On May 30th I arrived in Las Vegas ready for the 2011 World Series of Poker. I had locked up backing for a pretty aggressive schedule and would be playing the following events:
$1500 LO8
(Limit Omaha 8 or Better)
$1500 HORSE (Limit Holdem, Limit Omaha 8 or Better, Razz, Stud Hi, and Stud 8 or Better rotation)
$1500 PLO (Pot Limit Omaha)
$3000 PLO
$5000 PLO 6 max
$2500 HA (Pot Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha rotation)
$2500 O8/Stud8
$1500 PLO8 (Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better)
$5000 PLO8
2x $1500 NL (No Limit Holdem)
2x $1000 NL
About $3k in side events
I had about 1/3 of my action myself and the rest had been sold to investors, primarily to the new staking sensation Max Katz, who had burst onto the scene with millions at his disposal and was putting over 100 players into WSOP events. In addition to these tournaments I planned to play a fair amount of $5/$5 PLO cash games when I had free time.
My 2010 WSOP was a great experience but a major letdown in terms of success. Tournament after tournament found me completely card-dead and unable to build any sort of stack/momentum. I was only able to double my starting stack in two tournaments out of 12 played, let alone make a single day 2. It was very frustrating and discouraging. After busting the $1500 PLO8, in my mind the softest event for me, after just 2 hours of play, I was near tears. I pulled myself together and decided to play two more events: the $5K PLO8 and the $5K PLO. After busting on a mistake a few hours into the $5K PLO8, I called it a World Series.
The 2011 WSOP was completely different right off the bat. I won basically every hand the first hour of the $1500 LO8 and had doubled my stack before the first break. Coming back from the first break I realized I had lost my wallet when I went to tip the cocktail waitress for my water. I was running around frantically trying to locate my wallet for most of the 3rd hour but whenever I found myself at the table playing a hand, I won. As the 3rd hour drew to a close my friend Mike had arrived at the Rio and I enlisted his help in finding the wallet while I contacted my credit card company to cancel it just in case it had been stolen, which at this point I assumed it somehow had been. The 4th hour came to a finish and I wandered over to the security desk satisfied that I at least had turned my 4.5k starting stack into 14k while incredibly distracted. As I approached I saw a security guard coming towards me and stopped him to inquire about my lost goods. "Was it a black wallet with about $17 in it?" "That would be the one." Apparently it had been found around where I had eaten lunch, an area I had swept three times over during the 3rd hour and come up empty. Wherever my wallet had been the last couple of hours, I was just happy to have it back and I returned to my table triumphant, much to the delight of my tablemates who had eagerly assisted me on my quest.
Unfortunately, finding my wallet had apparently sapped me of all my rungood, as when blinds got high I could no longer win a hand. About 8 hours in I found myself bounced from the tournament, disappointed the auspicious start couldn't pan out but happy with my play and relieved that I had finally been able to get some momentum going in a WSOP tournament. On to the next one.
The $1500 HORSE followed a few days later and I somehow managed to get off to another torrid start. At the first break I was very likely the chip leader, somehow turning my 4.5k stack into over 10k in the low blind levels of a limit tournament. The next several hours continued much the same way and when I went to get dinner with Austin and Tim we all found ourselves with decent stacks. For dinner I chopped some wings and a salad with Tim, a detail you may wonder why I'm including. Thanks to my staunch refusal to use anything beyond a fork while eating a salad, I found myself with a rather large tomato wedge in my mouth about 2/3 of the way through my meal. I attempted to chew it but thanks to its shape and girth I was having a very hard time getting it to the sides of my mouth to chew as it was pinned between my teeth and the roof of my mouth. After successfully gnawing it down a little bit, I arrogantly decided it was time to swallow, tired of the back and forth and unwilling to admit defeat by returning it to a plate.
