a little mushy at this point. The river was a 6, for a board of 4-6-8-J-6 rainbow. He bet out 8K and my brain was screaming fold fold fold, but for some reason my hands were reaching for my stack of blue 5K chips. “No, what are you doing hands? I’m not telling you to do this. Stop doing that. Put those chips back!” My hands pushed my stack of 5K chips into the pot, putting my opponent all in. He waited for about 5 seconds and then said “call” in a soft voice. He sounded like he’d seen a ghost. I showed my T3 and he flipped up 67o for trip 6s. He had 33K in his stack, so I went to the dinner break with about 85K. Before I left, the guy I doubled up and his friends said they really respect my game and thought I was playing the best at the table. I think to myself “Yeah, until now.” After dinner I make a conscious effort to forget about my last hand. I start to work my way back up using a strategy similar to the one I was using before dinner. I had dipped down to about 50K, but went back up to around 90K after I called a MP raiser with AQs, hit a Q-high flop and extracted some bets from him. I was at about 110K during the last level of the night. I got QcTc on the button and decided to min. raise to 3,200. The blinds were 800/1600 with a 200 ante at this point, I believe. I min. raised because this guy was defending every single time I raised (as made evident from the hand before dinner, when he called the 3.5x raise with 67o) and I wanted the SB out. The SB folded and the BB called. The flop was Jc-9c-3c. I flopped a flush and a straight-flush draw against an opponent who always thinks I’m bluffing. Good times. He checked. I bet 4,200 and he called. The turn was another 3, for a board of J-9-3-3. He checked. I bet 6K and he raised to 15K. I re-re-raised to 30K and he quickly said “all in.” It was 54K more to me. A full house was very possible here, but I thought he had trip threes. Plus, he wasn’t respecting my bets and I was getting over 2 to 1 on my call. I called and he flipped over 33, for quads. Doh! I missed my straight-flush draw and was down to about 20K. With an hour or so left, I folded pretty much every hand the rest of the night, except for KK which I took the blinds and antes with. We were 15 or so away from the money and that made me play a little scared. I got anted down to about 15K and folded an AQ after a short-stacked conservative player pushed from EP. He showed AJ after everyone folded. Another hand was folded to me in the cutoff with 88 and I folded. Not an optimal move I guess, but I don’t have a lot of money and could certainly use the $12.5K the 560th finisher recieves. I ended the night with 15,300 in chips. We had 569 players left, nine away from the money. I could barely sleep that night. I was disappointed with the QcTc hand and with the way I went into a shell after that. I decided that I could probably fold into the money though, so that’s what I resolved to do. After about 5 hours of sleep I headed to the Rio and sat in the one seat at my table. No pros. I heard them draw for the button and it was going to go to the one seat. Nice. We had to wait for a long time while ESPN got their equipment ready and stuff. Finally we begin play, only the button is in the 7 seat. It turns out the button draw I heard was for the $1500 tourney that was going on simultaneously. We are playing hand for hand until we get into the money. I peak at my first card as the dealer is dealing. It’s an Ace. He gets around to me again. I squeeze the second card. It’s and Ace! I move my 15,000 stack all-in and it’s folded to the BB who has a big stack. He calls w Ac6c. An EP player says he folded 66 and I let out a sigh of relief. ESPN comes over to film the first all-in on the bubble and I slowly say to the camera “no clubs.” The flop was all rags, w one club. The turn gave him a gutshot, but the river blanked off and I doubled up. Some guy in a suit came over that second and said “wait, pull his cards out of the muck.” I begin to think he might have hit some kind of straight that everyone missed or something, but it turns out he is just an ESPN guy and the camera didn’t get a good enough shot of our cards and the pot being shipped to me. (Sigh of relief). As soon as we are in the money, my table gets moved. I’m down to 20K or so and I get there just in time for my BB. Folded to the SB on the first hand who goes all in for 15K. I have A5o and decide he’d make this move with a broad range of hands. I call and he shows A2o. The flop is 4-6-7. The turn 3 gives me a straight, but it also gives him a four-flush. The river is a red 2. I win the pot and eliminate the SB. I really don’t remember how, but somehow I steadily climbed from 45K to 90K. Day 3’s play is a blur to me. I remember talking to Mike O’Malley (Cardplayer columnist) for a long time while he was on my left. Fossilman was at the table next to me and was taking stack after stack from his opponents. They were moving in on him and he was calling w QQ, AQ, AA, etc. During the dinner break I run into John Juanda in the bathroom. What a nice guy. I didn’t want to bother him, but he actually asked me if I was still in, without my provocation. I told him my stack size and he said “Oh, that’s good,” even though it was about one-third the average stack. He had a lot more than that. I told him he responded to my email once and he remembered the exact advice he gave me on the hand I sent him. Pretty amazing. The blinds were getting high and I was staying afloat by taking down small pots. The