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#190 – WSOP #39 – The End of the Beginning
I’ve been back after 2 days in Scottsdale and I can feel it. Everything is different.
The World Series of Poker has crossed the Rubicon. The Main Event has gone from “in July” to “next week.” The friends who were coming “at the end” are here or en route.
And everything has gotten a little bit weird. The Rio appears to have kept up the tradiiton of booking something weirdly incongruent with the image of strung out poker players for the other parts of the convention center. Two years ago, it was the junior girls dance competition, and it was HUGE. No one present on either side will forget the image of thousands of little girls, heavily made-up with perfect hair, in leotards, hauling giant trophies. And every one of them had a disgusted-looking mom threading them protectively through the hordes of seedy men smoking cigarettes and barking into cell phones.
This year doesn’t match that – what could? – but there’s still a week to the Main Event. But they served up an appetizer in the form of the IDEX Workshop and trade show. The Mission of IDEX, according to the trade show’s web site, is ” to bring together the best buyers and sellers of these precious creations in an atmosphere that fosters long-term relationships, quality education, industry growth, and a great time.”
Dolls, fellas. Miranda #3 had a workshop titled “Ball Jointed Dolls for Beginners.” And unless I missed a trick and blow-up sex dolls are included, they found a demographic as different as conceivably possible from those playing in the World Series of Poker.
But maybe it just seems extra-weird to me and I’m the crazy one. I’m looking at everything in an I’ve-been-on-this-island-way-too-long perspective. I heard an intense movie ad on the radio. Action-Adventure. Scary Stuff. Then, at the end, they say the title in that sinister way, like even the name will even make you jump out of your seat.
“TRANS …
FOR …
MERS.”
Wait, did he just say “transformers”? Like the toy? (Incidentally, the patent on transformers is held by the same man who holds the patent on the hole-card camera, Henry Orenstein. Henry is also a Holocaust survivor and producer of Poker Superstars and High-Stakes Poker. And he has a World Series bracelet.)
And the commercial ends with, in that same sinister voice, “Rated PG-13. some scene may not be suitable for children under 13.”
Whoa! I thought transformers were exclusively for children under 13. Where’s the audience for this movie?
I passed Fred Goldberg in the hallway outside the Amazon Room. Fred is famous in poker for two things. First, he finished tenth in the Main Event in 2006, breaking the final table bubble by moving all-in with Q-3 and running into K-K. Second, he won the $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘em, forever more to be known as the MCFFT (”Michael Craig’s first final table”).
Fred was the only player at the table I didn’t have a line on. I had played a lot of pots with just about everyone at that table over the previous two days except Fred, even though we were at the table for about 3 hours.
All I really knew about him was that move with Q-3 to bust out of the Main Event. Even while I was following and writing about the Main Event last year, I didn’t know much about him.
That Q-3 move wasn’t automatically a bad play. You have to bluff sometimes, he was on a short stack, and the blinds and antes put a huge amount of dead money in the pot. Goldberg was short, but not desperately short. He could have put in a bluff with a hand that had a little more equity if he got called. Running into kings was just bad luck, but it seemed to me that he got impatient and pulled the trigger a little too soon.
Talk about a rebound, though. He’s finished in the money 5 times in this Series and won his first bracelet. The night before, he got busted on the bubble with a big stack holding K-K, getting called after a queen-high flop by Q-T who then hit a ten on the turn after all the chips were in the pot. That would have been 6 cashes and put him near the chip lead.
I asked him if busting out with Q-3 has made him a more patient player. Of course, he defended the move – and it’s a defensible move, and he could have made the same move with a hand like Q-Js and gotten busted the same way – but admitted that it DID change how he played. “I’m definitely more patient now.”
I had a hunch that if he moved a lot of chips at our table late in the Mixed Hold ‘Em, it wasn’t going to be with something like Q-3. That’s probably the reason – his patient play and my perception of his lesson learned – that we never locked horns on the way to or at the final table.
I’ve been getting a lot of congratulations on making the final table of that event. Of course, I’m all pumped up about it but I also recognize that, nothwithstanding that the experience itself has taught me some things, I’m not really a more skilled player than I thought I was a week ago.
I was explaining this to a friend of mine who had high hopes for the Series that haven’t panned out. My friend’s been disappointed but has had, up to a week ago, an experience a lot like me: 1 cash, some late nights, some bad luck, and some events that just disappeared from consciousness. This way my rap, delivered not because I’m Mr. I-Just-Made-A-Final-Table, but because this was what I told myself BEFORE I played that event:
“I’ve played 1,000 tournaments online during the last 8 months and I’ve generally been profitable. I’m cashing about 12% of the time. Of course, if I cashed more or less it wouldn’t matter much because it’s less than 1% of the tournaments that account for most of the money I’ve made. I started the Series cashing in my first event and figured, ‘I must be really great.’ I missed the money my next two but came close. Then I missed my next six. I started wondering if maybe I just got lucky the first time. But 1 for 9 is about my average. It just happened over three weeks instead of two nights. It can turn around at any time and completely change your perception of yourself as a player, but more important than that is that we have to let go of the focus on results. We’re not generating enough results for them to accurately reflect how we play.”
I’m not repeating this here to give you that insight. I’m repeating it here to remind MYSELF. I had to muster up the courage to even buy into the $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em. Eight straight times out of the money. Six straight not even making the dinner break. Down to tapping into the $10,000 I had put aside to enter the Main Event.
So you’d think I’m on top of the world now, right? Not exactly. I busted out of the Mega-Satellite last night and the $1,500 Event today, both earlier than I imagined. (See the next entry for details and stories.) But I have to remember. Focus on results and you’re doomed … unless you’re up mid-six figures or better.
