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#183 – WSOP #32 – A Day in Purgatory, a Night in the Minors
I finally finished my cover feature on Phil Hellmuth winning his eleventh bracelet for BLUFF. It ended in a marathon session in which I spent 24 straight hours in my room, ending at about 4:20 PM on Sunday. That left me just enough time to buy into the 5 PM event, $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em, but not enough time to think about it. If it turned out to be a mistake, there would be time for that later.
I want to tell you about the article and the time I spent with Hellmuth. But it’s 3:14 AM Monday and I want to get some of this into the blog and I don’t know how much time I have before I falter. I’ll put it this way: Phil Hellmuth is a very earnest guy and I like him a little better every time I’m with him. But he annoys the shit out of my a little more each time, too.
Here are my notes, with a few editorials mixed in.
4:51 PM – Signed up for the $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em. Was standing in long line when Shannon Elizabeth walked by. “Annie Duke gave me a lesson and is making me play in this.” (Joe Reitman told me that Annie made him play too.) I would be remiss if I didn’t say how great Shannon looked today. No one should look that well put-together to play a poker game. It just seems contrary to everything poker stands for. I gave her a buddha I brought from home to give her better luck.
She was pleased. “That’s so nice. Oh, it’s rose quartz. That signifies love.” You probably can’t see my eyebrows dancing up and down now. Thank goodness Shannon couldn’t.
5:30 PM – 5,200. (We started at 5 PM with 3,000.) I’m proofreading the Hellmuth piece between hands and I wonder if his style has seeped into my game.
5:55 PM – 5,500 near the end of level 1-B. Each main level is one hour but because it is split between limit and no-limit, we have half-hour sets of blinds for each game.
6:02 PM – 5,600. I have a name for the tent where they daily put the auxiliary event: Menopause. It is alternately too hot and too cold, with no rhyme or reason. Once, when I put my chips in the pot, the felt in front of me was hot to the touch. Another time, I bent to pick up my draft of the Hellmuth article and was met by a blast of cold air.
Has finishing that article had a liberating effect on my game, like a weight has been lifted off me? Not for long once I remember all the blogs I owe Full Tilt from during my self-imposed exile.
Remember to talk to Robin Leach. He wants an update/summary from the HORSE for his column on AOL. Because I was finishing the BLUFF article, I missed the beginning and I’m not even in the same building as those guys. Should be a great summary, huh?
6:30 PM – 6,050.
6:40 PM – 7,600. Cleaning up the first frew hands of limit hold ‘em.
6:45 PM – 6,800. OK, maybe not. Guess I can’t win the tourney before the first break.
6:51 PM – 8,025. Won a giant triple-raised limit hold’ em pot with 7-5o in the big blind. I matched the five as third pair on the flop. With one player all-in, no one else bet and my fourth pair ended up taking it.
7:02 PM – 8.025. Fifteen minute break. I’ve just seen Shannon Elizabeth’s most ardent fan. (This is the “Forget the dog” guy from “The Education of Miss Shannon Elizabeth.”) He now has this weird squarede goatee. I’d think he was traveling incognito but most people don’t have facial hair in some of the spots where he grew that cubist goatee.
7:19 PM – Clonie Gowen is sitting at the table behind me. She told me during the break that she won a $24 + $2 tournament on Full Tilt earlier in the day. I just saw Shannon talking from the tent. That’s not good, especially for the rose quartz buddha. I wonder if that buddha’s gonna be in a toilet in Summerlin by 8 PM.
The guy in the 6 seat, whose aces I cracked with threes during the first LHE level, is down to 1,000 and looks like he’s been stricken. For all the people here, no one seems to be in good spirits or doing especially well.
7:40 PM – ‘cept me, of course. 10,775 with ten minutes to go in this level.
They announce 620 players entered, for a prize pool of $876,000. First place gets two hundred-something thousand (the guy next to me was talking so I didn’t hear). Bottom-dollar money for 63rd is $2,920.
7:50 PM – 14,950. LHE with 75-150 blinds. They announce that the dinner break will be at 10 PM.
Guy to my left started talking about his experiences with the pros. He told me the only one who was less than gracious was Eskimo Clark. He had his negative experience with Clark during a break at the Razz final table last week.
“Last week?” I asked pointedly. “Maybe it’s because he had at least 3 heart attacks during the event. Jennifer Harman told me she saw him foaming at the mouth and someone else said his buddy stood behind him, propping him up when he slumped over, incoherent. You talked with him THEN?”
“Well,” the guy said, “I can see being upset about a bad beat or something. But they wanted the limelight and that’s what they got, with all the online poker and endorsement deals and all.”
(It’s nearly 4 AM and I’m fading fast. I will try to complete these notes before I go off to play on Monday at 3 PM. Oops, guess you know how this night ended up.)
