I wrote a short series for bluff magazine awhile back. As they only published the first 2 articles, I thought I'd post the full series here so everyone can read the whole thing.
Let me know what you think of it, and if you have any questions!
A PROspective
“In the Hunt for 6-figures and a Bracelet”
Note: This is the first part of a multi-part series on my summer at the WSOP and closely chronicles my deep run in the $3,000 buy-in NLHE event. Hand information may be slightly inaccurately depicted due to my faulty memory.
The best time of the year is over, the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) has finally come to a close. By the time this is published most of the aches and pains from a brutally awesome, or painful, summer have mostly healed and everyone is already looking forward to replenishing their bankrolls for the next one.
I happen to be one of the fortunate few to be able to have a fatter wallet than when the summer started, and was also lucky enough to achieve a career goal of mine. It was all possible thanks to a mix of good timing, good luck, and good play.
Keep reading and you'll get a first hand account of a whirlwind 3 days I had, insight into major decisions I had to make, and my thoughts and feelings over the course of those days.
Day 1: June 16th
“A Long Morning”
The start to my day could not have been worse, I had seen my doctor that morning and heard very bad news on my health. It was the kind of thing that can only be either very good for your game or, more likely, very bad. I was kind of in a shocked state of mind after hearing it and I had considered not playing because of it, but didn't know how I'd stay sane if I just sat at home.
The kind of mindset it put me in was a very interesting one, as it essentially ensured that I would play fearlessly to the point of almost carelessness, but as I was very aware of this I made sure to keep my inner demons at bay and to not pull the trigger at every opportunity.
Knowing the kind of mindset that I'm in will help to some degree understand the thought process I had going into hands throughout the course of the tournament. That being said, if I was in a normal mindset, I likely would have had many of these hands occur the same way anyways.
Hand 1: “5-bet folding vs Martin Finger”
For those of you who don't know, Martin Finger is a German Wunderkind. He is a young phenom with an already impressive resume and plays poker at a incredibly high level. At the time the hand occurred we had been discussing regularly about poker and life and were having an enjoyable time. He had late registered, and our table draw was one of the more difficult ones, so both of us were playing in a very aggressive manner leading up to this.
Table Info: 9 handed, the blinds are 150 – 300 with a 25 ante. Martin and I are in low-jack and high-jack. We are playing 14k effective, he has me covered. I have Q9 off-suit.
Action: It folds to Martin, he opens to 800.
My thoughts: Based on how the button and blinds were playing and stack sizes, I believed that he would be playing a wide range of hands from this position. Because of this I thought that it would be a great place to attack his open. As my hand strength is fairly weak and doesn't flop the best my only options are to re-raise, or to fold.
Action: I re-raise to 2050
Action: Folds around to Martin, who raises to 4500
My Thoughts: While his raise should be concerning, it doesn't necessarily mean that he has a very strong hand. Whether he is apt to be very strong here or not, will come down to how he perceives my re-raise. If he thinks I will only do it with strong hands, then I should fold to his raise unless I have QQ+/AK. But as I instead believe that he will view my raise as being capable with a very wide range of hands, and thus will attack it with aggression with the worse hands he may have, it should be a good spot to re-bluff him. Also, while I may be putting in nearly 40% of my stack, I must fold to a shove due to how little equity my hand will have versus the range I expect him to shove.
Action: I raise to 5875
Result: Martin shoves, I fold.
My Thoughts: While I lost around 40% of my stack on this play, it doesn't mean that it was a bad play. It may have been, my perception of the situation may have been wrong, or he may have just had the top of his range.
End Hand
45min or so after the above hand, Martin busted in a blaze of glory. He spun up a fairly large stack, then spun out just as quickly. Not long after he busted, he was replaced by a good online American professional named Bryan Piccioli.
We hadn't seen each other in awhile, since the last WSOP, we had met in Cabo around 1.5 years previously and had both been there for the online grind. Because of this, and because of playing similar tournaments online, we had a lot of previous history.
Hand 2: “My Recklessness Gets Rewarded Against Bryan Piccioli”
Table Info: 9 handed, the blinds are 200-400 with a 50 ante. Bryan is the button and I am in the small blind. We started the hand with around 13.5k effective, Bryan has me covered significantly. I have Ah8s.
