My Main Event Recap
The atmosphere in the Rio Pavillion which is host to the 2006 World Series of Poker was electric, it resembled that of a game 7 of the Stanley Cup or World Series. The room was filled with well known poker stars, Hollywood actors and mixed with internet qualifiers and aspiring poker players. With the tournament scheduled to begin at noon the honours of tossing the cards in the air were bestowed on the legendary Doyle Brunson who happened to be playing in a record 30th WSOP and with that the tournament was underway and it was only mere moments before the first player was eliminated (no it wasn't me).
Although blinds began at 25/50 there was not a flop that could be seen cheaper than 350-400 dollars. My tournament can easily be summed up with the phrase "Full house loses to a Full house". It happened twice and I was on the losing end of both. The first occurred about 50 minutes into the tournament when I raised with pocked 4's (350) and it was reraised to 700, after calling the reraise the flop brought a very nice looking 4 7 7, I checked to the raiser and he made it 1000 to go, with only 1600 left in chips I knew he was pretty well pot committed so I reraised 1600 more and after a moment he called and showed AK suited, I was in great shape at this point to take a 5k pot but after a 7 hit the turn my worst fear was realized when a King hit the river giving him a runner runner suck out on me. I picked up a couple small pots in the next 30 minutes or so but finally hit the hand that would be my undoing. I was dealt pocket 6's and raised under the gun+1 550 and was called by only the player in the cutoff position, the flop was 6 2 2 with a couple of hearts. Having that full house bad beat fresh in my mind I made it 1200 to go which was a pot sized bet and my opponent asked for a chip count then put me all in which I called of course. At this point I again figured I was ahead and was after he flipped over pocket 7's and at fate would have it that cruel unwanted 7 hit the turn leaving me with only the one 6 in the deck and it didn't come on the river thereby eliminating me from the tournament.
It was fun and a great experience but one thing has become apparent, with so many players (almost 9000) in the main event it really has become more of a "who's going to get lucky" then a game of pure skill. The small tournaments such as the 1500 and 2500 buyins were much more fun. With the fields being capped at 2500 players or so play was much better. I had the opportunity to play with Phil Ivey and knocked Men the Master Nguyen from 1500 the event which was cool.
Although blinds began at 25/50 there was not a flop that could be seen cheaper than 350-400 dollars. My tournament can easily be summed up with the phrase "Full house loses to a Full house". It happened twice and I was on the losing end of both. The first occurred about 50 minutes into the tournament when I raised with pocked 4's (350) and it was reraised to 700, after calling the reraise the flop brought a very nice looking 4 7 7, I checked to the raiser and he made it 1000 to go, with only 1600 left in chips I knew he was pretty well pot committed so I reraised 1600 more and after a moment he called and showed AK suited, I was in great shape at this point to take a 5k pot but after a 7 hit the turn my worst fear was realized when a King hit the river giving him a runner runner suck out on me. I picked up a couple small pots in the next 30 minutes or so but finally hit the hand that would be my undoing. I was dealt pocket 6's and raised under the gun+1 550 and was called by only the player in the cutoff position, the flop was 6 2 2 with a couple of hearts. Having that full house bad beat fresh in my mind I made it 1200 to go which was a pot sized bet and my opponent asked for a chip count then put me all in which I called of course. At this point I again figured I was ahead and was after he flipped over pocket 7's and at fate would have it that cruel unwanted 7 hit the turn leaving me with only the one 6 in the deck and it didn't come on the river thereby eliminating me from the tournament.
It was fun and a great experience but one thing has become apparent, with so many players (almost 9000) in the main event it really has become more of a "who's going to get lucky" then a game of pure skill. The small tournaments such as the 1500 and 2500 buyins were much more fun. With the fields being capped at 2500 players or so play was much better. I had the opportunity to play with Phil Ivey and knocked Men the Master Nguyen from 1500 the event which was cool.
Comments
The one thing I noticed in the Main event is play can be brutal at times, one hand comes to mind where a player UTG bet out 500 and was called by a player in mid position and the flop was J 3 2, inital bettor makes it 1700 to go and gets reraised ALLIN which he calls. First guy has AA second player has J 2 offsuit (he called 500 preflop with that).Â
I never really consider mine badbeats, If I can get my money in with the best of it thats all I can ask for. It will work in my favor over the long haul I am sure.. Good luck with the WPT Qualifying stuff. I will probably give the satellites a go as well.
Voodoo
That's the way to go out. You can't say you won, but you can't say you were outplayed either.