The first WSOP tournament I ever played was a $1,500 freezeout. Back then, it really was a donkament as you only received 1,500 chips. Since the introduction of triple stacks last year, these tournaments have become a lot more playable and people are starting to realise that they're actually better value than most deep stacks.
For a start, the standard is drastically weaker as amateurs are attracted to bracelets like magpies to milk bottle tops. Secondly, although deep stack events start off well, they turn into crapshoots when the money arrives, and I'm sure if you surveyed the pros, most of them would say that they'd rather play an event where you either go out early or reach the money quickly with a good structure. After all, time is money. Finally, if you go out within the opening levels, you can enter the 5pm event, and even if you don't fancy that, half the Pavillion Room is buzzing with cash games filled with disgruntled/tilted tournament casualties.
One thing that I don't understand about bracelet events is that if you are late, they blind you off, but it you register late, you receive a full stack. This means that two people can arrive at the same time but receive different stacks. How can punishing the player who registered the week before possibly make any sense? To be honest, turning up late at all doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Unlike the $1,500, the $1,000 events have a 25-25 level, which I think is a great opportunity to play a lot of hands and take advantage of the passive play without putting your stack at risk. I got up to 6,500 during this level without an all-in showdown. Perhaps I was just lucky with my table draw, as on the table directly behind were Michael Mizrachi and Antoine Saout.
There was an elderly lady on my starting table who had a bracelet, but she was evasive when asked about it. I raised her blind once and she pointed to the bracelet and warned, "Think! Think!" On another occasion, she said, "I want to be like you when I'm older." I don't jump to conclusions. Last year I sat next to someone wearing a bracelet, only to learn that he buys and sells them for a profit. I never thought trading bracelets could be a profession, but then again, it was only recently that TJ Cloutier sold his on ebay in order to fund a craps addiction. He can't be the only one.
I didn't want to move tables, but it was inevitable. I was at one of the back tables, and they collapse like dominos. Neil urged me to play Day 1B "because the field will be weaker as all the Internet kids will be online playing the big Sunday tournaments". When I assessed my new table, there were a plethora of 20-somethings, all performing chip tricks and talking the lingo with each other. After a while, one of them asked the other why he wasn't playing the big Sunday tournaments. "I thought the field would be weaker as all the good players will be playing online," came the reply. "Me too," said the other guy. "Yeah, I thought that as well," confessed another.
One genuine benefit of playing Day 1B is that it feels like you're doing better than you actually are because the scoreboard displays all exits. At the start of the day when it says 1,500 out of 3,000 remaining, it already feels like you've sliced through half the field without even playing a hand! It's a great morale booster. As dinner came and went, it felt as though the money was nearing. Then someone would ruin it all by reminding me of the 250 who survived the day before.
The Devil wasn't the only unique sight at my table. I've never played a paraplegic player before. He was like Superman, tilted back in a stiff position with his hands on the arm rests. Now and again his body would have some kind of fit and a young asian girl would hold him down until he stopped shaking. She also played his hands. She spent most of day looking bored, but when the play was on him, she'd lift the cards up and he'd tell her what to do. Part of me prayed that he was just the laziest person in the world, but I'm pretty sure he was genuinely paralyzed from the neck down. Having said that, at one point, he received a professional massage and seemed to be really enjoying it. I still haven't worked that one out. How can a paraplegic enjoy a massage? I almost wanted to whack his legs with a cane like that Steve Martin movie just to make sure.
He had this transparent tube by his mouth. It was like something out of a Coen Brothers' movie. At first, I thought the tube was for drinking, like one of those beer hats that Brits wear in Kavos, but I later learned that he uses it to drive his mobility vehicle. This one tube. I thought it was incredible, but had no idea how it worked. How do you differ from left and right? And do you suck to reverse? It obviously wasn't easy, as when he returned from a break, he had trouble getting into position, and it was a little like Austin Powers doing a 100-point turn. Still, it reminded me of the beauty of poker. So many different people brought together to play this one silly game, whatever their sex, race or physical capabilities. It did reaffirm in my mind though that poker really wasn't a sport.
In general, the players as my table seemed to be taking things very seriously - it was like it was the World Series or something! Most of the table were wearing sunglasses and I felt like I was playing eight blind men. I was pretty determined to make the end of the day having failed on four attempts but after a few pots went awry, I found myself grinding for most of the day. I ducked and dived as best I could, but with 30 minutes left on the clock, I departed on a coinflip for a 40 big blind pot. I was pretty disappointed as I felt I'd played well and had a great shot of making the money if I'd won my final hand. For some reason, I quite fancy having a WSOP stamp on my Hendon Mob database. As for the bracelet, I won't lie, it has an alluring power.
One good thing to come from what was, essentially, a fruitless day of grinding, was that I ended a streak that has been burdening me for almost two years. Ever since the DTD Deepstack festival in 2008, I haven't doubled up in a live tournament. Whatever hand I had, if I was all in, I'd lose. I'm not really one to moan about luck, but after two years it starts to become rather frustrating. Thankfully, this finally came to an end when I doubled up to 3,500 halfway through the day with A-K holding up against A-Q. Hopefully, that will start a new streak, and that whenever I'm all in now, I win, which actually means I'll win every tournament. Just the one would be nice.
Previous Blog Entries:
May 23: My Old School Teacher
May 31: Welcome to America; Let the Institutionalising Begin
June 1: Pleasure & Pain
June 5: 100% British Beef
June 9: Alphabetti Spaghetti & Giant Meatballs
June 13: Colour Me Up
June 14: The Crying Game
June 20: Last Gasps
June 25: Dancing With the Devil
WSOP Reports:
Employee of the Month
Fairytale Endings
Must Be Nice
Make Mine a Double
Blonde on Blonde
Summer of Sam
Chuft to Bits
Under the Radar
Taking Notice
Sites/blogs I read:
blonde Poker 'Feed Your Wild Side' Thread
Hard Boiled Poker
Pokerati
Pot Committed
Riding the F Train
Tao of Poker
Wicked Chops Poker
Sites/blogs I would read if they weren't in a foreign language:
Las Vegas, Off the Record