Sgt Rock WSOP '04 Report Part I
Sgt Rock
but I've been busy and couldn't finish it until now, but still think it
might be worth posting. Hope you agree.
Mrs. Rock and I still don't do tournaments, and we still can barely
spell "No Limit." So why go to WSOP? Awesome side action, of course.
We drove into Vegas and checked in at Bellagio on Weds, April 28, stayed
29 nights, and did nothing much besides play $80/160 Hold 'Em, sleep a
little (too little) here and there, and grab a meal when and where we
could.
If the number of entrants for the WSOP Final Event is any indicator- and
it's probably not a bad one- then the triple whammy of holecard cameras
on TV, Moneymaker's very name, and McManus' best selling book, combined
to give us 300% growth in the last year. Amazing, ain't it? Along with
that kind of growth comes much change, and it was interesting to see how
those changes effected Bellagio's 80/160 game.
The most obvious and quite welcome difference was that the cadre of
tough locals that you usually see in the game were, for the most part,
simply not there. Some of them have played limit HE for so long that
they're sick of it, and they jumped on the chance to play the
(relatively new) $10/20 Blind NO LIMIT that was going every day. So
these guys were in the room, just not in my game. Thank you.
Some of them never showed up in the room at all, and if you asked a
local, like, "Hey, where's Joe? I been here three weeks, haven't seen
him once," the answer would invariably be something like "Oh, he plays 4
games at a time online now." And I do mean invariably.
More than a few others well known to us as tough Bellagio 80 players
were just MIA altogether. This is not to say that there were no
toughies around at all; certainly there were some in the game, but WAY
less than years past. Mickey was there nearly every night, and Cissy,
who played 15/30 last year, played 80 several nights a week. By the
way, when she told of her husband playing online, well, I guess you'd
have to know the guy, but trying to picture Bottoms sitting home in his
skivvies playing multiple 15/30 games at Party just makes me smile.
So, anyway, who was in the 80 games? Well, many of them fit into one of
these categories:
1. Internet Wunderkind. 14 Gazillion people played poker on the
internet in the last year (I counted...) and most of them lost money.
Doh. Some of the minority who won played well and earned their wins,
while some played badly, but got lucky and won anyway. Many of those
who won WSOP entries, or just big bucks online, good, average and bad
players alike, showed up in Bellagio 80/160, bragging about their
successes. If you remember my Global Daily Russian Roulette analogy
from the Tripless In Seattle report a couple years back, well, some of
these braggarts were the "survivors" from that scenario, but will be
taking the headshot any day now.
Several were BARELY 21 years old, and few had more than a year or two of
poker experience, but when they play 4 games online 14 hours a day, they
may get as much experience in a year as Mrs. Rock and I have had in ten
years. At least some of these guys have played a LOT of poker in a
short time.
It was also funny to see guys with lots of internet but little live game
experience playing 80. Some had no clue how to handle checks or cards,
protected their hands poorly (or not at all...) and we sure saw some
funny looking betting motions.
Many of these guys said that they had forsaken school or the traditional
workplace for a poker career, and were doing well so far, but hadn't
been at it very long. A year from now, more than a few of these guys
will be busted, on the rail, and wondering what went wrong. Like Dennis
Miller likes to say: "This just my opinion, and I could be wrong." :-)
There were certainly a few Wunderkind who showed a lot of talent and
potential. Fortunately, they were the minority.
2. Rich Tourists. Most of these guys had an entry into the big one,
and were just biding their time (and blowing their money) waiting for it
to start. Most of them were also back in the 80 games after busting out
of the big one on day one or day two. More about rich guys below.
3. Passport Holders. Visiting players from Norway, Sweden, Germany,
Mexico, Chile, Japan, and Greece were all in the game day after day.