Action: Folds to Bryan on the button, he min raises to 800.
My Thoughts: He will be playing a very wide range of hands from the button with this large effective of a stack. While I have a hand that is ahead of his raising range, it doesn't play very well out of position. Because of this, and due to how shallow we are, I can comfortably re-raise with intention of stacking off pre-flop as a shove (5-bet jamming) if he plays back at me. I also expect to get enough folds to make the raise profitable out-right. While I expect to get called pre-flop often, even when I make it a reasonably large size, I don't mind due to how shallow we are playing.
Action: I re-raise to 2,150. Bryan Calls.
Flop: 9h7s4c
Action: I bet 1575, Bryan Calls.
My Thoughts: While we do not hit a hand on this flop, this is actually a fairly good flop for us as much of the range of hands Bryan will flat pre-flop do not hit this board either. Because of this we can reasonably expect to have the best hand and be ahead of his range. I bet small to get as much of his range as possible to continue vs me, and intended to shove vs a raise, and to either check shove turn, or to bet turn and stack off depending on what it was, could also fold turn as well on bad cards.
Turn: 5h
Action: I bet 4,500, Bryan Shoves for 5500 more. I call.
My Thoughts: I bet turn large to get as much of his range to fold as possible. That being said, I knew that when I bet large that I would have to stack off due to the pot odds I would be getting (4.5-1 or so, and believed that I would have around 17-23% equity versus his range), thus while I called his shove, I wasn't very thrilled about doing so. I believe that betting a bit smaller and folding to his shove would have been better, due to how rarely people will re-bluff in this kind of spot.
Result: I show my A8, he shows 10h8h, the river is a brick and I very fortunately win with A high.
End Hand
This hand vaulted my stack and spirits back up. The rest of the night went smoothly, and with a level to go in the night I flopped a straight with a straight flush draw to go with and got it in for a clean double. This gave me the kind of stack needed to muscle my way through a tough day 2.
"Day 2 of the Hunt for 6-Figures and a Bracelet"
Note: This is the 2nd part of a multi-part series on my summer at the WSOP and closely chronicles my deep run in the $3,000 buy-in NLHE event. Hand information may be slightly inaccurately depicted due to my faulty memory.
No matter how perfectly you play, you need to get incredibly lucky in multiple ways in order to cash a poker tournament. I don't just mean by sucking out on someone, nor holding in important all ins, but also in how cards are dealt to you, and what kind of cooler situations you have for or against you (many other ways to be lucky as well).
Thus, any time you are fortunate enough to final table a tournament, or to even min-cash in one, you should be happy you ran good enough to do so. Because of this, you should only ever focus on whether or not you made the best decisions you could, based on the information you had, over the course of the game.
If you do this, you will be better equipped to emotionally handle the swings of this brutal game known as tournament poker.
Day 2: June 17th
"Determined and Focused"
Day 2 started off very well for me, I had managed to get enough sleep and my day 2 draw happened to include 2 friends of mine, both of whom had great summers up to this point. Thus I was in high spirits and ready to play my A game.
Not long into the start of the day it was very nearly over at the hands of one of my friends. We had the classic cooler, my KK and his AA in a pot for a near chiplead stack close to the money bubble. We got it all in pre, and I managed to get there in a sick manner. This vaulted me near the top of the leaderboard and gave me a stack with which I could punish the bubble.
After the bubble burst, my table got broken and I was moved to a table that had Dan O'Brien, Barny Boatman and a bunch of other professionals on it. They were all having a great time and it was the kind of fun, sociable, table draw that makes me love the world series.
Hand 1: "Min Cold 4-betting 9-4 vs Dan and Barny"
The saying that goes "There's a fine line between genius and insanity" I feel best describes this hand.
Dan is a highstakes professional, at this point he had a massive tower of chips and was using it like a sledgehammer the hour or so I was at the table. He was opening wide from most positions and running the table over. Barny had been playing fairly snug, however I knew at the time that he was one of the founding members of the Hendon Mob and had been playing poker for longer than I had been alive. I also was aware that Barny was a very capable player and had a reputation for playing aggressively as needed.
