UWSWSOP4 Day 3:
Dave Hill
I just woke up but man am I tired. I slept for about four or five
hours after an all-night session 30-60 at the Bellagio that put me
$1600 to the good. I haven't done that in a long long time, stay up
all night playing poker, but I told myself at some point last night
that I would, and with the help of a lot of coffee, I did.
I guess by now you have probably guessed that I did not win the
UWSWSOP this year, but I'll get to that.
Yesterday was a looong day. It started out early, with me dealing
with crisis-type stuff at work for a few hours, and by noon I was
chasing down my friends who had all cabbed it from the mirage to the
golden nugget to play. I had the bright idea that we play our own
satellite to get into the bellagio's $1000 tournament that evening at
5pm, and tried hard to sell it to the gang, but only five were biting,
and then those five didn't want in if it would cost $200. So I
decided to ditch out and book to the Bellagio to see if there were
anymore satellites I could enter. Me, John, Rob, and Peter sped down
cooking up deals on the way of how we would play the same table and
with the two seats blah blah blah of course the tournament was sold
out around 2pm. So here we were, at the Bellagio, hours before the
Laker game started and with waiting lists a mile long on every game
from 4-8 to 800-1,600.
We walked across the street for some craps action at Oshea's. I
started betting the don't pass of course and the crowd didn't think
that was too cool. And John, being the ass that he is, bets with the
shooter to spite me. Rob and Peter follow his suit and Im the only
jackass at the table screaming "Seven Out!!"
Every shooter goes on amazing rolls, and soon I've lost a hundred
bucks. The table loves my misery, on account of my rooting so
heartily for their own. When its my turn to shoot I buy another
hundred in chips and warn everyone to bet don't pass, becuase this
game is the death of me, and I always lose. Nobody does. I'm rolling
for everyone but me, begging for a craps or a seven, and I roll like a
million 5s and 9s before I hit my fucking point and everyone cheers.
They love it, they are lapping it up.
Peter, meanwhile, is just betting the hardways with a nickel a pop and
he's hitting them over and over. He parlays $4 to about $34 and we
goad him into putting it all on a hard 8. After all, it's only $4, and
he does it, and loses it all, and everyone is so sad and Rob and I
chastise him for making such a totally stupid bet. "Dude, we were just
kidding. I can't believe you did that!!" We suck. We really do.
We go to the Mirage to watch the basketball game at the sportsbook,
and we are fascinated by all the prop bets that are offered. Who will
score more 3s? Who will have a better game, Spree or Kobe? We start
to think of ourselves as sports geniuses (even though most of us
couldn't tell you the years the Lakers won the title) and bet every
single prop on the board. I end up betting about $500 on the game,
and the ironic thing is I wrote all my bets on some "scrap" paper that
ended up being a pamphlet for problem gambling. When I noticed this,
I found it funny yet strangely ironic. I kept the thing as good luck.
I decided to put all my chips on it on the table so that when I went
to the felt, it would be staring up at me.
We watched the game in the bar with Norm McDonald and a bunch of
drunks. The drunk kid behind us yelled so loud Rob had to wad up
paper and put it in his ears. When Wayne came by to bother us about
going to eat with him, he says "Rob what the hell do you have that
paper in your ears for?" and almost on cue the kid shreiks "Offensive
Foul!" so loud it almost knocks Wayne down in shock. The drunk yeller
decides he's our friend and talks to us, so we figure its ok to make
fun of him, since we are all friends, and we start making fun of him
and telling him things to yell. Then we start telling Peter to yell
things. Pretty soon, we got a chorus of voices screaming things like
"Fuck Shaq" and "Lakers Have No Heart" and "Give the Ball to Oliver
Miller".
This attractive woman comes and sits down next to Rob and wants to
know where we are from and are we from Minnesota because she's from
Minnesota and she's just so glad we're pulling for her team and she's
checking him out so hard I almost feel embarassed for her. Rob pays
her no mind at all, trying hard not to even hold a glance at her for
more than a millisecond less she get the wrong idea. Rob is such a
girl magnet and it pisses me off. Not because Im jealous, but because
it does nobody any good. Not Rob, because he's engaged and faithful,
not the chick, because she's not going to get any, and certainly not
any of Rob's ugly friends, because his presence just accentuates the
rest of our unattractiveness.
