One of my biggest weaknesses at this year's WSOP was my willingness to call somewhat light with value against an opponent who is repeatedly aggressive with a weak range. What I did to combat this in the hand described was to show aggression when there were scare cards to my hand that was so strong pre flop. Not saying this was right, simply describing the hand as I played it. Your point is well taken.

In all honesty, my thinking was that the way to respond to a player who loves to put you to the test with light holdings was to be even more aggressive than they are. Once there was a scare card, I didn't think let's let him do the betting for me and call it down. This was a leak in my game at the 2024 WSOP.

I think you are referencing the hand played in post #479. If so, yes I played that poorly. I was just coming off of something of a bad beat, and, really for the only time at the WSOP, I let my emotions get the better of me and I just jammed it all in with A-K. There is no argument I can make in my defense. My line was completely wrong.

2024 WSOP: June 6, 1:00 p.m. $250 Daily Deepstack (Part 9 of 12)
Someone’sGrandma slows down the Fedor train … Someone’sGrandma proudly handles the color up … My focus worsens, I make a mistake and get bailed out by the flop … Fedor goes card dead, runs low on chips and gets bounced from the tourney

Level 8

600/1,200/1,200

Finally, some air conditioning. What were they waiting for?

The Fedor train finally goes off the rails. He has been pushing most of the table around extremely successfully. Then he crashes and burns when Someone’sGrandma has 5-5, flops a set and then turns a full house. Fedor loses a whole bunch of his stack this hand and is down to around 15,000 chips.

I get no playable cards this level, and the blinds eat away at my chips.

Someone’sGrandma is the table chip leader and is in charge of the color up. Everyone trades their 100 chips to her for bigger chips. Someone’sGrandma later says proudly, “I’ve never done the color up before.”

End of level 8: 37,500 chips.

We go on break. The surge of adrenaline from my pep talk to myself has come and gone. I am feeling so low on energy. I snack on some peanut butter pretzel bites in hopes that it will be a pick-me-up. I mentally urge myself not to punt away my chips in light of how out of it I feel. I vow to fight on. It is announced that the neighboring seniors tournament has reached the money. A cheer goes up.

Level 9

1,000/1,500/1,500

My focus is crashing, and I make a mistake. I am dealt J-Q suited and I open the betting to 2,500. I thought the big blind was 1,000 but that is the amount of the small blind. The big blind is 1,500. I have not made a legal raise. I am just allowed to call. The small and big blind come along. The flop sort of bails me out. It comes 9-10-x. I have flopped an open-ended straight draw. I bet and win the pot.

Fedor has obviously gone completely card dead. He is low on chips, and it is clear he desperately wants to get it in, but he is not getting any hands. He is wearing his frustration on his sleeve. He is no longer the confident force of nature he was earlier in the tournament. Down to 7,000 chips, he gets it in bad against Sooners but he sucks out and stays alive.

Soon thereafter it is Sooners versus Fedor II. Sooners has 5-5. Fedor has A-K. The flop brings a 5, and Fedor is out of the tournament.

I am dealt 8-8 in the small blind. I have something like 25 big blinds. Two people have already limped. Do I try to blow them off their hands? It seems like I have way too many big blinds remaining to try such a high risk move. I decide to just call and try to set mine. The big blind comes along and four of us see a flop, which is 3-6-Q. There is a bet, and I just fold. Should I have jammed pre flop? I am too mentally fatigued to try to remember my push fold charts. In reality, I have too many big blinds to consider an all-in bet. However, a healthy pre-flop raise was probably the right move, but I am not thinking straight and I never even considered that option.

End of level 9: 35,000 chips.

2024 WSOP: June 6, 1:00 p.m. $250 Daily Deepstack (Part 10 of 12)
An avalanche of unplayable cards … folding my way to oblivion … I make a totally brain-dead decision

Level 10

1,000/2,000/2,000

I still have over 17 big blinds. I tell myself I can still be patient. My patience is tested because I do not get dealt a single pair, ace, paint of any kind, suited connector, suited one gappers, etc. I get dealt an avalanche of unplayable cards.

