Ten Days in the Desert Day 7: Where the sun shines
Cambodian Slick
was the day that would show who the best poker player in our crew was.
In the past this tournament was all just for fun. But you could tell
that this year would be different. You could see the hunger in
everyone's eyes. The bragging rights were worth too much now. The
bracelet had become a symbol of exaltation and reverence. And it was
to be mine. It could be no other way.
But not before we got something to eat, so Wayne took us downtown to
some dingy old deli in the Golden Gate where he made us eat shrimp
cocktail. It was pretty uninspiring, like most of the meals I've
eaten since I've been in Vegas, but after lunch the casino provided
some fun. I convinced Magic Matt to play some "Let it Ride" with me.
He really took to the game, and put his $1 Bonus Bets out there so
naturally I wondered if this wasn't what he was doing all those nights
he never came back to the room. "Matt," I tell him as the cards come
out, "I read a magazine article once about the worst mathematical bets
in the casino, and that Bonus Bet was at the bottom of the list. Like
the worst." Magic Matt shrugs. His eyes hypnotized by the pretty
flashing light. As the dealer takes away his money, and the light is
turned off, Magic Matt goes to put another dollar out there.
"Magic Matt," I plead, "what are you doing? Its bad enough we are
playing Let it Ride at the Golden Gate with these old people, but you
shouldn't take the Bonus Bet. I mean, if you hit the Royal Flush you
already won thirty grand. What's the use of winning another 20 at
that point if it means practically doubling all your bets?" Magic
Matt is unfazed. "This is how I like to play."
I get an idea. I tell Magic Matt that instead of giving the Golden
Gate a dollar every hand, he should give it to me, and that if he hits
a hand, I'll give him DOUBLE whatever the house was offering. Upon
hearing this, several of the old people's necks craned towards me in
utter shock. "You better have a lot of money then, young man," I'm
scolded by an old man who looked like he might be part of the casino's
décor. I say "well, if I have to take a loan out of the bank to pay
Matt's royal flush, that's a chance I'm willing to take." After all,
I want to ween Magic Matt off of making sucker bets like this. And I
also want his dollars. Ok, I mostly just want his dollars. If he
hits a big hand, then I was sure we would all have a good laugh about
it one day. It didn't matter, because Magic Matt stood his ground and
repeated "this is how I like to play." "OK," I get up with thirty
dollars less than I had fifteen minutes ago, "suit yourself, Bonus
Bet." And just like that a new nickname is born.
We poke our heads into the Horseshoe while we waited for the engraver
to finish engraving our championship bracelet. Things were moving
along quickly, and the chip positions had changed pretty radically,
even from the morning. Phil Ivey took a terrible beat when his
flopped full house was beat by – brace yourself – runner-runner quads.
He handled it with poise and surrendered his hand to the muck and
said "nice hand" with such sincerity that if you didn't know any
better, you just might believe he really meant it. He was just
focused and took the beat and moved on, and even though he's only got
67k, I felt like he knows how to build his stack back up and still has
the attitude and determination to have a good shot to be there. He
is, after all, the Arthur Ashe of poker.
We got everything set up for the UWSWSOP back at the Mirage. There
was a little bit of contention over my suggestion that we use the
Nudie Cards with naked girls on them for the tournament. Josh
objected, wanting instead to use his own fancy pants Kem cards that he
had just bought. I had the votes I needed to win, though, and the
boobs went in the air at about 3:30pm.
The very first hand was exciting. I had A9 of diamonds and limped in
to a pot and the flop came 9-high with two diamonds. It was checked
to me, I bet two hundred, and the only person who called was Bonus
Bet. The turn was a diamond, giving me the lock ‘em up nuts, and I
bet another 500. Call. River was a blank and Bonus Bet checked. I
went all-in, and he called me with AJ of clubs. Ace high. I showed
him the flush, and he hemmed and hawed about how he couldn't even see
that there was a flush on board because the stupid cards were hard to
read. "Look here, Bonus Bet… Even if I give you the benefit of the
doubt and assume you really couldn't tell that there was a flush
because of all the pretty naked girls, that still doesn't change the
fact that you called all-in with an Ace high on the very first hand.
I mean, you do realize that you only had Ace high, right?" "Yeah, I
thought you were bluffing." " Well, then its hard to take pity on
you."
We decided to play on with the dirty cards and after a few hands the
paper cards started bending, so we eventually had to switch to the
fancy Kem cards. The tournament was full of storied hands that had us
oohing and aahing but I'll save you the gory details and give you the
long-story-short. After building a nice chip lead I end up heads up
with the one guy nobody wanted to win: Wayne. After a twenty dollar
last-longer bet and hours of trash talk, here I sit facing Wayne with
a huge 2-1 chip lead after he busted out Rob. And the hand he busted
Rob out on, oy vay! Rob has A9 and Wayne has KJ. Rob made a small
raise preflop, Wayne called, and the flop came K9x. Wayne checked to
Rob and he bet all-in and Wayne called!! At that point, Rob was
actually pretty close to Wayne and I in chips, putting us almost in a
three way tie for first. Now Wayne had a huge stack and used it to
bust out the other little stack while I played tight. This year the
UWSWSOP paid money to second place, but I didn't give a shit. He
could have all the money. I wanted the bracelet. But I had to play a
big stack and a cocky and aggressive player to get it.
The crowd was definetly on my side. I don't think anyone wanted to
see Wayne win. For one, he doesn't even really qualify since he
doesn't play in our home game in New York. And two, nobody wanted to
endure his bragging about how fucking good he is at low limit poker
let alone him reminding us that he's the UWSWSOP every chance he gets.