After the game we play the UWSWSOP with 10 players this year and two
newcomers. One is Greg, who I told you about before. Greg is having a
terrible run at his first time playing poker for money. He claims its
because of this double headed quarter he got for change at a Subway on
Wednesday. He passed off the quarter to Rob, who passed it off to me,
and told me it was bad luck. I said "its only bad luck for the kid in
the alley Im going to win all his baseball cards with." But
eventually I got paranoid and put it in a vending machine for some
candy.
And the other is Megan, the girl Jim is scamming on from California.
She brings her friend Marissa, and the two of them are way out of
their element as our crew is in full-on geek mode, myself included,
and filled with excited energy as we prepare for our yearly ritual.
The presence of women only heightens the geekiness, and the bad jokes
and uncomfortable pauses begin. Luckily, she and Jim both went out
early and were able to occupy each other's time before Peter could
embarass us anymore by "helping" her do EVERYTHING. Peter isn't
really that good around girls. He is over-helpful and way too up
their ass, and his usual akwardness is multiplied by like a million.
I play ok I guess, but I feel like every time I raise preflop Josh
reraises me. I want to catch him trying to resteal from me, but need
an ok hand to do so (since most of his reraises ARE in fact resteals).
I remember little else, other than busting rob out with a miracle
suckout, oh, and the fact that I got knocked out by Wayne when my A-9
went down to his A-8 when two 8s came on the flop. Hell, one would
have been enough. The second 8 was what you call insult to injury.
Wayne said he thought it was a terrible call on my part, but I'd
already watched him push all his chips in with much worse twice
before. I knew I was making a stand when he did that shit to me. My
good read was not rewarded, and to top it all off, I didn't win a
single one of my three last longer bets.
The entire peanut gallery of busted out players seemed to be rooting
against Wayne to win. Why? I don't know for sure. For me, it was
because he busted me out. But for the others, it might be because he
was being a total freak about everything from how we dealt for the
button to how people put their chips in the pot. He was uber-serious
about it all, and oblivious to the fact that it was weird. He went
out on the bubble in third, and gave all his chips to Greg, who was a
huge chip leader over Peter, who was wearing the dumbest pair of
mirrored sunglasses ever. (He says he bought them for reading,
whatever the fuck that means) Greg wins the tournament easily, having
never played no limit holdem in his life, and we all hug him and
celebrate his good fortune then promptly go to play poker. That's
when my all nighter began.
This trip and these trip reports have had very little to do with the
actual WSOP this year. Most years I come out for the entirety of the
final event, but this year we had to come out earlier. And instead of
spending most of my time railbirding the tournament, this year I spent
most of my time playing poker like a fiend. Maybe it makes for a less
interesting report, maybe not. If you want poker gossip, I suggest
Jesse May, he's a good writer.
But stories abound in every poker room about 800 person super
satellites and guys flying in to buy their seats only to find that its
sold out and internet poker site drama. Man, the year of the internet
poker site. The WSOP is now like a convention for internet poker,
with hospitality suites and meet and greets and chochtshkies and
scantily clad women in poker site baby ts and everyone you meet trying
to get you into their fucking affiliate program ponzi scheme pyramid
bullshit with stories about guys making $30k a month signing up
affiliates. Dude, I already have a job. I play poker because its
fun. Don't be fooled into thinking that because poker is fun, that
selling poker door to door will be fun, too. Its not, its just
another job, in fact, its a direct marketing scheme like seeling phone
cards or whatever. Its pathetic, and its everywhere I turn. Soon the
bottom will fall out and somebody will be left holding the bag.
The tournament is probably starting right now. Im going to run over
there to check it out. I know Ive forgot a million good stories. Its
hard to remeber them all, you know. Oh yeah, Rob got involved in a
$350 4-8 pot that he took pictures of at the table and I'll post the
photos. And he made a video of the drunk in my game that said "SWEET"
after every hand no matter who was in or who won. I'll post that up
too. And if I remember anything, I'll tell you about it later.