The French guys were back this year too, but they almost exclusively
played NL. One standout hybrid I must mention was Mad Max, a Passport
Holding Internet Wunderkid. This Norwegian twenty-something superman
could drink mass quantities of beer and stay in the game for 40 straight
hours, then go sleep a while, then return and do it all over again. Ah,
how wonderful it could be to be young and stupid again. I admit it;
these guys make me jealous. Max's play was, uh, remarkably creative,
and he took some wild swings.
4. Trust Fund Girls. Bilingual Vietnamese ladies, most raised
stateside, usually with red hair, after-market highbeam headlights,
iPod, fancy nails, and very rich husbands and/or parents. Sometimes
they sat in the 80 just waiting for a seat in 200/400 or even
300/600. A couple (CiCi from Calif. and Q from AC) played pretty
well, and the rest just played fairly tight. Most were friendly and
likeable, but a couple decidedly weren't.
I mentioned "Q" in a WSOP report a couple years ago. At that time I
called her "Queue" and thought she was from LA. She's quite tiny, about
35, and has 3 kids, with another on the way. Speaks with a high-pitched
squeaky voice that might be annoying, but from her, with her great
personality, it's actually endearing. She also seemed to be just about
the only Trust Fund Girl who didn't seem to feel the need for surgical
enhancement.
One day this trip we were sitting next to each other in a really bad
game, all decent players, and little action. All of a sudden she says
"You know what? We need some Goldfish in this game!" Another guy
overhead this, and said "Huh? What's that?" Q looks at me, I look at
her, and simultaneously we exclaim "A fish with a lot of money!" (High
fives.) Later I took a break and visited the gift shop for a candy
bar. They had those little white bags of Pepperidge Farm "Goldfish"
snack crackers, so I got her some, and she was quite amused. Q is a
real sweetie.
5. Young Sharpies. Thirty-something guys, Ex-lawyers, stock traders,
business-types, now "living the life" and seeking +EV every waking
minute. A half-dozen of them were friends, prematurely "retired" east
coast blackjack team players, no dummies. Having these guys in the
games was no picnic.
---
Two Weeks in the Catbird
I've previously described Bellagio Table 4, Seat 3, as my favorite poker
seat in the universe. Well, the 80 main game somehow broke overnight on
May 12, and when it re-started around 11:00am the next morning, they put
it down on Table 4. It went non-stop from that day until we left town
on May 27, so I got plenty of time in the catbird seat.
---
The Theory of Relativity
So here I am sitting in the 80 must-move in the top section, and feeling
pretty OK about the Red, White & Blue $5000 "Flag" check in reserve in
my pocket. Then I look over to Table 1, right across the aisle. The
Texas Banker is back, and getting ready to play headsup with Doyle's
baby boy. Two redcoat security guys are helping the poker room manager
stack SEVENTEEN RACKS of Flags on the table, along with a few racks of
crimson "Cranberry" ($25,000) checks. I counted, and altogether there
was almost $20 million in chips on the table. Suddenly, my single,
lonely Flag seemed quite insignificant.
Last year I wrote about watching them play headsup $30,000/$60,000 Hold
'Em, and said that "If you suggested that we may never see a bigger
game, I wouldn't argue." Well, shut my mouth. Today they were playing
$100,000/$200,000.
For much of this trip I was hoping to win (fantasizing about winning)
enough at 80/160 to take a shot at the sometimes juicy looking 300/600
game. Yeah, right. Maybe someday. I was also thinking about how that
was ONE HUNDRED times bigger than the SMALLEST 3/6 game I had started
out with. Then, while watching The Banker and Todd Brunson, I realized
that their game was ONE THOUSAND times bigger than the BIGGEST game
(100/200) that I had ever played. Wow. Downright logarithmic.
So now, after all these years, I finally understand The Theory of
Relativity. It's simple: Everything is Relative.
Compared to most of the players I see in a Bellagio 80 game, I am a
pauper. They come to the table with Gold Rolexes or Tag Heuers, and
other gold and diamond jewelry, and I wear a plain wedding band and a
plastic Casio, $18.99 at Costco. They're more like $11.47 at Wal-Mart
now, but mine is 10 years old, and I've replaced the battery myself,
twice.