Table Info: 9 handed, the blinds are 1,500 – 3,000 with a 400 ante. Dan is UTG, Barny is UTG+2, and I am on the button. Dan has over 300k, Barny has around 70k, I have over 150k. I have 4-9 off suit.
Action: Dan opens UTG to 7,000. UTG+1 folds.
Action: Barny 3-bets (re-raises) to 15,000 and it folds to me on the button.
My Thoughts: With how Dan was playing, I knew he would be opening a relatively wide range of hands, I was also confident that Barny was aware of this fact and would punish it when he was able to.
While at the surface this may not seem like a situation in which Barny will attack wide, if you consider how it will look to everyone else when he raises here it becomes very clear that this is one of the better situations for Barny to attack Dan with a wide re-raise.
Because of this, I felt confidently that I could cold 4-bet (re-re-raise as a new player) bluff here and that my hand strength didn't matter much as I was not going to call a jam from him, also I expected him to fold a large percentage of flops when he did call my raise. (Even a hand like 78s only flops equity around 25% of the time)
I also was confident that my sizing could be the minimum and that it would be best. The reasoning being 2-fold, firstly that if I sized it large enough to get most of his hands that flopped well to fold that I would run the risk of pricing myself out of the profitable bluff. Secondly, I didn't need to try to get those hands to fold, as they would so rarely flop well enough to justify continuing versus the incredibly strong range that my raise would be representing.
Action: I 4-bet to 23,000, it folds to Dan who angrily mucks. Barny quickly calls the 8,000 more.
Flop: Jh2s3c
Action: Barny checks, I continuation bet 14,000 into a pot of 68,000 and Barny folds.
My Thoughts: This is the best possible flop for me as very few of his hands hit this board to any degree, becuase of this I can c-bet a very small sizing and it will have a lot of fold equity.
Whether this hand was great spew or great play is a matter of perspective, what do you think?
End Hand
Having this hand work well, and knowing how good my reads were on the table, boosted my confidence in my play for the day and the rest of the tournament. This hand also gave me a great image for the table, as I showed the bluff, and as it was reported on it helped my image the rest of the tournament also.
Unfortunately for me though, not long after this hand occured, my table was broken once again and I got moved to my last table of the night. The new table draw had a few familiar faces once again, most notably seated 2 to my left was Anthony Spinella.
Anthony is a very affable, fun, and friendly person at and away from the table. He is also an incredibly skilled player, has over 2.5m in online earnings, and plays very agressively.
Hand 2: "Trust Your Instincts"
Table Info: 9 handed, the blinds are 2,500 – 5000 with a 500 ante. Anthony is UTG+1 and I am the big blind. He started the hand with over 500k, and I started the hand with around 250k. I have 9-10o.
Action: UTG folds, Anthony raises to 10,000. Rest of the table folds to me in the big blind.
My Thoughts: Anothny has a massive stack at this point and will be playing an even wider range than his already large selection of hands he likes to play. Between that, and the facts that we are fairly deep effective, and my hand flops so well, it is a very easy call for me to make and defend my blind.
Action: I call 5,000.
Flop: 9s7h3c
Action: I check, Anthony continuation bets 11,000.
My Thoughts: Normally this is an amazing flop for our hand, and when I saw the flop I was very happily continuing vs any sizing that he would make it.
Generally when you call pre-flop in this spot, you should even be happily continuing post flop on boards like Kd9d5s and similar. If you don't continue on those kinds of boards you won't flop well enough often enough to make calling pre-flop profitable. Thus when you flop top pair here you should never really consider folding.
That being said; when he c-bet, a very normal sizing that I was expecting, every alarm in my head went off and I felt almost sick. I have no idea as to why, as I'm confident I didn't pick up on a tell of any kind. However, as I've played more live and have gotten better at realizing when my instincts were trying to tell me something, I've learned that it is a great idea to listen to them, no matter how absurd it might be to do so.
Action: I tank for over a minute and fold with mucking my cards.