I master the art of folding.

End of level 10: 25,000 chips.

Level 11

1,500/3,000/3,000

If this were deuce to seven triple draw, I would have been printing money this level.

2-7, 3-6, 4-7, 2-6, 3-7. Just a tsunami of the worst starting hands in no-limit hold ’em. I have no choice but to keep folding. I get one piece of paint during the entire level. Q-4 off suit in a hand where there is an UTG bet and UTG+1 raise. I continue to fold my way to oblivion.

And then it happens. Remember a couple of previous A-9 hands of mine this tournament where I wrote that this specific hand will eventually become very important? Well, we’ve reached that point in the story.

I am dealt A-9. It is the moment where rppoker goes completely brain dead. I have 17,500 chips left. Just under six big blinds. This is the best hand I have had in eons. I need to get it in. I am prepared to get it in. Especially when NYC goes all-in with a short stack after a moment earlier donking off a ton of chips in an ill-fated bluff gone haywire. I know I am ahead of his range, which might be any two cards. Then, however, the player next to me with a healthy stack goes all-in. RelativelyNewGuy doesn’t have a nickname because I am running on fumes and have stopped issuing nicknames to new players. This is the first hand he has played since joining the table a level or two ago.

So now my thinking is that while NYC doesn’t scare me, this additional all-in may have me crushed with an ace and a better kicker. This may make sense in an earlier stage of the tournament when I have a bunch of chips, but it is flawed thinking given my deteriorating chip stack. I can’t afford to wait until I know I am almost certainly ahead of everyone’s range. I have to risk not being sure-thing ahead because this is the best hand I’ve had in a long, long, long time, the blinds are about to decimate me, and, if I win the hand, I will have a playable stack. If I lose, so be it.

Instead, I go into autopilot mode where A-9 is something you fold to two shoves ahead of you when you have plenty of chips.

As I am pushing my cards into the muck, it is an out-of-body experience in which I hear screaming from the furthest reaches of my brain, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DON’T FOLD!! MAKE THE DAMN CALL!!!!!!”

I fold. I immediately know I have screwed up. I feel even worse when I see the other two players’ holdings. NYC has 3-5 suited. RelativelyNewGuy has K-9. I would have been ahead. I am a complete F%#*-ing moron. But wait, it gets worse. There is an ace on the flop. But wait, it gets even worse. There is another ace on the turn. I would have tripled up to around 50,000 chips. Almost 17 big blinds.

After folding, I’m still alive. But just barely. It’s just a formality now. Someone should perform last rites on me. I can see my future and it says, “Cause of death: Stupidity.”

I have committed poker malpractice. I don’t belong at a poker table. I don’t deserve to be at a poker table. Someone please put me out of my misery.

End of level 11: 17,500 chips

Totally feel the struggle -- I think the heat in the Normandy Room (it was like that the week after, too) probably contributed to the wall. Hope you keep powering through despite the bit of foreshadowing about your holdings...

Here's my unsolicited poker advice, because, I suspect like many readers, I'm invested in your success and building upon your cash for next year: Focus on playing a short-stack, 20bbs and less. There's a ton of play there beyond push-fold charts. The AK hand you acknowledge was bad, but I also think the TT jam in early position was just as problematic. The results of running into AA are irrelevant -- you're gonna call off anyway when that happens. But the problem with jamming there is you let your opponents play perfectly -- calling when you are behind or at best flipping, and folding out worse hands. When you open 2bbs with your whole range, you will get people jamming A5s and worse pairs to try to make you fold, giving you a great chance be way ahead with TT and double up instead of just taking the blinds. Think about the guy who folded 88 to your AK jam -- that's a disaster when you do have a bigger pair.

Also, I think the A9o fold was fine. Don't worry about the results. If he turns over ATo instead of K9 (suited?) it shouldn't affect whether the decision was correct or not.