Within seconds I realized my mistake. As Tim and Austin carried on in conversation I vigorously worked my throat in an attempt to finish swallowing the tomato that was now lodged halfway down. Finding this unsuccessful, I reached for my water for the assistance of some lubrication. Up until this point I was relatively calm. I had never choked before but I didn't really think it was something I was going to die from and tomatoes are pretty squishy after all, they should go down. When the water dribbled out of my mouth and down my shirt, a look of concern crossed my face. I waved my arms frantically in front of Tim and Austin and gave the universal sign for choking. Tim had no idea what was going on but Austin was a bit more perceptive, "Dude, I think he's choking. Fuck, I don't know how to give the Heimlich." As the terrifying thought crossed my mind of running over to one of the super hot waitresses to request the Heimlich Maneuver, a piece of the tomato finally gave way, opening my throat just enough to suck in some blissful oxygen. My heart stopped racing and I relaxed a bit. After a few raspy breaths, I was able to focus my strength on returning the tomato to whence it came, much to the disgust of Tim who, still unaware of what is going on, thinks I have just thrown up all over his half of the salad. An appalled look crosses Tim's face as he declares that he is a sympathy puker and takes off outside. I gather my breath as Austin asks me if I'm ok. I'm incredibly rattled after over 30 seconds of an inability to breath but I gather myself and we head back to the tournament in time to start the 7th hour.
I'm not sure if it was a result of my near-death dinner experience or what, but I find myself lacking focus during the next hour and make a few mistakes that compound my run of bad cards. Within the first hour my solid stack has evaporated and as I exit the tournament floor I am livid. Nothing pisses me off more than when I make mistakes and I felt like I had squandered another great opportunity. I hopped into my car to embark on an angry and likely all too fast trip back to the house but as I get on the highway I hear the blissful words from my speakers "This kitten got your tongue tied in knots, I see..." Britney brings me back to Earth and I can't help but smile, tomorrow will be a new day.
The third event was the $1500 PLO, which is the softest tournament in my very best game. The first two hours saw me in several big hands. I won the first couple to double my stack, lost the third, won the fourth, lost the fifth, then won the sixth and biggest to take the chip lead at my table. From here on out I was in complete control of my starting table. At one point a French guy at my table said to me, "I don't know if you're just really good or really lucky, because we never see your cards." I smiled and chuckled quietly. About two-thirds of the way through the day a big stack got moved to our table and was sat on my right, perfect position for me. I had about 30k chips from my 4.5k starting stack at this point and he sat down with around 45k. He was wearing a Georgetown Hoyas hat and as we got to talking it turned out he was also living in Arlington, VA. Our friendly discourse perhaps made it easier for him as I proceeded to take his entire stack over the next two hours. It also probably made it easier for him that he went on to win the $10K Stud 8 or Better tournament a few days later. As the end of the day drew close we were on the bubble of my first ever WSOP cash and I had around 75k chips while the tournament average was about 35k. For a big stack, there is absolutely nothing like a WSOP cash bubble. Nobody will play a hand unless they have the absolute nuts. With the tables playing hand-for-hand, my table sat and watched as I raised 16 hands in succession, with almost no resistance put up whatsoever. On exactly one hand, a player re-raised my open and I folded to which he exclaimed "See, I'm not scared!" and promptly flipped over his aces. On around the 16th hand, the same player remarks aloud to the table, "This guy over here just raises in any two." I smile and correct him, "Any 4." My entire table laughs as they recognize they are completely aware of what is happening but unwilling to do anything about it. A few hands later I am dealt 8432 no suits under the gun and I finally toss a hand in the middle with a "Here you guys go", the only hand I wouldn't raise during the ~25 hand bubble. My table reacts with smiles and friendly banter. By the time the bubble finally bursts, I have chipped up to 95k in chips and am 7th in chips heading to day 2 with 116 players remaining.