As I was about to fold I made the comment about how tight of a lay-down I was about to make. After I had folded, Anthony ruefully grinned at me and showed 77 for a flopped set!
Looking back at this hand I can proudly say that it was one of the best folds of my life, and I can also honestly admit that in a vacuum (in most situations that a hand occurs) it would be a horrible fold.
End Hand
After he showed his hand, I mentioned that I made the tightest fold of my life to him, he jokingly asked if I had folded 66, and I replied by telling him that I had folded 910o. When I said that he looked at me like I was crazy and said that I was full of ****. This made me very happy.
Not long after this, the night ended and I bagged for the night around middle of the pack with only 26 left. I knew that if I kept trusting my instincts, playing my best, and had a bit of luck on my side that I could walk away tomorrow with my first 6-figure score or even my first WSOP gold bracelet.
Who said dreams can't come true?
“Dreams Can Come True, Can't They? Day Three.”
The best feeling in the world is waking up and knowing that you are only 25 people away from obtaining your dreams, riches, and glory. 25 people. That seems like so few after outlasting so many.
That awesome feeling is counter balanced, or even outweighed, by the knowledge that this opportunity will occur only a few times over the course of your life and that a simple mistake or an unfortunate moment could turn an amazing chance at achieving everything you wanted into just another shattered dream.
Can it get any better than this?
Day 3: June 18th
“The Final Day”
I got to the Rio a few minutes late, I had taken my time that morning relaxing in the hot-tub and hadn't realized how late it was getting. Silly mistake to make, but thankfully one that didn't cost me.
As I rushed up to the table I realized instantly that it was by far the most difficult of the final 3 left and it was going to be a long and fun day at it. It was filled with good and well known professionals, which made the electric atmosphere somewhat lighthearted as everyone was relaxed and jovial, even with so much on the line.
There is something about the pressure of this sort of situation that makes me incredibly focused and on top of my game. Knowing how much every action and decision matters, my own and others, makes it almost easier to play my best and stay focused than if it had just been a low stakes home game with friends.
I started the day near the middle of the pack with a respectable 375k with the blinds at 5,000 – 10,000. Less than 30 minutes into play I was down to less than 200k, and starting to really feel stressed and worried. But then the following hand occurred.
Hand 1: “It's Just Another Tournament, Isn't it?”
It is very easy to let the stress of the tournament get to you if you let your focus slip and start to worry. I had started to allow that to happen, after having lost nearly half my stack. Sometimes it takes a great play to remind yourself that it is just another tournament and anything can happen.
Table info: 9 handed, the blinds are 6,000 – 12,000 with a 1,000 ante. I am in the big blind, and my main opponent in the hand, Matt Lapossie, is in the small blind. I have Th8s.
Action: Jake Schindler raises to 24,000 in mid position, the button calls, Matt calls out of the small blind, and I call out of the big blind.
My Thoughts: Jake has a large stack and is playing a lot of hands, everyone knows this and is in part why there are 2 calls before me. While I am not very deep, I am getting great odds on a call and thus feel it is the best option available.
Flop:Ts4d5c
Action: Everyone checks.
Turn: 6c
Action: Matt checks, I bet 54,000, Jake folds, Button Folds, Matt Calls.
My Thoughts: With it getting checked to me, and with the turn adding a flush draw, I was confident that I had the best hand and that I needed to bet it for value as I was very apt to get called by worse by at least one opponent.
River: Js
Action: I bet 145,000, leaving myself with less than 45k behind. Matt tanks for a long time and calls, I win the pot.
My Thoughts: Betting the large majority of my stack but leaving myself some behind may seem like I'm turning my hand into a bluff, as it appears difficult that a worse hand may call. However, when you consider what his overall calling range is on the turn, you should realize that he has more combos of hands with showdown value that I beat, than those that beat me. Thus, my goal in the hand was to make my bet seem like one that wouldn't be done with a weak value type of hand, which 2nd pair weak kicker is, and would only be done with a very strong hand or a pure bluff. This means I can get as many hands as possible to call me and make as much as possible from when they do so. While the play ended up working well, I'll certainly be the first to admit that it was on the reckless side of things. If I had been incorrect about his hand strength, and he had called with a stronger hand, I would have been nearly out of the tournament.