Just my two cents from a reader and fan of this highly entertaining and detailed report.

Hi Pucks, thanks for the advice. I will eventually have a post listing the areas of my game that I recognize need work after playing in the 2024 WSOP. It's a long (and probably incomplete) list.

2024 WSOP: June 6, 1:00 p.m. $250 Daily Deepstack (Part 11 of 12)
All-in with two lousy but both live and suited cards

Level 12

2,000/4,000/4,000

I only have 17,500 chips. The blinds are coming my way and will pretty much decimate me. I have to get it in, at worst when I am in the big blind, in order to have something barely workable if by some miracle I win my all-in.

Two hands from me being in the big blind, I look down at 2c-8s. I fold.

One hand from the big blind, I look down at 2h-7c. Seriously? I fold.

I am in the big blind. I pretty much need to get it in with any two cards. Sooners bets. I look at my cards. Indeed, I have "any two cards." I put the last of my chips in.

Sooners says, “You caught me.” She has Q-9 off suit.

I say, “No I didn’t.” I turn over 6c-10c. Hey, it’s suited. And both my cards are live. On the flop, Sooners pairs her queen. But on the turn, I have a flush draw. I have nine outs to the flush. What an injustice it would be if I get there. The river comes and …

… I don’t get there. I am out of the tournament. I get up from the table, and I head out. On the one hand, busting out of a tournament is never good. On the other hand, I feel kind of relieved. I have not felt like playing most of today’s tournament, even when I was running hotter than the sun early on.

2024 WSOP: June 6, 1:00 p.m. $250 Daily Deepstack (Part 12 of 12)
My mind and my body are telling me they have had enough … I wander around in a fog and unexpectedly run into PinkyRing on the rail of a high roller WSOP tournament in the Paris poker ballroom

What I do next is both familiar and foreign. I start to wander between the Horseshoe and the Paris. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. In a fog.

It is familiar, because this is what I would do at the 2019 WSOP when I suffered bad beat after bad beat, feeling gutted, trying to have it all make sense.

It is foreign, because in this 2024 WSOP I have taken bad beats like a champion. I have taken disappointment with a grain of salt. Not so today, although what I am feeling has nothing to do with a bad beat or disappointment. It feels like something I experienced in college when I was playing on my school’s ultimate frisbee team. During one spring break, nine of us drove down to Florida where we barnstormed through the state playing something like nine different college opponents in seven days in the southern heat with only enough players to have lonely two substitutes on our sideline. Then we drove back, stopping part-way home where we rejoined the rest of our team in Ohio for a tournament. It was very, very cold in Ohio and all of us who had been in sun-drenched Florida lasted no more than half of the first game before our bodies started to break down (the muscles in my legs completely locking up/cramping up) and the Florida nine had to give it up and let the rest of the team finish out the Ohio tourney. That is what I think I experienced today physically and mentally.

All of my wandering brought me to the Paris ballroom on the rail of a high roller tournament not really paying attention. In a mental fog. Then I noticed I was standing next to PinkyRing from today’s tournament. We started chatting.

Then PinkyRing asked me what I had in the big hand we had against each other in which the flop was 3-4-8 and he folded because he thought I had kings. I said, “I was just pushing you around. I had jacks. What did you have?” PinkyRing says he had 8-10 for top pair. He seems relieved that he folded the inferior hand.

PinkyRing is frustrated. He says every time he has a strong hand he loses, and the only time he wins is when he plays rags and he flops big. He says, “You are a good player. Do you have any advice?”

I say I’m not sure I’m that good of a player. But he asked for advice so … I say playing bad cards and hoping to flop big with any frequency seems like a recipe for disaster over the long haul. I talk about how much more aggressive players are today. PinkyRing eagerly agrees with this. I say, “I think you have to do the opposite of what the table is doing. If it is overly aggressive tighten up. If it is overly passive, you have to loosen up and play more aggressive. The problem with this is, I never really played at a table since I’ve been here that was too passive. There are a lot of aggressive players these days.”