only very big hand I played was When I had about 80K and limped into the pot for 4K with 55. The button, SB and BB all called. The flop came 5x-8s-Ts. Checked to me. I bet 11K. Button and the BB called. Turn is the 2h. BB checks. I bet 60K all-in. The button folds and the BB flips up Tc6c and folds. The button said he folded KK, because he knew I flopped a set. I don’t care. That was one draw-heavy board. After the final break the blinds are 2.5K/5K with a 500 ante. I have about 110K. I raise to 17K in EP w TT. A LP player (he might have been the SB) raised to 50K and I folded. I told him I was folding TT. He showed QQ. One-and-a-half orbits later that same player raised to 15K UTG. I looked down at TT and made it 40K, leaving myself with about 50-60K left. He pushed all-in when it got back around to him and I had a decision to make. I thought he had AK, but if he did have a pair, I felt he had me beat. The problem was I was getting a little over 2-to-1 on the call at this point. I thought for over a minute and then called. He flipped over QQ. It was the same matchup of pocket cards as we had before, only I couldn’t bring myself to make the laydown this time. The flop was K-J-x. The turn and river were no help and I was out of the tourney, $33,197 richer than when I’d started it. My official finish was 209th. Sidenotes: 1. There were a ton of reporters covering the WSOP for various websites, constantly asking players their chip counts, quietly sweating hands, etc. As long as they don’t interrupt players in the middle of a hand, I think this is a great thing. As poker becomes more popular, the major tournaments should be covered like a sporting event is covered. Harrah’s had to ban the reporters from the tournament floor after they were down to 35 tables or so, because there were so many they’d crowd the floor. I think they should have designated three or four reporters to pool information and give it to the other reporters, sort of like an Associated Press type thing. It would have made following the tourney from home more exciting. 2. There was a man who was catching miracle draw after miracle draw and celebrating boisterously after every pot he won. He took off his shirt a few times too. ESPN was all over him. The other players were very annoyed at him. Look for him on T.V. 3. Poker players are an impatient bunch. Players refused to wait on line to get their seat assignments on Days 2 and 3. There was more line-cutting, side-cutting and back-cutting than in an elementary school classroom. Each one thought they were special. You’re no more special than the player next to you, buddy. 4. Every dealer I had did a great job. Some of the rulings the floormen made, however, were contradictory to previous rulings. 5. Most of the guys I played with were very nice. No one really complained about their bad beats too much, either. 6. I can’t see any possible way they’ll be able to host more entrants next year. All Day 1’s lasted 15 hours and 30 minutes. They can’t add another level to day one and adding an extra day will practically force those who attend to miss two weeks of work. They have some serious planning to do for next year’s event. 
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#6
07-18-2005, 07:34 AM
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Re: WSOP 2005 Trip Report (Long)
Great post, Great read.. Thanks!
I'm not one to question ones play, especially of the quality of yourself to reach the WSOP and finish strongly in a field of 5700 people. But looking back at your Queen-high flush hand. Not sure what your thinking on this play was. First, the player thought you were a big bluffer. His check-call on the flop would have immediately set off the alarm bells for me. A flush or set immediately cross my mind. The board pairing was the worst possible thing. After being re-raised to 15k, maybe call down to the end here?. Your re-raise wasn't bad, but what is he going to push you all in (54k) more with that you can beat? A-3? with all kinds of crazy big hand possibilities? That's probably the only hand I would question. Otherwise, you're a great player, congratulations on your run.
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#7
07-18-2005, 09:05 AM
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Re: WSOP 2005 Trip Report (Long)
Nice report, well played! My only critique is if the money meant a lot I think I would have found a fold with 10-10 since you were 8 places away from moving up in the payscale.
Well done [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
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#8
07-18-2005, 09:36 AM
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Re: WSOP 2005 Trip Report (Long)
[ QUOTE ]
But looking back at your Queen-high flush hand. Not sure what your thinking on this play was. [/ QUOTE ] Yeah. I'm still 50/50 as to whether I played the hand correctly. I'll probably make this a seperate thread soon.
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#10
07-18-2005, 10:14 AM
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Re: WSOP 2005 Trip Report (Long)
Soooooo Jealous of your adventures.....I hope I make it out there for next year's WSOP....
On the QcTc hand......nothing you could do on that flop short of pushing, maybe a larger flop bet......? After the 2nd 3 - I would have slowed down....but thats easy to say with hindsight.... Still, good job on cashing....209th out of ~ 5600 people is impressive....
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