I had decided on that river card though, that my only shot at winning my first bracelet would be treating this situation like any other tournament and doing my best to make optimal decisions; even if they are very high risk.
End Hand
And just like that, I was back in the zone and playing my A+ game. Nothing to get your confidence back on track like figuring out a situation perfectly and having it go in your favor!
The next few hours of play are a blur in my mind, I'm sure a lot of funny and interesting things occurred, however it is only the key moments that have really had a lasting affect on my memory.
We quickly went from 26 at the start of the day, to the final 18, and only 2 tables remaining. My new table draw was nearly as difficult as the first one of the day, another table full of young aggressive professionals.
Luckily enough for me though, not long at the new table I had my AK off-suit hold in a massive all in pre-flop raising war vs J9 suited which vaulted me from a middle of the pack 600k stack to 1.2 million in chips!
The next important hand for me didn't occur until we were down to the final 15 and happened vs the high stakes online phenom known as “Crazy Elior”. At the time of the hand I didn't know who he was, all I knew was that he was a good young player capable of some crazy stuff.
Due to the table draw, and it now being 7 handed, the aggression had really started to pick up; during which the following hand occurred.
Hand 2: “Crazy Nines”
Table Info: The blinds are 8,000 – 16,000. I am on the button with 9s9c and have well over 1.2mil in chips. Jake and Elior are the main opponents in the hand, Jake is in the cut-off with 450,000 Elior is in the small blind and has around 700,000 in chips.
Action: It folds to Jake Schindler in the Cut-off, he min raises to 32,000, I re-raise (3-bet) to 65,000 in the button, with the intention of stacking off vs Jake's 450,000 stack. However, Elior decides to re-re-raise (cold 4-bet) and makes it 135,000. Jake folds, I call.
My Thoughts: With Jake's stack size and our aggressive history, I was very comfortably getting in 99 pre-flop verse him. However when Elior raises instead, it puts us into a somewhat rare and awkward situation, how we approach it is very player dependent. Verse a player as capable as Elior it is very likely that he can be light in this situation, he could even shove all in light if we decide to play back at him, however whether he will or not depends entirely on how he views our ability and tendencies. Because of this I elected to call pre flop.
Flop: AcAs6h
Action: Elior bets 85,000 and I call
My Thoughts: While this flop is one of the worst for our hand, as many of his bluffs and value hands have an Ace in them, I believed that it was likely enough he would bet at this flop with all of his bluffs that missed. Thus, with us getting 5-1 odds on a call, it was a clear decision.
Turn: 6c
Action: Elior bets 200,000 and I call.
My Thoughts: I believed that due to his flop sizing he would expect many hands I would have to continue verse him whether I had a strong hand or not. Because of this I thought it would be very likely that he would bet twice as a bluff, between that, and the odds I was getting it made calling an easy but stressful decision.
River: Ad
Action: We both check and I win the pot.
End Hand
The next few hours of play after this hand went very smoothly for me. I applied as much pressure as I could, and use my stack like a sledge hammer. While I knew everyone at my table was capable of playing back at me, it is also a fairly important bubble to all poker players. Because of this a big stack can really use it's leverage well, as long as you are careful, and build a strong lead into an even bigger one.
Between that, and a fortunate situation verse Jake, who made a very good lay down with 11 left, I managed to vault my stack into nearly 2.2million, while 2nd in chips had only 1.3 million.
The Final Table
When the tournament directors announced that it was time to rack up the chips and move them to the “SpaceShip” and play out the final table I was giddy with happiness and excitement. Not only had I made the 3rd WSOP Final Table of my career, but I was going into it with a massive chip lead! Also, thanks to RFID hole card technology, all of my friends and family members would be able to watch my play and root me on to what could hopefully become my first bracelet!
What could go wrong?
Hand 3: “Danger Will Robinson!”
