Continued from Part One...
I stirred at about 10am on Day 2 of the Main Event, a good two hours before play was due to start. That would give me plenty of time to have a shower and some light breakfast before the most important part of my morning - checking out my table draw! As it turned out, my mum and sister had already done that job for me from back home in Scotland. When I phoned home, it was the first thing they asked me. Not, “How are you this morning, David?” or even, “How’s dad?” but “Have you seen who’s at your table?!” in the most excitedtone imaginable.
I knew Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and Gus Hansen had all busted on Day 1. Patrik Antonius was still in, but he and Scotty Nguyen were the only two ‘names’ I could think of that my mum and sister would recognise. I should have known better. They were talking about Westlife singer Brian McFadden. By the time I logged into Facebook, I had a list of five different women looking for his autograph.
Under normal circumstances, I’d have been quite happy to ask Mr. McFadden to sign five different bits of paper, but for now, at least, I was more interested in his chips than his handwriting. I was in seat one and he was on my immediate left in seat two, which I thought was ideal. I was very much in shove or fold more with my 10,950 chips (blinds were 400/800(100)) and felt like he’d probably fold more hands than he ought to against me. Luckily, the only other player I recognised at my starting table was also in my vicinity - Jeremy Joseph was on my immediate right. I recognised him from ESPN’s coverage of the 2008 WSOP Main Event, where he’d had a deep run and was the chip leader for a little while. Thankfully, I’d picked up more than just stats on him and felt that, opposite to Brian, Jeremy was going to call my shoves far too light. This seemed like a pretty good table. The problem was that it was table number 50 of 50 and breaking order today was high to low. I was going to have to be very quick to take advantage of any edge I felt I had.
Before the day’s play kicked off, I logged into Facebook on my phone again to let my virtual ‘rail’ know that we were about to start. That rail included my mum, two sisters, some more relatives and poker-savvy friends from back home. Most of it, though, was made up by members of a poker forum I posted on. ‘PFU’ had bombarded PokerNews. They were so persistent that one of the PokerNews bloggers, ‘F-Train’, tracked me down and put me and my 10,000 chips on the counts page for them. That kept them happy, but they weren’t finished yet. For now, though, they had settled for being quiet and wishing me good luck, with one specific request that I ended the day with 200,000 chips.
On the first hand of the day, I was all in. The button had been allocated to seat eight, which meant I started in the small blind. Action folded to the player in the hijack, who opened for a raise to 2,000. I looked down at sixes and tanked briefly before moving my nicely-sized re-shove stack across the line. After asking for a count, my opponent folded and I was up to 14.5,000. I folded for a revolution before playing my next hand in the small blind. Action folded to me and I shoved on Mr. McFadden with A-4 off-suit, if I remember correctly. He folded, allowing me to maintain my stack.
On the subsequent hand, action folded to me again. I made my first light open on the button and both blinds folded. In the following hand, the same thing happened once more. I opened the cut-off and Brian thought about doing something on the button before laughing and laying his hand down. The blinds gave up too. I’d now made it all the way up to the lofty heights of 18,500 without a showdown. Shame this table was going to break soon!
There was still time to make use of though. I was involved in the next hand too - the fourth consecutive hand I’d played voluntarily. It would become the second key hand of the tournament for me. Action folded to Mr. Joseph and he opened for a standard-sized 2,000. I was in the hijack and looked down at As-Kd. My immediate thought was that I might now have too many chips for him to call a shove. I knew I couldn’t dent his stack – he started the day with 120,000 – but I wanted to make sure I got action. Quickly, I deduced that three-betting small just looked far too strong and slid my chips across the line for the third time in 12 hands. Action folded all the way back around to Jeremy, who shot me a glance and asked for a count. I let the dealer do it for me as I concentrated on praying that he called. Not long after getting an exact figure, he splashed the pot and flipped over A-2 of diamonds.
I was as happy as I was amazed. I knew I’d been active and I knew he’d call me light, but not that light. My concentration promptly switched to inwardly begging the poker gods not to pull a deuce out of the deck. They obliged, with an ace on the turn on an otherwise uneventful board. Incredibly, just 12 hands and under half an hour into the day, I had doubled up twice. I now had somewhere in the region of 40,000 chips and had hit my tournament peak. I was back in this thing.
Before the big blind hit me again, the table was broken and I wished my old tablemates good luck as I headed for the opposite side of the room with 30,000 of their chips. My dad, who had gone to get me a sandwich at the bar, was about to console me when he saw me walking away from the table, but then he noticed the rack in my hands. He gave me a hard pat on the back and some words of encouragement, as dads do in public, and followed me to my new table with my sandwich.
I was moved to table 25, seat 7, where the only person I recognised was the most famous theoretical physicist in poker, Michael Binger in seat 5, who had finished third in the WSOP to Jamie Gold two years prior to this tournament. Oddly, my dad had pointed him out to me on Day 1 (being unsure who he was) after being impressed by his aggression and rapidly increasing stack of chips while railing some other tables, so I at least had some idea that he hadn’t just luckboxed his way to 95,000.