Everything was clicking. I returned home pumped up for day 2 but needing to get a good night's rest with a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Thank God for ambien. I awoke the next morning full of fire and ready to take on the world. Thinking about it now still gives me that excited feeling throughout my body. As I write this, my heart has actually quickened its pace and I can feel a bit of a tingling sensation, that's just how exciting it was for me. My first day 2 of a WSOP tournament, my first cash, and I was sitting on a huge stack in my very best game. I shot over to the gym for a workout that I quickly pummeled and went back to the house for a quick shower as I was dancing around my room to "One" by Swedish House Mafia and "You and I" by Medina which had returned out of nowhere to be the song of the day. There was a bit of a buzz in the house that morning as everyone was excited for our first deep run. I headed back to the Rio, focused and determined.
My day 2 table draw wasn't quite as fortuitous but that was to be expected as the fields become tougher and more pro-filled deeper in WSOP tournaments. I actually recognized a couple of faces and there were a couple of players with stacks similar to mine. But again, I got off to a good start and while I wasn't in full control of the table as I had been the day before, there wasn't anyone that was giving me too much trouble. About an hour and a half in I had chipped up to around 120k when I got into a massive pot with another big stack. Thanks to internet histories, I have the whole hand details (and even a picture in my phone). My conversation with Evan shortly thereafter on gchat:
so i was like utg or utg+1
i tried to make it 4100 at 800/1600 but i accidentally tossed in 2100 so they declared it a call
no big deal w/e
one person limps behind, sb completes, bb checks
flop J82 two clubs one diamond i have QQ97ccdd
i lead 4500 into 6400, guy in position flats, other two fold
turn is a 6 of diamonds and i consider c/r but decided to just go ahead and bet
i bet 14k into 15.4k
and he pots
he has 75k in front of him at this point
i considered it for a bit just to make sure i had it all thought through because i could still fold and have 100k left
and i didnt want to play that big of a pot quite frankly
but i was like i just cant fold here i have too many outs, so i ship it in
..........
The cards are flipped to show his JT98 is currently ahead. I need a T, 6, 5, 2, club, or diamond to win and am actually a 57.5% favorite in the hand. The river 8 seals the victory for him.
Sickened, I snap off a picture and go jogging around the room to try to calm my nerves. I literally ran a few tables over and was jumping up and down a bit just trying to clear my head. The 170k pot would've given me the chip lead of the tournament and instead I was left with a rather short (but playable) 25k stack. I returned to my table, disappointed of course in the result of the hand but I'm still day 2 of a $1500 tournament. I find a hand to double up with pretty quickly and over the next few hours I'm bouncing around with an average stack, never really able to gain much momentum but never in real bad shape either. But as dinner break approaches I find my stack dwindling after calling a big turn bet with two flush draws and missing. I come back from break with just over 10 big blinds as the tournament is down to its final 27 players and we re-draw for tables. When the tables re-draw you are assigned a new seat at random regardless of whether or not you have just paid the blinds at your previous table. I draw a bad card and am stuck paying the blinds twice in a row, 1/3 of my stack gone. At this point I'm just looking for any decent spot to get it in with decent odds or fold equity, and my chance arises as it folds to me in late position with AQQJ with a suited ace. I raise and the button isolates with KK75. I am a small underdog, but a flopped Q gives me a dominant lead and he doesn't have any more outs aside from a K. The turn is another blank. River K and I'm out of the tournament in 25th place for $9k.
No doubt I was disappointed coming so close but as I walked away from the table I actually found myself incredibly happy and satisfied with my play. It felt like another chance was bound to come and I was confident in having a good rest of the series.