Table Info: 9 handed, blinds are 15,000 – 30,000. We have played about 25 hands so far on the final table and there really hasn't been many fireworks between any of the bigger stacks yet. My opponent, Sean Dempsey, has barely played a hand up to this point, while I have been doing my best to keep applying small amounts of pressure on the rest of the table. I am chip leader yet with over 2.5mil and am UTG, Sean is 2nd in chips with 1.5mil and is in the big blind. I have AhQd.
Action: I open to 70,000 and it folds to Sean in the big blind, he calls.
Flop: Qs6s3d
Action: Sean leads for 125,000, I call.
My Thoughts: A lead on this type of board texture can be 4 different types of hands; A complete bluff, a draw, a weak value hand like pocket 7's through weak top pairs, or a very strong hand like a flopped set or over pair. Because of this, it makes the most sense for me to call, as I don't want to push him off of his weaker hands, and I don't want to get all in verse his stronger hands.
Turn: 9d
Action: Sean bets 250,000, I call.
My Thoughts: When he bets the turn with this sizing, I thought that his range of hands didn't really change much. However, I thought that it wasn't likely he wouldn't bet twice without at least a least having a draw of some kind. Because of that, I strongly considered raising turn for value in order to charge his draws, but I was worried that by doing so I would push out many hands in his range that I could get value from on good river cards, like QK for instance.
River: 5h
Action: Sean checks, I bet 665,000, Sean calls and flips over KK.
My Thoughts: This river card is great for me, even when Sean checks I can confidently assume that I have the best hand, and that most of the bets I make will either get called by him when he has showdown value and will bluff catch verse me, or he will fold no matter what I bet. Because of this, and because I want to make it look like I want him off the hand, I chose to bet 80% pot. I am very confident that if he had a hand like QT or similar that he would have called and given me nearly half the chips in play. Instead he had one of the rare instances in which he could have me beat, and I dropped nearly half my stack on the play and into 3rd place as well.
Even though I lost a massive pot here, and I lost nearly the most I could have on this hand, I am very happy with how I played it and if I was in the exact same scenario again with the information I had at the time I would play it the exact same. This is one of the more painful and hardest to accept aspects of the game, but if you can view situations with an open and honest mind and look past the results, you can grow immensely as a player.
End Hand
That hurt. I wish I could say I kept a completely cool head and losing that didn't effect me, but I can't. However, I luckily had my boyfriend of 4 years, and many great friends, on my rail. Being able to discuss with them on the break allowed me to quickly get my head back in the game and focused on playing my best.
Being able to shake off big losses quickly and being on your A game as much as possible is one of the most important aspects of being a great tournament player. It is perfectly natural to be affected negatively in scenarios like the above one and similar, however it is imperative as a tournament player that they only momentarily affect you, otherwise you may allow yourself to make the kind of mistakes that may haunt you for the rest of your life.
The tournament continued on. After a bunch of fireworks, we lost most of the shorter stacks, and we were down to the final 5. The final 5 were made up of the following players:
Seat 1: Ryan Olisar – He is a young online phenom with great live results as well. He plays incredibly aggressively usually, however is very capable of shifting gears as needed.
Seat 2: Sean Dempsey – The only player at the table I didn't know of really, he is a middle aged Las Vegan who seemed to me to be a skilled semi-professional player.
Seat 3: Myself
Seat 4: Jake Schindler – Incredibly skilled online and live young gun. He has impressive results in both arenas, including a 7 figure score in 2014.
Seat 5: Ryan Jaconetti – Another young and skilled professional with impressive live results.
Due to how the final 5 was built, it was a very aggressive whirlwind of action. Also with there being 3 Ryans on the final table, it made for some hilarious and confusing moments as the Tournament Director tried to call the action; many times incorrectly.
Being mostly young professionals we had an enjoyable time playing together, yet it was apparent to everyone how badly the victory was wanted by all.
Hand 4: “Melting Snowmen”
Table info: Blinds are 25,000-50,000, Jake has over 2.7 million in chips first to act, Olisar has 1.3 million on the button, and I have 1.2 million in the big blind. I have 8s8d.
Action: Jake raises to 100,000, it folds to Olisar on the button who re-raises to 210,000, it folds to me.