There was one other obvious danger at the table: the Chinese man with a bottle of green tea on my immediate right, who looked like he had about half of all the chips in the room. At least I had position on him. He soon showed why he had so many chips when he tried to three-barrel me off top pair after I’d called his pre-flop raise in position with Q-J off-suit. I went into station mode and gave him some consoling words post-river when he showed me the A-K off-suit that I’d sucked out on. That hand put me somewhere in the region of 50 to 60,000 and from there I was content to switch onto cruise control for a bit and try not to do anything stupid with my newly-acquired stack.
The table changed quite a bit in that time. The short stack on my immediate left was replaced by a very chatty, but friendly Dutchman with lots of chips, and the short stack across the table in seat 2 by a very chatty, but friendly Canadian with lots of chips. But seat 1 was replaced by a very vocally quiet, but intimidating, focused Russian with lots of chips, named Ivan Demidov. In the last three months, he had finished second to Peter Eastgate in the WSOP Main Event and third to John Juanda in the WSOP Europe Main Event for combined winnings of over six million dollars. Two out of three ain’t bad.
By now, news of my chip resurrection had reached the hordes on PokerNews and they were back in the ‘shoutbox’ giving me as much virtual support as it’s possible to give anyone. I wasn’t aware of any of this at the time, of course, but it really hit home to me how active everyone had been when I was informed at the end of the tournament that I was the second most searched-for player of the week on PokerNews - behind Phil Ivey, but ahead of eventual tournament winner Stewart Scott.
My fan base knew that I’d now risen to nearly 90,000 in chips without a showdown at this table, mainly by playing pots with the aforementioned Dutchman and Canadian, and they were buzzing. The people who had money on me were particularly happy, but, most of all, everyone was just pleased to see one of their own going so well and they were making sure everyone knew about it:
Hourus0
2009-01-21
Who is this David Docherty everyone keeps asking about
PFUjeevz
2009-01-21
Who is David Dochery? Who is David Docherty!? He is a living, walking, poker playing God.
PFUsiash69
2009-01-21
Mr Docherty is a dark horse and when he gets a snigg of the finish line there will be no stopping him!! He also easts 3 weetabix for breakfast!!!
PFUsgrl
2009-01-21
“Who is this David Docherty everyone keeps asking about?” The best player you never heard of… until now.
To re-iterate, I had no idea any of this was going on, but they were doing an incredible job of getting my name out there. Going by the timestamps, it wasn’t long after Hourus0 asked who David Docherty was that I sent Michael Binger packing in my third key hand of the tournament. Mr. Binger opened the hijack and I looked down at aces on the button. I put in a standard positional three-bet. I wasn’t expecting him to fold to a kid who looked like he was too young to be in the casino, but I didn’t expect him to put in a four-bet either. When he did, I knew he had a hand. My problem was that I hadn’t put in a single four-bet yet myself today, far less a five-bet. The natural five-bet was a shove, but I didn’t want him making any hero folds on me, so I asked him how much he had left and then called. It was the best I could do in the situation to sell nines tens or jacks to him.
The flop came J-9-3 rainbow, which wasn’t ideal as it filled up two of the hands in my own perceived range, but it didn’t stop Mr. Binger moving the rest of his stack over the line. I snap-called him and he immediately asked if I had jacks while turning over his own kings. He seemed genuinely surprised and disappointed that I had aces, so perhaps I sold it well, or perhaps it was just a complete cooler where the money was going to find its way in regardless. Either way, I had managed to get a ton of chips in the middle against a name pro with way the best of it and I only had two cards to dodge. The 2d and 6c were safe and Mr. Binger wished me good luck as I stacked up 160,000 chips. With the average still below 100,000, I was now in serious contention. Half an hour later, I headed back to my hotel room on dinner break with a huge grin on my face.
When I returned to the poker room at around 8.15pm local time, Roger Federer was on the big screen behind table 50 where I had started my resurgence. It struck me then just how far I’d come today, because I had expected to be watching him in the stadium by now. I sat back in seat 7 at table 25 and noticed a new face had joined us at dinner – Antonio Casale in seat 4. Like Jeremy Joseph, I knew a fair bit about him from my late night PokerTube sessions. He had final-tabled this very tournament the previous year. He was probably the oldest player in the room, but he could play.
I wasn’t sure how to take Mr. Casale at first. He seemed to pick me out as the table target, making a few subtle remarks about my boyish good looks and getting involved with me often. I donated some chips to him in the early going. But then Will Zemljaric – the friendly, chatty Canadian – warned Mr. Casale that I was pretty good and that he should stop messing with me if he wanted to hang onto his stack. That was a nice, unexpected little ego-booster for me and absolutely brilliant for my table image.