The next tournament went down with little fanfare. I built a big stack early once again in the $3k PLO but lost a massive flip on the last hand of the 4th hour to bust. The fun picked up again in the $5k PLO 6 max. Yet again I got off to a great start, steadily building my 15k starting stack up to around 75k. With it being a $5k tournament, there were recognizable faces all around me. However, there were a few big names missing, most noticeably Phil Ivey, the face of Full Tilt. 2 weeks into the WSOP, Full Tilt still hadn't paid out players and people were quickly losing hope. Rumors swirled about a lack of liquid funds and then a lack of funds altogether and Phil Ivey's announcement in late May that he would be missing the entire WSOP led many to wonder the true scope of Full Tilt's troubles. Full Tilt pros that did make it to the tournaments were often peppered with questions they had no answers to as they found themselves surrounded by thousands of people their company owed money to. By mid-June I had written off the $17k I had on Full Tilt just as a matter of practicality. I was actually surprisingly okay with this and I wasn't going to let the situation affect my play or distract me.
With my stack now hanging around 100k, the infamous David "Devilfish" Ulliot sat down at my table. He has had a fair amount of success in poker over the years but he has always been more famous for his mouth than his play. His Omaha game was fairly poor but the deck was constantly in his favor and he built up a pretty big stack. A couple hours after his joining our table he limped in in front of me and I raised AKJT double-suited behind him. It folded around to him and he announced a raise, much to my surprise. He didn't have a ton of chips behind but it was still substantial, and a vast majority of his hand range is aces that spot. I looked at my cards and became over-attached to their beauty and convinced myself it was okay to get it in against him and he flipped over his aces. Granted I still had about 35% in the hand, but I felt like it was an easily avoidable mistake for too large a percentage of my chips. His aces held and he proceeded to berate me for my "awful" call off. I simply laughed as I found it pretty embarrassing for him as a well-traveled veteran of the game to feel the need to berate someone, especially after winning the hand. More importantly this slowed me down a bit as I no longer had a stack I could mess around with too much, and the rest of the day was fairly quiet, going into day 2 with around 55k. Solid, but a bit disappointing given my start.
Either way, making day 2 of a $5k tourney was still incredibly exciting and I woke up the next day once again ready to go. The morning before day 2 they post table draws and I jumped on wsop.com to see who I would be pitted against. My jaw dropped. Seated to my right was Jason Mercier, now commonly ranked as the best live tournament player in the world, and a bracelet holder in the $1500 PLO. To my direct left was Shaun Deeb, generally recognized as the best online tournament player in the world. One hell of a seat.
I didn't recognize the other 3 names at the table but upon getting to the tournament I soon found out that the player two to my left was Chance Kornuth, winner of the $5k PLO the previous year. Chance, Shaun, and Jason all knew each other fairly well so a fair amount of banter ensued at the table right off the bat. I was certainly intimidated playing with such an elite group of players, especially Jason Mercier who owned me a few times, but I at least felt that I was a better Omaha player than Shaun and Chance's style of play didn't seem too hard to play against. About a half hour in, one of the two randoms was bounced and a new player took his seat. I happened to know him too, as he happened to be Chris Moorman, probably in the top 5 tournament players in the world with over a million in profits to his name. Wtf. Again, the one thing I had going for me was that while he was an absolutely amazing poker player and untouchable in NL Holdem, I had more experience than him in PLO and he actually played a very tight style. Jason and Shaun were talking shit to him the entire time telling him he needed to play more hands and that he sucked at Omaha. I could only sit and laugh as I witnessed one of the biggest names in the game taking shit with a smile. Before long, they had come up with the idea that any time you won a hand you had to show 2 of your cards. In PLO this isn't too big a deal as there's a decent chance you can show two inconsequential cards, but frankly I had no desire to give these poker masterminds any more information than they already had at their disposal. All four of them were eager to adopt the rule and the random French-Canadian dude across from me agreed as well. Fuck. How could I say no to Jason Mercier, Shaun Deeb, Chance Kornuth, and Chris Moorman? I would look like such a bitch. After about a minute of deliberation, I reluctantly agreed as a crowd continued to grow around our table, several reporters included.