My Thoughts: Normally with very aggressive history between the opponents in the hand here, being only 5 handed, and having only 24 big blinds myself, it would be a very normal and good play to go all in. I nearly did so, however I realized after much deliberation that doing so would be a mistake, even verse as aggressive players as these two.
While Jake certainly has a very wide opening range, and while Olisar is capable of 3-betting with nearly any 2 cards here, it doesn't necessarily mean that he will. Whether he will have a wide 3-bet range will come down to how he expects Jake and the 2 player's behind him to react. If he thinks he will get played back at a lot then he will decrease the range of hands that he will bluff with. Based on stack sizes, Jake covering Olisar by a lot, and history, I thought it was very likely that Olisar would have a much stronger range of hands here than he normally might.
Thus I decided to make one of the tighter pre-flop folds of my life.
Action: I fold, Jake calls.
Flop: Qc6s7d
Action: Jake checks, Olisar bets 190,000. Jake raises to 390,000, Olisar goes all in for 930,000 in total, Jake calls.
Jake has QJ and loses to the KK of Olisar after the turn is an 8 (!) and the river is a 9.
End Hand
Even though I would have hit my 8 and become chip leader, I was still very happy to have made such a good lay down, and knew that with how well I was playing I very well could finally achieve a dream of mine; winning a WSOP gold bracelet!
The next hour of hands was a tough battle, everyone was giving it their all, and the aggression and fearlessness of the players was increasing as the blinds went up and stacks got shallower.
Hand 5: “An Unfortunate River”
Table Info: 5 handed, the blinds are 30,000 – 60,000. I am in the small blind and have 1.4million, Jake Schindler is in the big blind and has 1.6 million. Chip leader has only 2.5 million. I have Ac9h.
Action: It folds to me in the small blind.
My Thoughts: Due to how close in chips everyone was, I knew that if I raised that Jake would be very apt to either shove all in pre-flop, or to just call and try to apply a lot of pressure on to me post-flop. Because of this I wasn't very comfortable with raising pre, however I did want to do my best to make the most here, thus the decision came down to completing or just shoving all in. Because I assumed it was likely that if I completed that Jake would raise, and then fold to my shove, it seemed to me to be the best way for me to gain 200k+ in chips in a very low variance manner, and I was comfortable with him checking back and us taking it post flop if that occurred.
Action: I complete, Jake raises to 180,00. I go all in for 1.4 million in total, Jake calls.
My Thoughts: That nearly went according to plan, hopefully I am live and we are flipping...
I show my A9, Jake flips up KQ... We have the best hand!
Flop: AdKc7s
I am so nervous and excited that I can't watch. Too much resides on the turn of just a few cards. This is both the best and worst thing about tournament poker.
I instead walk to the end of the circular platform that the final table is on and watch my friend's reactions on the rail instead of looking at what hits.
Turn: 8h
My rail stays quiet, I don't know what hit but I know it wasn't bad.
River: Q
When the river hits, I knew I had lost without looking. The looks on all the faces before me are pure dejection. My heart sinks, I know that once again I had come up short on obtaining a gold bracelet. A single turn of a card sealed my fate.
End Hand and Tournament
I came so close for a 3rd time, and for the 3rd time in a row I failed to achieve success. You'd think that as I write this article I'd feel heartbroken.
Yet, at the end of the day, I knew I played my best and gave it my all. There isn't a single decision I'd have changed over the course of final day, and very little I'd have changed over the course of my summer of play. On top of that, I had many people I respect tell me that they watched the live stream and thought I played brilliantly.
Finally, no matter what the media's glamorization of the game has said, poker is not about making money nor winning titles. It is not about fame, glory, and riches.
Playing poker is about making the best decisions you can based on the information available, then hoping it works out in your favor. It is about learning the beauty of the complex math and theory behind the game.
Poker is also about meeting great people and having wonderful conversations, it is about the excitement of being in the hunt of a great score, and cheering on friends to success and triumph. It is about traveling the world, and experiencing life to the fullest.
At the end of the day I may not be a WSOP Champion, and that's ok. I may never be, but I will keep putting myself in the best position to become one. And that's enough.
For I am a Poker Professional.
Thanks for reading, I hope you have enjoyed this!