If Mr. Casale had any doubts about what Mr. Zemljaric had told him, I didn’t waste too much time in trying to give him some proof when my fourth key hand of the tournament developed. Antonio put in a raise to 4,800 under the gun (at 800/1,600(200)) and I called in mid position with pocket tens. The action folded to Ivan Demidov on the button who stalled, then announced a raise. He took a long, long time, but eventually settled on 14,400. The blinds quickly passed but Antonio looked pained. He took ages to fold but gave me a nod and then let his hand go, as though he hoped I’d been trapping with my preflop flat call. I asked Mr. Demidov for a count – he had 52,000 back. I was pained myself. I knew Ivan could three-bet wide here but it seemed like if I four-bet jammed I’d only ever be in bad shape when the cards were flipped. I had to have the best hand a good chunk of the time though, so I couldn’t imagine folding. In the end, I decided to take a flop out of position with my pocket tens against a world class player and check it no matter what came, and then decide from there what to do.
The flop was J-8-5 rainbow. I checked and didn’t really know if I liked it or not. It looked like I might have to commit from here but I still wasn’t confident. Then Ivan overbet the pot and all my doubts left me. He put 42,000 into the 36,000 pot, bizarrely leaving himself 9,000 back and I knew instantly that I was good. I didn’t rush into it, but I put him all in and he called with A-Q of diamonds. He wasn’t light preflop after all and probably would have called a shove, but my line hadn’t worked out too badly. I then had the longest sweat of my life to date. Demidov was one of the biggest names left in the room at the time, so having him all in and behind for his tournament life was pretty big news. Players from other tables gathered, the floor man headed over with his microphone to announce the turn and river to the railbirds and a TV crew stuck a camera in my face. It was all pretty surreal.
After what must have been at least five minutes, the dealer burned and turned a 3c on the turn, killing his backdoor straight and diamond draws. Now would have been a really good time for Antonio to tell me that he’d folded pocket queens, but he waited until the end of the day instead. The river was the 9s and I gave a little fist-pump for the cameras as I sent my second name-pro of the day out the door. Ivan shook my hand and wished me good luck before heading for the queue of reporters eager to interview him. F-Train teased my virtual railbirds before he posted news of the hand on PokerNews, telling them that they should, “Prepare to go crazy.” Saying they did just that would be an understatement. I now had a quarter of a million chips. What a day.
As we headed into the final level, our extremely friendly table broke and I headed for table Joe Hachem, which was packed to the rafters with railbirds, him being the local hero and all. I was in the 4 seat, with Joe in seat 6. Unfortunately, the 5 seat didn’t have the best hygiene in the world, so I faced the guy in seat 3 for the rest of the night rather than striking up a conversation with Mr. Hachem. It didn’t take me too long to get involved and land another sizeable pot when Raj Ramakrishnan – the only person in the room with more chips than me at that point – decided to three-barrel my flopped set of fours. I don’t mind admitting that I was exponentially bricking myself with every barrel he fired. I’d had enough of oversized pots today.
With three hands of play left, I had eclipsed 300,000, but I wasn’t finished yet. Action folded to me in the cut-off and I looked down at A-K of diamonds and raised. Joe Hachem called on the button and I instantly wished he’d folded. I was rather enjoying knocking out famous poker players, but I didn’t want to be the most hated guy in the Crown Poker Room. I c-bet on a low flop and then checked it down when Mr. Hachem called. He announced A-Q of spades but didn’t show when I flipped over my hand. I got involved in the penultimate hand too. I forget what I had, but I remember three-betting a player on my right who looked even younger than I did.
At the end of Day 2, I needed two bags to store my chips in and the dealer to help me bag them. I had 362,000. Only three others in the tournament had more than that. If Carlsberg did Day 2s, they’d turn out like this one. Absolutely nothing went wrong.
My rail was absolutely ecstatic. They knew that I knew how to close out tournaments - live $10,000 events or not - when I had a chip lead, and if I could do it, I wouldn’t only win myself two million dollars, but I’d win each of them anything between £300 and £150,000. F-Train was pretty happy too. Running around a packed poker room looking for various names and chip counts can, I’d imagine, be a thankless task. But he had enjoyed keeping tabs on me today so much that he wrote a blog about it himself, which is still on his site:
That blew me away when I first read it, but unfortunately I was back home in Scotland at the time and didn’t get a chance to thank him personally for his efforts. I had no clue how busy PFU were keeping him while I was playing or I’d have done it while I was over there!
After the close of play, I returned to my hotel room and called home. I could almost hear my mum grinning at the other end of the phone she was so happy. She told me again about how crazy the PokerNews rail had been and about all the coverage I’d received, but I reminded her that there was still a long way to go. There were 85 players left in the field and 64 of them would be paid. With my stack size, I was all but guaranteed $15,000. But I only had my eyes on one prize now.
Read Part Three...