Over the next hour I was able to win a few pots on semi-bluffs and show two random cards, once against Shaun Deeb that felt pretty damn good. I was also able to 4-bet light against Deeb's 3-bets a couple of times as he was 3-betting very aggressively. Unfortunately, Jason took a couple of pots off me and I was unable to really chip up, sticking to around 60k. Chance had blown most of his stack to Jason on a few really bizarre lines and found himself with around 15 big blinds when I flatted Jason's open with a strong KK hand in the cutoff. Deeb folded the button and the action fell upon Chance, who pot-raised. The big blind quickly folded and the action was on Jason, who considered his options. Sitting behind him I was planning to go all-in regardless of what he decided as Chance should be 3-betting a fairly wide range with his stack size and the action leading up to it and Jason clearly didn't have aces based on his body language. After about 30 seconds Jason elects re-raise and attempt to isolate Chance all-in but I announce that I call as soon as he does so, to which he looks at me in surprise and says "Ooops." The cards are flipped and while I'm disappointed to see that Chance does somehow have aces, he only has about 20k to my 60k so I can still chip up fairly easily with my KK vs Jason's thin-drawing AJxx. The flop is perfect for me aside from the lack of a K, as Jason's only outs are the case ace. The turn, however, brings Jason his only flush draw, and I sigh in disgust as the river completes the flush. Jason shakes his head in disbelief and offers a "Wow, sorry man" as Chance laughs at how good Jason runs and I silently walk away from the table.
After taking a breath I walk back to say good game and it was fun playing with you guys. I don't usually just storm off from the table like that. Shaun gets up out of his seat and shakes my hand and asks me what I had on a few different hands. When the words "You were really tough to play against," leave his mouth I can barely contain my glee. Leaving the Rio that day was probably the happiest I've ever been losing a tournament. Knowing I could hold my own at that table truly meant I could hold my own at pretty much any table they threw at me the rest of the World Series, as that was truly an unimaginably tough group of players. On the car ride home I called my dad to excitedly tell him the whole story, something that I never ever do.
I was able to build stacks here and there in the following couple weeks of tournaments and made day 2 of the $2500 Stud8/O8 mix running on fumes from a full weekend of non-stop dancing at Electric Daisy Carnival (the best weekend of my life). Day 1 actually saw me sitting at the same table as my roommate, Tim, and we were somehow put at the same opening table in the very next tournament, a $1k NL that had over 3,000 players in it.
$1500 HORSE (Limit Holdem, Limit Omaha 8 or Better, Razz, Stud Hi, and Stud 8 or Better rotation)
$1500 PLO (Pot Limit Omaha)
$3000 PLO
$5000 PLO 6 max
$2500 HA (Pot Limit Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha rotation)
$2500 O8/Stud8
$1500 PLO8 (Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better)
$5000 PLO8
2x $1500 NL (No Limit Holdem)
2x $1000 NL
About $3k in side events
I had about 1/3 of my action myself and the rest had been sold to investors, primarily to the new staking sensation Max Katz, who had burst onto the scene with millions at his disposal and was putting over 100 players into WSOP events. In addition to these tournaments I planned to play a fair amount of $5/$5 PLO cash games when I had free time.
My 2010 WSOP was a great experience but a major letdown in terms of success. Tournament after tournament found me completely card-dead and unable to build any sort of stack/momentum. I was only able to double my starting stack in two tournaments out of 12 played, let alone make a single day 2. It was very frustrating and discouraging. After busting the $1500 PLO8, in my mind the softest event for me, after just 2 hours of play, I was near tears. I pulled myself together and decided to play two more events: the $5K PLO8 and the $5K PLO. After busting on a mistake a few hours into the $5K PLO8, I called it a World Series.
