RIP 2006 WSOP

This will probably be the most straight forward thing I’ll ever write.

It’s been about week and a half since the WSOP and its 2 month long rollercoaster ended. It’s not quite far away enough to write an in depth retrospective, but I can give you some of the highs and lows from the summer of 06.

We made some great friends and added some new faces to the Full Tilt Poker family. Carlos Mortensen, Jeff Madsen, Shannon Elizabeth, “Miami” John Cernuto, Lee Watkinson, and Berry Johnston all joined the already stacked ranks of the Full Tilt Pros. I won a $2300 pot in a $2/5 no limit game and then the next night put $2000 on red and won.

I burnt my hand on a drink and got food poisoning from eating the warm oysters. I eventually lost my whole bankroll and watched Allen Cunningham fall short of 1st place in the Main Event.

We lost a friend at the WPT and shortly after the completion of WSOP, JDags became a father. Several relationships crumbled and new ones sprung up in their place.

What an interesting ride it’s been.

Now for my Main Event bad beat/play story:

During the first level I’m in the big blind. Blinds are 25/50. Its folded around to the guy in the cutoff who makes it 250. It’s folded to me as I look down to see two red Aces. I raise to 750 and the guy insta-calls.

The flop is 5J5. I bet out 1000. The guy, or donk as we will call him, re-raises to 4000. Now this seemed odd to me. This is the first hand he’s played. I don’t have any type of read on him so I tank it. I think about the hand the longest I’ve thought about anything, maybe five minutes. Finally I call. The turn is a 10. I check and the donk bets out another 4000 leaving only his junk chips (25’s and 100’s chips) left. I think about it for a minute and decide that he has to have KK or QQ. I move all in. Again, he insta-calls and I know I’m done for.

I open up my aces and he turns over pocket 10’s. WTF? Baffled I watch as a harmless deuce comes on the river. I actually had him covered and I was left with 425. There goes $10K down the drain.

In the next orbit I actually double up and then triple up to get back to 3000 or so. I couldn’t get anything going after that and I ended pushing in on a gutshot against top and couldn’t improve. Off to the rail I go.

I talked to several of the vast resources at my disposal, Allen Cunningham, Phil Gordon, Andy Bloch, Howard Lederer, and John D’Agostino, and they all agreed that I played the hand correctly. JDags asked if I thought the guy could re-raise on the flop if he had flopped a full house. I said I didn’t think so. You made the right play he responded.

Those conversations made me feel little better but I just hate losing. I steamed it off in about an hour and was back to normal. Cocktails!

The only person I talked to about the hand that said I should have pushed on the flop was Joe Sebok. This from the guy who had to wear a Wonder Woman costume because he couldn’t cash more than Gavin Smith’s $32,000 to save himself from wearing spandex. The HORSE tournament didn’t count in the bet because they both didn’t play it. DON’T YOU TELL ME ABOUT POKER SEBOK!!!! I’m gonna smack him the next time I see him.

Anyway it’s finally over and the healing process has begun.

I can’t wait till next year.

JDN