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#471 – WSOP Notebook #43 – They Come Out Only at Night
I just returned from Hawaii and am poring through my WSOP notebooks for unmined material. I wrote this on June 19, about June 19. Just another night at the World Series – not even a whole night but a portion of one.
PART I – Matusow Told There Would Be Days Like This
Honestly, Thursday started for me with high hopes and a good night’s rest, thus disproving the importance of both positive thinking and sleep. I arrived at the Rio Convention Center before noon with over 2,300 others to play the $1,500 NLHE.
I was assigned Amazon Orange Table #19, Seat 3. Kudos to the tournament organizers for dividing the room’s table grid into quadrants and assigning each a color. This makes it far easier to find your table. As I began studying my table-mates, it looked like a good table. The player next to me mentioned that a profitable run at video poker made it possible for him to enter a couple events. (Of course, Richard Brodie may tell other players the same thing, so this could have been a ruse.) I also noticed based on the break-order of the tables that we would be together for a long time.
I didn’t count on losing a bunch of chips with Ac-Kc and having to fold on the river after a board of Ks-Qs-Js-5s-Qd. And I sure as hell didn’t count on waking up with pocket kings in the big blind, only to have the player who beat me out of the A-K hand show pocket aces.
So my $1,500 investment lasted me all of 30 minutes. What surprised me was that it didn’t bother me at all. I know I couldn’t have done anything different but losing usually bothers me a little, at least for a few minutes. But here? Nothing. I went to the mall to buy some shirts.
Becoming a quasi-resident for the duration of the World Series of Poker definitely has something to do with changing my mindset. Domestic responsibilities are routinely ignored in the name of poker – like Jo Anne’s birthday, Father’s Day, etc. – but the most mundane tasks intrude as soon as the game is over.
The other night, after winning $10,000 in satellites in 4 hours, you know how I splurged? I bought a toilet plunger at the 24-hour CVS down the street at 4 AM.
After I bought the shirts, I drove back, I think for the first time, to the Compound in daylight. I couldn’t believe that I was losing money at the rate of $3,000 per hour and my only poker-related thought was, “More time to play satellites later.” In fact, after I busted out of the $5,000 Stud EOB Championship, even though it was one of the biggest entry fees I’d ever shelled out for a poker tournament, I thought exactly the same thing, and proceeded to win back half the squandered entry fee in two hours.
I know that the hallmark of good professional poker players is an indifference to the money and the losses. But here is the significant question:
Is that a good thing?
PART II
7:30 PM – 6 left in the Stud EOB Championship. Annie Duke is low on chips. Chris Ferguson is the chip leader.
I’m standing behind Marcel Luske in Seat 3. Annie is in Seat 4 and she waves as I catch her eye. I’m looking across at Chris in Seat 7.
This is the first hand I’ve watched of any final table at this World Series. This is a regular “non-stage” table, Amazon Green Table #5. I’m mostly looking at Marcel Luske’s back because he doesn’t like to sit down.
Say what you want about Marcel Luske but he knows how to wear the hell out of a summer suit. We’re in a corner near an intersection of the Amazon Room. Maybe 100 people crowd around, mostly outside the ropes in the aisle.
Marcel fishes in his pocket for something and a bunch of cards – some kind of business or promotional cards – tumble onto the floor. My friend Nolan Dalla, the media director for the Series, jokes, “Now we know your secret Marcel. You’ve got your own deck in there.”
As Luske picks up the cards, I say, “Yeah, but they’re all nines and tens.”
Tony G walks by, wearing a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts longer than any pair owned by a member of the National Basketball Association. “Tony, what are you wearing on your feet?” Nolan asks, incredulous.
I look down and Tony is wearing, with those long shorts (or short pants), brown loafers and blue knee socks. I don’t think there is any country or any time period in history where that look was fashionable.
7:40 PM – A player busts in sixth place so now there are five left, with Annie as the shortest stack.
7:50 PM – Chris busts Annie in fourth place. She immediately rushes off to play the Omaha EOB Championship, where she paid $10,000 and has been getting blinded off for nearly three hours.
