5
#432 – WSOP Notebook #5 – A Pissy Blog for a Pissy Time
[written June 4 p.m.]
I just busted out of the $2,000 NLHE and I’m feeling like the whole world is ganging up on me. I know objectively that the foul conspiracies I’m about to describe are imaginary but I want those of you to know – anyone considering playing big tournaments regularly of trying to understand how the experience feels – how it felt to me.
This is how hard it is to bust me from a World Series event:
*In my first event, $1,500 NLHE, I built a big stack during the first four hours, raised with 3-3, got four callers, and hit the dream flop of A-3-7. I bet out, figuring I could get action only from another ace. I got a call. I bet again after a six on the turn and was called. After an ace on the river, I figured now the caller with the ace, unless he had A-3 (almost impossible), A-6, or A-7, was completely stuck so I moved all-in. He called very, very reluctantly and showed 6-6, having called a five-player flop with third pair.
*In my second event, $5,000 Mixed Hold ‘Em, I never had average chips after the first hour, had Layne Flack or Phil Laak to my right for the entire first day, never won a big pot, and was one of the shortest stacks when we were ten from the money. When we played limit hold ‘em, I had less than two big blinds. When we got to the bubble, with the whole field (and it seemed the suddenly interested rail and media) rooting for me to bust, I kept getting my chips in good. I made the money (top 36) and went out 26th, right after Patrik Antonius.
*In my third event, $2,000 NLHE, I had a good stack after the dinner break and went into overdrive, pushing the table around as we got closer to the money. After losing a big pot with Q-Q when another player with K-J hit a king on the river, I raised with Kd-7d, bet when the flop gave me a flush draw and an overcard, and bet when the turn gave me a flush and a gutshot straight flush. My opponent, who had 200 more in chips than me (we both started the hand with nearly 30,000), had Ad-3d and I went out.
I feel good about the way I comport myself after such experiences. I don’t tilt after bad results or get angry or make nasty comments. But that’s about appearances and manners. I’m still burning up inside and, though I’m getting better at putting out that fire pretty quickly, I think I have a ways to go.
First, I’m having trouble regarding these opportunities as fungible. Playing thousands of online tournaments, I can shrug off bad beats and bad outcomes because I know how many opportunities I can create for myself, if I’m indeed as good as I think, to prove it with results. Live, I haven’t had that many opportunities for it to “even out” (though with the success I’ve had, you could argue that these beats are in fact the “evening out” part). I keep asking myself, how many chances like this will I get? I honestly don’t know for how long or how often I’ll be playing in big tournaments, so I can’t help thinking each missed opportunity is precious.
Second, busting out of a poker tournament is, to me, a very personal failure. It doesn’t matter how I played or how I went out or who’s at the table or who’s watching. The way you suddenly become invisible and meaningless, the way your mind was so focused and suddenly had nothing like position and tells and chip counts to grasp, the way you stand up and gather your possessions and walk away in view of everyone watching and playing; the way the dealer barks out “Seat open!” All those things feel to me very public and very personal.
Paradoxically, I’ve also got a chip on my shoulder because I’m playing some great poker, getting some good results, certainly busting out in some epic ways, and none of the online-update sites will mention me. I was never mentioned in any reports of the $1,500 or $2,000 NLHE events, the never updated my chip counts in the Mixed Hold ‘Em, and the only hand I’ve played that’s been mention is my bust-hand in the Mixed Hold ‘Em, where I didn’t even have enough chips to complete a preflop raise in Limit Hold ‘Em.
It’s really not an ego thing with me. My family is trying to follow how I’m doing and so are some of you. I’d like the (few) people looking specifically for me to be able to find me. I also don’t have any illusions about my place in the professional poker world. I’ve never won a bracelet or even made a TV final table.
But there should be at least a tiny amount of interest in how I’m doing. I wrote a couple well-known and highly-regarded poker books. I write a popular blog. I made a pair of final tables at last year’s Series. And I’ve been among the top hundred online tournament players on Full Tilt all year, according to OfficialPokerRankings.com. Again, that doesn’t mean I’m as big as Erick Lindgren. But these sites are heavily trafficked by online players and they gear their coverage toward following players with online reputations.
Someone from the World Series involved in chip counts apologized to me at the end of Day 1 for not having someone keeping track of my chip count. (I didn’t even mention anything; they just came up to me at the end of the day and apologized.) But my count didn’t get updated until it was at zero on Day 2. At the dinner break, I asked the editor of one of the leading online-update sites if they could please post my chip counts. He said he’d do something about it; maybe I busted out before he could act on it.
I know in fact that everyone’s not really against me. No one is judging me or measuring me. Maybe I’m just struggling to judge and measure myself and am looking for validation from other people. Or maybe I just want Jo Anne to be able to see how I’m doing when she looks online.
But that’s how it all feels from here. I’m going to give it another shot in the $2,500 Mixed Eight-or-Better event tonight at 5 PM. Bombard your favorite online sites with questions about why they’re not including me in the cihp counts!