The 2011 WSOP was completely different right off the bat. I won basically every hand the first hour of the $1500 LO8 and had doubled my stack before the first break. Coming back from the first break I realized I had lost my wallet when I went to tip the cocktail waitress for my water. I was running around frantically trying to locate my wallet for most of the 3rd hour but whenever I found myself at the table playing a hand, I won. As the 3rd hour drew to a close my friend Mike had arrived at the Rio and I enlisted his help in finding the wallet while I contacted my credit card company to cancel it just in case it had been stolen, which at this point I assumed it somehow had been. The 4th hour came to a finish and I wandered over to the security desk satisfied that I at least had turned my 4.5k starting stack into 14k while incredibly distracted. As I approached I saw a security guard coming towards me and stopped him to inquire about my lost goods. "Was it a black wallet with about $17 in it?" "That would be the one." Apparently it had been found around where I had eaten lunch, an area I had swept three times over during the 3rd hour and come up empty. Wherever my wallet had been the last couple of hours, I was just happy to have it back and I returned to my table triumphant, much to the delight of my tablemates who had eagerly assisted me on my quest.
Unfortunately, finding my wallet had apparently sapped me of all my rungood, as when blinds got high I could no longer win a hand. About 8 hours in I found myself bounced from the tournament, disappointed the auspicious start couldn't pan out but happy with my play and relieved that I had finally been able to get some momentum going in a WSOP tournament. On to the next one.
The $1500 HORSE followed a few days later and I somehow managed to get off to another torrid start. At the first break I was very likely the chip leader, somehow turning my 4.5k stack into over 10k in the low blind levels of a limit tournament. The next several hours continued much the same way and when I went to get dinner with Austin and Tim we all found ourselves with decent stacks. For dinner I chopped some wings and a salad with Tim, a detail you may wonder why I'm including. Thanks to my staunch refusal to use anything beyond a fork while eating a salad, I found myself with a rather large tomato wedge in my mouth about 2/3 of the way through my meal. I attempted to chew it but thanks to its shape and girth I was having a very hard time getting it to the sides of my mouth to chew as it was pinned between my teeth and the roof of my mouth. After successfully gnawing it down a little bit, I arrogantly decided it was time to swallow, tired of the back and forth and unwilling to admit defeat by returning it to a plate.
Within seconds I realized my mistake. As Tim and Austin carried on in conversation I vigorously worked my throat in an attempt to finish swallowing the tomato that was now lodged halfway down. Finding this unsuccessful, I reached for my water for the assistance of some lubrication. Up until this point I was relatively calm. I had never choked before but I didn't really think it was something I was going to die from and tomatoes are pretty squishy after all, they should go down. When the water dribbled out of my mouth and down my shirt, a look of concern crossed my face. I waved my arms frantically in front of Tim and Austin and gave the universal sign for choking. Tim had no idea what was going on but Austin was a bit more perceptive, "Dude, I think he's choking. Fuck, I don't know how to give the Heimlich." As the terrifying thought crossed my mind of running over to one of the super hot waitresses to request the Heimlich Maneuver, a piece of the tomato finally gave way, opening my throat just enough to suck in some blissful oxygen. My heart stopped racing and I relaxed a bit. After a few raspy breaths, I was able to focus my strength on returning the tomato to whence it came, much to the disgust of Tim who, still unaware of what is going on, thinks I have just thrown up all over his half of the salad. An appalled look crosses Tim's face as he declares that he is a sympathy puker and takes off outside. I gather my breath as Austin asks me if I'm ok. I'm incredibly rattled after over 30 seconds of an inability to breath but I gather myself and we head back to the tournament in time to start the 7th hour.
I'm not sure if it was a result of my near-death dinner experience or what, but I find myself lacking focus during the next hour and make a few mistakes that compound my run of bad cards. Within the first hour my solid stack has evaporated and as I exit the tournament floor I am livid. Nothing pisses me off more than when I make mistakes and I felt like I had squandered another great opportunity. I hopped into my car to embark on an angry and likely all too fast trip back to the house but as I get on the highway I hear the blissful words from my speakers "This kitten got your tongue tied in knots, I see..." Britney brings me back to Earth and I can't help but smile, tomorrow will be a new day.