I chipped away at him, going into robot mode. I told myself I would
go all in with every Ace and every pair bigger than an 8. I got a lot
of hands like this, so I ended up going all-in a lot and picking up a
ton of blinds. Eventually, we got the stacks to about 7k to 12k and I
had to take a break to get on a conference call for work. The others,
including Wayne, went to play poker downstairs while I was on the
phone. After I finished, I went to find Wayne and the others to tell
them I was ready. Wayne says "lets get this over with" and demands
that we just start playing and not wait for the others to return, or
even to wait for the timer. Then he opens up on me and gets a little
more aggressive. I end up stealing one big pot from him with A-4 and
then get dealt the very same hand again. Wayne opens up for an 1800
raise, and I go all in hoping to steal again. He calls with A6 and
the Ace-5-10 board, followed by a 2 and a 7 destroy my hopes for a
split pot. And it was all over just like that, with no fanfare, no
consolation, no pomp and no circumstance. It ended just how Wayne
wanted it to end. Quick, no mess, just give me my money and my
bracelet. He grabbed the cash and the bracelet immediately and said
something to me that I didn't hear as I walked out of the room and
headed outside to take a long walk.
Later that evening we met up to have our yearly steak dinner at the
Circus Circus steakhouse. Wayne was of course wearing his bracelet
and wanted to do nothing else but to needle me and brag and boast
about how great a player he was and how dumb I was to take a last
longer bet with him. Someone suggested that the last longer bet was
actually a tie, since we both lasted the same amount of time. But
Josh points out that by going bust, I actually left the tournament
before Wayne, who still had chips.
I suggest that Wayne put the bracelet up against me heads up who can
ride the mechanical bull the longest at Gilley's. Even though he
refused, he entertained the notion by saying that he had an advantage
over me being smaller than I am. Wayne said that the smaller you are
the longer you can stay on. Josh said "Not really. I mean, sure a
flea could ride the bull forever. But what about a baby? That
sucks."
Yeah, that does suck.
At dinner I toasted to Wayne, the new UWSWSOP champ, and I toasted to
Rob, who is moving to Chicago. This trip may be the last time we play
cards with Rob, and I know that I will miss having him in New York.
It is with no exaggeration when I say that life in New York will be a
little harder without a friend like Rob around.
But Rob, unfortunately, was not at the dinner as he was being toasted
by his friends. No, Rob was at some awful asian fusion restaurant
with some skank he knows from high school that he isn't even trying to
hump. Later on that night he claimed they were having a "heart to
heart." A "heart to heart" in Las Vegas with a girl you aren't trying
to knock boots with? That's just nonsense. Bros before hoes, Rob.
Bros before hoes.
I spent the rest of the night playing everything from 10-20 to 20-40
and getting bushwhacked pretty bad. My first losing session of the
trip set me back about $500. I lost a lot playing in a pretty
volatile 20-40 with this dude from Mississippi that kept trying to get
the table to "put a rubber band around it." This, evidently, is when
you put a rubber band around a straddle bet. Then whoever wins the
pot is forced to put the straddle back out when the blinds come
around. He says "how can you get mad when you just won a big ol'
pot?" But the guy on my right says "pass. I don't gamble." The
country boy rightfully chastises the old man. "What do you mean you
don't gamble. You're sittin' in a casino right now playin' cards." He
repeated, "I don't gamble. I don't gamble and I don't play
tournaments." The guy from Mississippi mocks the man's accent.
"Tuwnaments? You must be from up north around Memphis with an accent
like that. Well I tell you what partner, lets see who's gambling."
And he puts out a forty dollar straddle bet. The old man calls the
two bets cold and it gets reraised around back. The guy from
Mississippi re-raises, and the old man who doesn't gamble calls both
bets cold again. He ends up winning a giant pot with a K-7 off-suit
when a 7 comes on the river to make two pair with his K, and he paid
dearly to catch it. Drawing dead to three cards? Calling two bets
cold twice with K-7? This aint gamblin', this is all skill! As the
skillful poker pro from up north is raking his huge pot, the guy from
Mississippi consoles himself and says "its like my momma always said:
the sun's gotta shine on even a dog's ass every once in a while."
Yeah, buddy, the sun was shining on all the dog's asses tonight.
But that's just poker. Sometimes you hit the deck, and sometimes the
deck hits you.
Here's to Wayne, Rob, Phil Ivey, and tomorrow. And here's to hitting
back.
Marcstar
how yall when out and got a bracelet and got it engraved and all. How
many of you guys played in it and what was the buy-in?
Man, only three days left!
marc
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Posted using RecPoker.com - http://www.recpoker.com
Howard Treesong
> He handled it with poise and surrendered his hand to the muck and
> said "nice hand" with such sincerity that if you didn't know any
> better, you just might believe he really meant it. He was just
> focused and took the beat and moved on, and even though he's only got
> 67k, I felt like he knows how to build his stack back up and still has
> the attitude and determination to have a good shot to be there. He
> is, after all, the Arthur Ashe of poker.
>
>
> http://www.geocities.com/nycspies/poker.html
Damn, Dave, that one had me ROFLMAO. Ivey is famous for taking bad
beats with equanimity, but using that as a setup for the Arthur Ashe
line was a stroke of near-genius. In fact, it was something that
Hellmuth would think he might have done if he thought he were as good
a writer as he thinks he is a player.
-Howard