Approximately 3,020 signed up to play in Day #1A of the World Series of Poker's Event #8 yesterday afternoon. I was one of the people who ponied up $1,000 to play.
Starting with a relatively measely 3,000 chips, the first two hours saw a lot of people fall by the wayside - including my playing partner David. When we hit the first break, my 3,000 chips had grown to 3,030 chips. Not exactly a big chunk of change, ehh? At least I was still alive!
The next two hours remained relatively uneventful. My stack increased to 4,700 by the time we hit our next break, but I can't say that I felt very comfortable. The blinds were only 100/200, however, so I knew I had time to play my game. The highlight of this 2 hour stretch was the fact that I was sitting at the same table as Patrick Antonius' wife. In fact, a lot of well known poker players approached our table to talk to see how she was doing. I learned that Patrick was playing tennis at the Bellagio - as he doesn't like playing in these massive low-buy-in tournaments.
After our table broke, the next two hours proved to be very interesting. A LOT of people started to get knocked out and I started to catch some cards. Two different times, I was able to scoop big pots while holding pocket 2's. Sweet! At the 5 1/2 hour mark, I was sitting on 11,200 chips. We were already down to 650 players and it was announced that we'd continue playing until we reached approximately 325 players. I felt good about things.
At that point, the average stack was 14,000 chips. I'm sure that I was in the top 50% of the median stacks. Then came the hand that proved to be my undoing.
I was sitting in the big blind and was dealt pocket Jacks. The third player to act made a crazy overbet and went all-in with his 8,200 chips - despite the fact that blinds were only 100/200. It folded all the way to the small blind who hemmed and hawed before finally calling the all-in bet. Next, it was time for me to hem and haw.
The player in the small blind was our table's chips leader with (maybe) 20,000 chips. He was a very loose player and had eliminated bunches of players with marginal hands. I figured he had an ace and, as a result of all his hemming and hawing, I figured he had a kicker lower than my Jacks. So, after considering things for a good minute or two, I decided to put my tournament life at risk and declared myself all in. At that point, I figured that this was "the hand" that was going to decide my ultimate success in this tournament.
Priced into the pot, the small blind easily called the rest of my all-in bet and the three of us flipped over our cards. With 30,000 chips in the middle, this was the biggest pot I had seen to that point. Several members from the poker media (Pokernews and Bluff Magazine) scurried over to our table to see what was happening. The winner of this pot was going to be sitting mighty pretty with less than 650 players remaining.
The first player flipped over pocket 9's. The player in the small blind flipped over Ad Kd. While I was happy that I was (technically) the favorite to win the hand, I was really hoping that both of my opponents had an ace - thereby eliminating their outs.
The flop came Q-8-Q rainbow. Great! I was still in the lead. The turn was a black 4 and there was no chance of a flush winning the hand. Really great! I am on the brink of sitting on a huge stack of chips if I can simply dodge a 9, king, or an ace on the river.
Not surprisingly, the river was an ace of spades. Argh! Argh! Argh! Just like that, my tournament was over and I slinked away. I missed the dinner break by 20 minutes. Sigh!
As I review the final online chips counts from Day #1A, a stack of 30,000 chips is good enough for 62nd place. If I had won that final hand, I would have had 30,000 chips with 4 hours of play still remaining in the day with the next scheduled set of blinds at only 150/300. Sigh! I'd guess that this pot would have placed me in the top 10 at that moment.
So, now I'm back to playing cash games and Craps. Let's see if I can win back the $1,000 that I lost when the ugly ace of spades appeared on the river.