I sense that PinkyRing is disappointed I don’t have a better answer, a magic elixir to help him solve the WSOP conundrum. We are just a couple of glassy-eyed guys engaged in the futile effort of trying to decipher the WSOP code. A couple of guys searching for answers we will not find on this day. I tell PinkyRing that I am worn out and I am going to head back to my hotel. We fist bump, and knowing from conversation at the poker table that I have one more day left in Las Vegas he asks, “Are you going to play in tomorrow’s Daily Deepstack?”

I respond glumly, “I don’t think so. I think I’m done.”

The truth is, I don’t just think I’m done. I know I’m done.

I have given it my all at the WSOP. I don’t have anything else left to give.

I'm flying back in for the high roller seniors on Wednesday. Are you playing?

No, I won't be playing in that for four reasons:

1) From the beginning I said I was not going to play in seniors events because I wanted to do battle with the young guns to get the full WSOP experience and to challenge myself to the fullest. I don't see anything wrong with seniors events, it just didn't fit my agenda. I hope you run well in it.

2) As my last post concluded, "I have given it my all at the WSOP. I don’t have anything else left to give." I'm done for the 2024 WSOP.

3) The date of that high roller seniors tournament conflicts with the birthday plans of Mrs. rppoker. That's really poor game selection from a marital perspective.

4) A $5,000 buy-in does not fit my poker roadmap. I preferred to play in $500-$1,000 buy-ins so I could play in as many events as possible given my poker bankroll. In 2019, I think $1,500 was the most expensive buy-in I played. In both 2019 and 2024, I wanted as much volume as possible for my bankroll.

2024 WSOP: June 6, later that night
Las Vegas hands out one last bad beat to me

I work on typing up my rough draft of today’s tournament shipwreck for my 2+2 trip report. After a while I am hungry. I decide to take a walk over to the MGM Grand, which is the sister property to my hotel the Signature. Despite the fact that I am still feeling some weakness in my leg which has bothered me all trip, there is a moving walkway that connects the two properties.

My intended destination is Emeril’s New Orleans Fish House named after renowned chef Emeril Lagasse. I am sure it has something worthwhile for dinner. The main reason I am making the trek, though, is dessert. I have heard great things about the banana cream pie they serve. I love banana cream pie.

As I take the moving walkway just a little before 10:00 p.m., I see a sign promoting the MGM Grand’s Summer Poker Festival. I could not be less interested. I could not be less tempted. The only thing that I desire at the MGM is Emeril’s banana cream pie.

I get to Emeril’s. There is a sign.

It says, “Sorry, We’re Closed.”

I’m ready to go home.

Hey, it only took post #512 for me to figure out how to add an avatar.

I take both points. I think the critical factor is position. If he's betting OOP, let him. If you're OOP, bet aggressively (for value), until maybe the river, then ck-call. Not that I'm a master at any of this, but this position-dependent line seems to work well for me.

2024 WSOP: June 7, my final full day in Las Vegas (part 1 of 2)
107 degrees outside … I get my piece of banana cream pie


My last day in Las Vegas. I was going to make it a pool day, but it’s 107 degrees outside. My hotel window view is of two of the property’s swimming pools. People are actually in the pools and/or laying out by the pools. These people are insane!

Do I actually go play in the Daily Deepstack?



I am reminded of the famous poker story from 1949 when Nick the Greek and Johnny Moss played in a public, five-months-long poker duel for millions of dollars. The battle finally concluded when Nick the Greek conceded defeat by saying, “Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.”

So, do I play in the Daily Deepstack today? I do not.

WSOP, I have to let you go.

Instead, I finally get my piece of banana cream pie at Emeril’s. It is huge and it is very tasty. Worth the effort. Worth the wait. 10/10.



I’ve got the day to figure out what to do. By phone, Mrs. rppoker suggests I go to a show. I’m not goin’ to no stinkin’ show. Instead, I embark on an interesting poker study …