FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#205 – WSOP #54 – Why I’ll Win

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

I made a vow to myself on this day, Sunday, July 8, that I would catch up as much as possible on blog entries from the last week (as well as earlier in the Series) until Midnight. At the stroke of twelve, I would cease writing and focus on activities designed to help me when I play Day 1-D of the Main Event in a dozen hours. There is still a lot I haven’t gotten to; it will have to wait until I’m done playing.

Despite the ambitious title, I am not predicting a victory in the Main Event. It’s a silly thing even to suggest. But there is a mental aspect to tournament performance that I think I am learning at a very high level.

I want to share a few things with you.

You may notice from pictures of me on the Internet that I am wearing reading half-glasses. I suppose it is a sign of advanced middle age when a poker player discards the shades for the reading specs.

This occurred in May as a result of the following hand. I was playing PLO and NLHE with Andy Beal, Robert Williamson III, and a friend of Robert’s. Andy’s friend Craig Singer had played with Beal and Williamson the night before and lost enough to sour him from playing again. That was bad news for me because Singer is an excellent player, and a sensible man besides. In the three (short-handed) ring games I have played with Andy Beal since late 2005, the stakes have gradually risen. In the first game, we were playing $1-$2 PLO. We started with $20-$40 blinds in this May 2007 game.

I told myself that I would quit if I lost $4,000. That’s about the most I’ve lost in a single session of poker. It wasn’t much in this game. Williamson was a world-class cash-game player and we would be playing a lot of PLO, where I hear he knows a thing or two. I’m assuming if Robert’s brought a friend into the game, he didn’t meet the guy at the Hot Sauce Outlet Mall. And Andy Beal? He said the word “pot” three times per hand in almost every hand we played in our last game.

I bought in for $4,000 and lost it all to Beal at NLHE on the very first hand. I thought I was ahead with a pair and was relieved when the river brought a fourth club to go with my ace of clubs. I called Andy’s all-in bet and he instantly said, “Quads,” showing two queens to go with the two on the board.

Numbed, I feebly fumbled my ace of clubs into view and discovered it was actually the ace of SPADES.

I don’t know what felt worse: losing my limit the first minute of the game, misreading my hand, or heedlessly shoveling my chips at an opponent who had me beat even if he spotted me another twenty cards. I didn’t have to decide among them because I was feeling all three.

That’s why I wear the dime-store glasses, to make sure I read the cards correctly. But the reason I mention the story is because of what happened AFTER.

I bought in for another $2,000. I was playing scared and everyone knew it. But I hung in. I persevered. We played another ten hours and I won back my lost $4,000 and even made a small profit.

For me, there was a lesson even more valuable than “make sure that’s the ace of CLUBS you have there.” It was about dealing with reversals of fortune at the poker table, being patient, and making yourself play your best when there are reasons (i.e., excuses) for not playing your best.

I could have easily weathered the $4,000 loss, as well as a further loss if I chased it with that additional $2,000. But I would have had trouble rebounding from the loss of my composure, or if I had given in to pity or embarrassment or anxiety.

I meant to write about all this before the Series started but, like a lot of other ideas for the Blog, I have had to play catch-up. My experience during this World Series has confirmed – or at least been coincident with – this idea.

I play an aggressive style of poker and, being an internet tournament player, I’m not super-experienced at putting on the brakes or making big laydowns. But in my second and third times in the money this Series, I was at my best in terms of NOT GETTING ELIMINATED. I would normally bristle at the suggestion that I play defensively: try to hang on for the money, or the jump in payouts, or the final table. But there’s an advanced element of the Aggressive Game that involves knowing when to let go, and when not even to try it. I felt very comfortable as I got deep in both tournaments that I was picking my spots, and generally keeping myself from busting.

There are definitely elements of luck involved. I drew out with eleven players remaining in the SHOE with all my chips in the pot. And I know very well that the relationship between good play and good results is only a general one. But of all the lessons I’ve learned from the great pros who collaborated on the STRATEGY GUIDE, the last ones I had to find out on my own.

There is a such thing as “pro temperament.” It can be observed and commented on. It can be learned but it can’t be taught. Starting with Andy Beal and concluding with a pair of endlessly long nights in the Amazon Room from which I remember little but how I kept myself out of the path of elimination, I’m learning it.

I’m a few minutes past midnight and about to turn into a pumpkin, so I’ll conclude with this thought. My goal is not to win the Championship. It’s not to make the final table. It’s not to make the money. It’s not to make it through Day 1.

It’s to play my two cards well. I’m going to keep doing that the best I can – and I know sometimes my best can be brilliant and other times my best can be pretty awful – and then repeating it on the next hand until they won’t deal me cards any more.

Thanks for listening, and an extra thanks to my wife and kids. Someone as lucky as me to have Jo Anne as my wife and Barry, Ellie, and Valerie as my children might just be lucky enough to do something really crazy here; that’s been the case so far and I don’t see any reason for anything to change.

And, truly, thanks for reading along and rooting.

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