The third event was the $1500 PLO, which is the softest tournament in my very best game. The first two hours saw me in several big hands. I won the first couple to double my stack, lost the third, won the fourth, lost the fifth, then won the sixth and biggest to take the chip lead at my table. From here on out I was in complete control of my starting table. At one point a French guy at my table said to me, "I don't know if you're just really good or really lucky, because we never see your cards." I smiled and chuckled quietly. About two-thirds of the way through the day a big stack got moved to our table and was sat on my right, perfect position for me. I had about 30k chips from my 4.5k starting stack at this point and he sat down with around 45k. He was wearing a Georgetown Hoyas hat and as we got to talking it turned out he was also living in Arlington, VA. Our friendly discourse perhaps made it easier for him as I proceeded to take his entire stack over the next two hours. It also probably made it easier for him that he went on to win the $10K Stud 8 or Better tournament a few days later. As the end of the day drew close we were on the bubble of my first ever WSOP cash and I had around 75k chips while the tournament average was about 35k. For a big stack, there is absolutely nothing like a WSOP cash bubble. Nobody will play a hand unless they have the absolute nuts. With the tables playing hand-for-hand, my table sat and watched as I raised 16 hands in succession, with almost no resistance put up whatsoever. On exactly one hand, a player re-raised my open and I folded to which he exclaimed "See, I'm not scared!" and promptly flipped over his aces. On around the 16th hand, the same player remarks aloud to the table, "This guy over here just raises in any two." I smile and correct him, "Any 4." My entire table laughs as they recognize they are completely aware of what is happening but unwilling to do anything about it. A few hands later I am dealt 8432 no suits under the gun and I finally toss a hand in the middle with a "Here you guys go", the only hand I wouldn't raise during the ~25 hand bubble. My table reacts with smiles and friendly banter. By the time the bubble finally bursts, I have chipped up to 95k in chips and am 7th in chips heading to day 2 with 116 players remaining.
Everything was clicking. I returned home pumped up for day 2 but needing to get a good night's rest with a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Thank God for ambien. I awoke the next morning full of fire and ready to take on the world. Thinking about it now still gives me that excited feeling throughout my body. As I write this, my heart has actually quickened its pace and I can feel a bit of a tingling sensation, that's just how exciting it was for me. My first day 2 of a WSOP tournament, my first cash, and I was sitting on a huge stack in my very best game. I shot over to the gym for a workout that I quickly pummeled and went back to the house for a quick shower as I was dancing around my room to "One" by Swedish House Mafia and "You and I" by Medina which had returned out of nowhere to be the song of the day. There was a bit of a buzz in the house that morning as everyone was excited for our first deep run. I headed back to the Rio, focused and determined.
My day 2 table draw wasn't quite as fortuitous but that was to be expected as the fields become tougher and more pro-filled deeper in WSOP tournaments. I actually recognized a couple of faces and there were a couple of players with stacks similar to mine. But again, I got off to a good start and while I wasn't in full control of the table as I had been the day before, there wasn't anyone that was giving me too much trouble. About an hour and a half in I had chipped up to around 120k when I got into a massive pot with another big stack. Thanks to internet histories, I have the whole hand details (and even a picture in my phone). My conversation with Evan shortly thereafter on gchat:
so i was like utg or utg+1
i tried to make it 4100 at 800/1600 but i accidentally tossed in 2100 so they declared it a call
no big deal w/e
one person limps behind, sb completes, bb checks
flop J82 two clubs one diamond i have QQ97ccdd
i lead 4500 into 6400, guy in position flats, other two fold
turn is a 6 of diamonds and i consider c/r but decided to just go ahead and bet
i bet 14k into 15.4k
and he pots
he has 75k in front of him at this point
i considered it for a bit just to make sure i had it all thought through because i could still fold and have 100k left
and i didnt want to play that big of a pot quite frankly
but i was like i just cant fold here i have too many outs, so i ship it in
..........
