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#448 – WSOP Notebook #21 – The Go-Home Satellite
[written early AM June 23]
It’s pretty obvious that it’s time for me to go home. I don’t think I’ve cashed in a World Series event since George Bush’s daddy was President, and I’m not even succeeding in the satellites anymore. They’re trying to give me their money, but I just can’t seem to close the deal. I’ll be driving home on Monday, and returning to the World Series next weekend. In the meantime while I’m home, I’ll get caught up on a lot of interesting entries for you. But let me just leave you with a fitting story of how my current visit to the World Series of Poker ended.
I busted out of the $1,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em at 12:25 AM. By 12:29, I had gotten my money down for the last seat in a $525 single-table satellite. I was at Table 5 Seat 2 and the cards were in the air by 12:34.
The guy sitting to my left in Seat 3 was reading a book titled Killer Poker Short-Handed. He was reading with a highlighter and highlighting passages in between and during hands when he wasn’t playing. After the third hand, this was only in-between hands, because he played every hand after the third hand.
Killer Poker Short-Handed must contain some sort of randomizer for play because this guy was a piece of work. On one hand, he limped in early position. With 100 chips in the pot, after a flop of A-3-5, he led out for 400. He was called and checked after a seven came on the turn. The other player bet 100 and he folded. On the next hand he open-limped for 50, then called a raise of 300, and then he apparently hit the flop because he instantly moved all-in after a J-6-7 flop.
After that he limped in every single pot and always called at least one raise. If there were two raises, he would consider whether to call the second raise. Usually if he was in the hand on the flop and was out of position, he would bet out. He seemed to be hitting every flop because he was showing his hands most of the time.
On one hand he limped for 100, he was raised to 400, and then another player reraised to 800. He agonized for quite a while and then folded. Then the instant the dealer turned over 6-7-K on the flop, he moans, “Oh my god!” and pounds the table.
The really odd thing – one of the many really odd things actually – is this guy would occasionally talk to me between hands and his little monologues were punctuated with non-sequitur poker terms. I thought it would be too obvious if I wrote down his words as he was saying them to me, but I seem to remember one time when, in a single sentence, he used the phrases, “pot odds,” “fold equity,” and “deep stack.” Mind you, I sort of understood the point he was trying to make, and it had nothing to do with any of those terms, but it sounded impressive.
[By the way, this is not an indictment of Killer Poker Short-Handed and should not be construed as one. For one thing, I noticed the player in Seat 3 was still in the early stages of highlighting the book. In addition, though I'm not familiar with the contents of that book, I'm willing to bet its author doesn't endorse any of the strategies this character concocted. Just the same, I'm glad he wasn't holding The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide as a shibboleth. ]
Here’s how I got eliminated and it sums up precisely how my last five days have gone. I had about eight big blinds and pushed all-in with pocket tens. I was called by a player with A-Q. The flop came 3-4-10 which gave me a set of tens. Then the turn was a king. And then the river was a jack. On the positive side, I get to go back home where I missed Father’s Day, my wife’s birthday, and the end of her year-long cancer treatments.
I should be in a better mood after I reconnect with my family and I’ll be able to catch up on some of the interesting things that have happened to me over the last couple of weeks that have not made it into the blog but have made it into my World Series of Poker notebooks. At least I think they happened to me. At least I think they’re in the notebooks.
Jo Anne was seriously burned by the end of her radiation treatments, so it’s not like I’m entitled to a lot of sympathy for complaints like “card dead” or “runner-runner straight.” But that doesn’t mean I won’t try.