These guys either own or have retired from or sold some kind of
business, or maybe did well in investments or trading, and have money to
burn. It's rare to find another player in these games who actually
holds down a 9-to-5 and gets a corporate paycheck every two weeks, like
I do.
---
Flag Down
I get up from my top section seat to take a walk, and as I'm standing up
I spot a single chip on the floor right behind my chair. It took my
brain a couple hundred milliseconds to verify and re-verify that it
truly was white, not purple, and that those really were three zeros, not
just two, after the 5. Then I spent a couple hundred more milliseconds
wondering if somehow my own Flag had gotten out of the squeeze-me rubber
clamshell coin holder that was supposed to be double-button secured in
the cargo pocket of my camouflage Army BDU pants. Nope. This one isn't
mine; it's a maverick.
So I pick it up, have it in my closed fist, and spend the next several
seconds asking myself "Who's looking at me?"
Seems like the answer is: Nobody.
But then I notice the guy at seat 4 in the black-chip game at the next
table with his head beneath the rim, then down on hands and knees,
looking under the table in kind of a frantic way. Then he comes up for
air and looks around, waving his hands, as though he's drowning and
seeking help. I spend a couple more seconds asking myself "Who's
looking at me?" again, and get the same answer.
Well, call me gutless, but I just couldn't take the heat. So I catch
his eye and ask him, "What happened?"
"Dropped a Flag chip," he gasps. I open my fist, and show him the
content. He takes it, says "Thanks," and that was that. Damn, for a
minute there I thought it was my lucky day. Later, on reflection, I
realized that the camera probably would have busted me anyway.
---
Mistake After Mistake
I cold call 2 bets with 88 on the button for 5-way action, and the board
comes: 2c 9d 6d, 7d, 8c
I quickly get headsup with a player from India at the other end of the
table, and we go five bets on the flop. I'm not quite sure what got
into me there, so call that mistake #1. I put him on a diamond draw,
and resolved to make it expensive.
As soon as I call the fifth flop bet, he bets the turn in the dark.
Then the dealer burns, turns, and tells me "He bet."
"I know." What I don't know is what the hell I'm doing in this hand,
and while I'm trying to figure that out my opponent puts another $80
stack on top of the two $80 stacks that he has already bet. WTF? Oh,
shit, that's all he has left, and he's telling me that he wants to go
all-in. That I didn't even notice his short stack is mistake #2.
So now I'm thinking that his short stack (no stack) should influence my
action, but damn, which way? The pot's already quite large, with many
of what were just a moment ago my chips. I put him on diamonds, and
they got there, but I can't fold now! So of course I call and put in
the $80 more.
He's out of ammo on the river, so just turns over his hand, but one card
partly obscures the other. I see the 2d, and what looks like the 3d.
Flush. At least one of my neighbors "saw" it too, and even mumbled
"Flush."
I prepare to release my hand and accept defeat, but first must complete
the checklist. I must clearly SEE the hand that's beating me (NEVER
trust your ears here!) and so I make the standard request. "Dealer,
please open that hand," I ask.
Guess what. He held 2d, 2h, and my set of eights beat his set of
deuces. And I almost blew it.
---
Sgt Rock
http://sgt.rock.home.comcast.net
sgt DOT rock AT home DOT comcast DOT net
James Campbell
"Sgt Rock" <nob...@dev-null.net> wrote in message
news:41301560...@dev-null.net...
Dave L
Stephen Jacobs
This one bit interests me. You have an actual checklist? If you do, I'd
like to know what's on it.
"Sgt Rock" <nob...@dev-null.net> wrote in message
news:41301560...@dev-null.net...
>
Linda K Sherman
> This is my Trip Report for WSOP 2004. Yeah, I know that was months ago...
My gawd, I thought you were dead!
Welcome back. Great reports as always.
Lin
--
Linda K. Sherman
linsherman [atsign] tampabay [stop] rr [stop] com
John Kerry for President.