16
#444 – WSOP Notebook #17 – An Afternoon in Purgatory – Part I, Satellite Hell
[written June 14, p.m.]
The point of the story I am going to tell is this: Get the fuck to Las Vegas as soon as you can. Quit Full Tilt. Throw your computer in a dumpster. Cut off your girlfriend’s arm and sell the rings off the fingers. Do whatever you can to get to the World Series of Poker. But when you get here, don’t turn left at the end of the Convention Center hallway to go to the Amazon Room; turn right into the CardRunners.com satellite room. The opportunities provided in the satellite room are so lucrative as to justify any sort of mayhem necessary to get your ass there.
I learned this on Saturday afternoon. I played, along with 2,700 others, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold ‘Em event at noon. By 1:50 PM, I was broke and searching around for something to do. It was at this point I realized I had not been inside the satellite room this year, and had not played any satellites last year, I decided it was time to look in on this sub-species of tournament poker.
I am almost ashamed to admit this, but I felt conspicuous standing in the satellite line, almost a little ashamed. (Maybe I subconsciously chose the term “sub-species” for a reason.) It’s as if because I’ve had some success and have won enough money to self-finance my entries into a dozen or so events this year, I feel it a badge of honor that I am paying full freight. I don’t know why this is the case … if I was on an airline and I paid $900 for a ticket while the person sitting next to me paid $300, I certainly wouldn’t brag about that fact.
[I don't think this blogging program accommodatees footnotes, but consider this a footnote to the previous sentence: Or maybe I'm twisted enough where I would. The first time I visited Andy Beal, it was after I had given up hope of speaking with him and after, in our first 30 seconds on the phone, he told me he wouldn't meet with me. He finally agreed on a Wednesday that I if I flew to his office in Plano, he would meet with me. I made my flight reservations 15 minutes later and, on Thursday, I was sitting in his office. "I bet the clipped you for a lot for that ticket on such short notice, huh?" I shrugged, "Yeah, it was about $700." "Seven hundred dollars?!? That's outrageous. I'd never pay that much for a ticket. If you had told me, I'd tell you to find a different day where the fare was cheaper."]
But I felt this wearing the yoke of the satellite line was appropriate for several reasons. First, I told myself as a rationalization, “I should be writing about this experience for the readers of the blog.” Second, I busted too early in the day to be done playing poker. I needed the action. Third, I have now managed to go so long in the World Series since my previous cash, that I’m in the red and am scratching around for money to play all the remaining events that I want to play. Somewhere in there were more than sufficient reasons for me to be standing in line to play a single-table satellite. These are my notes exactly as I wrote them at Table 2 (my first satellite) and Table 4 (my second satellite).
2:40 PM – I am at the Tropical Room, Table 2, Seat 5 for a $275 No-Limit Hold ‘Em satellite. Most of the room is filled with overflow from the $1,500 No-Limit Hold ‘Em event. The codger in Seat 2 proposed a $20 last-longer bet. All but one person at the table is going for it, so I’m in.
The conditions for this satellite approximate those of a Full Tilt turbo sit-n-go. We start with 1,500 in chips, blinds start at 25-25, and levels last 20 minutes. (For the $525 satellites, it’s the same but players start with 2,000 in chips.)
I know it sounds like my nose is stuck in the air but this seems like a pretty broken-down group, one that would be a big underdog in a $110 + $9 turbo SnG on Full Tilt Poker. The player to my right in Seat 4, another old-timer, seems to be looking in some direction other than the table, and has to be reminded every hand when it is his action. He tells a story to the player in Seat 3, or maybe just starts to. All he gets out – he asked me at this very moment, “You keeping notes?”- is that there is a player in his regular game who is a bail bondsman but he’s the son of a judge. But that’s all Seat 4 tells Seat 3, and it takes him two hands to get that much out. Then the story stops, or ends.
Half the table seems to be getting the action via a tape delay. Players limp, they call huge raises, they lead out and bet, the giant raisers make tiny post-flop bets or fold, players throw in their hands instead of checking on the end, etc. The guy in Seat 4, who has played almost every hand, folded three times when opponents moved all in, usually for small amounts. He has 800 chips, and just went for a walk, apparently to find some seat cushions. That seems an odd choice when you’re short-stacked in a turbo SnG and I can’t believe that he doesn’t hear the voice booming in his head: “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BE AROUND LONG ENOUGH TO NEED A CUSHION!”
Seat 3 open-raises for $150 one hand, $350 the next hand. There’s no connection, or way too strong a connection, between the cards these players hold and their actions. I think if they’re around long enough, it’s probably very easy to connect the dots to people who play that way … if they’re around long enough.
I’m out at 4:05 PM, 5th place. I ran A-J into the biggest stack, who had A-A. I should have known because he re-raised me the minimum amount. Jeez, do people do that in live tournaments? I guess they do here.