The cards are flipped to show his JT98 is currently ahead. I need a T, 6, 5, 2, club, or diamond to win and am actually a 57.5% favorite in the hand. The river 8 seals the victory for him.
Sickened, I snap off a picture and go jogging around the room to try to calm my nerves. I literally ran a few tables over and was jumping up and down a bit just trying to clear my head. The 170k pot would've given me the chip lead of the tournament and instead I was left with a rather short (but playable) 25k stack. I returned to my table, disappointed of course in the result of the hand but I'm still day 2 of a $1500 tournament. I find a hand to double up with pretty quickly and over the next few hours I'm bouncing around with an average stack, never really able to gain much momentum but never in real bad shape either. But as dinner break approaches I find my stack dwindling after calling a big turn bet with two flush draws and missing. I come back from break with just over 10 big blinds as the tournament is down to its final 27 players and we re-draw for tables. When the tables re-draw you are assigned a new seat at random regardless of whether or not you have just paid the blinds at your previous table. I draw a bad card and am stuck paying the blinds twice in a row, 1/3 of my stack gone. At this point I'm just looking for any decent spot to get it in with decent odds or fold equity, and my chance arises as it folds to me in late position with AQQJ with a suited ace. I raise and the button isolates with KK75. I am a small underdog, but a flopped Q gives me a dominant lead and he doesn't have any more outs aside from a K. The turn is another blank. River K and I'm out of the tournament in 25th place for $9k.
No doubt I was disappointed coming so close but as I walked away from the table I actually found myself incredibly happy and satisfied with my play. It felt like another chance was bound to come and I was confident in having a good rest of the series.
The next tournament went down with little fanfare. I built a big stack early once again in the $3k PLO but lost a massive flip on the last hand of the 4th hour to bust. The fun picked up again in the $5k PLO 6 max. Yet again I got off to a great start, steadily building my 15k starting stack up to around 75k. With it being a $5k tournament, there were recognizable faces all around me. However, there were a few big names missing, most noticeably Phil Ivey, the face of Full Tilt. 2 weeks into the WSOP, Full Tilt still hadn't paid out players and people were quickly losing hope. Rumors swirled about a lack of liquid funds and then a lack of funds altogether and Phil Ivey's announcement in late May that he would be missing the entire WSOP led many to wonder the true scope of Full Tilt's troubles. Full Tilt pros that did make it to the tournaments were often peppered with questions they had no answers to as they found themselves surrounded by thousands of people their company owed money to. By mid-June I had written off the $17k I had on Full Tilt just as a matter of practicality. I was actually surprisingly okay with this and I wasn't going to let the situation affect my play or distract me.
With my stack now hanging around 100k, the infamous David "Devilfish" Ulliot sat down at my table. He has had a fair amount of success in poker over the years but he has always been more famous for his mouth than his play. His Omaha game was fairly poor but the deck was constantly in his favor and he built up a pretty big stack. A couple hours after his joining our table he limped in in front of me and I raised AKJT double-suited behind him. It folded around to him and he announced a raise, much to my surprise. He didn't have a ton of chips behind but it was still substantial, and a vast majority of his hand range is aces that spot. I looked at my cards and became over-attached to their beauty and convinced myself it was okay to get it in against him and he flipped over his aces. Granted I still had about 35% in the hand, but I felt like it was an easily avoidable mistake for too large a percentage of my chips. His aces held and he proceeded to berate me for my "awful" call off. I simply laughed as I found it pretty embarrassing for him as a well-traveled veteran of the game to feel the need to berate someone, especially after winning the hand. More importantly this slowed me down a bit as I no longer had a stack I could mess around with too much, and the rest of the day was fairly quiet, going into day 2 with around 55k. Solid, but a bit disappointing given my start.
Either way, making day 2 of a $5k tourney was still incredibly exciting and I woke up the next day once again ready to go. The morning before day 2 they post table draws and I jumped on wsop.com to see who I would be pitted against. My jaw dropped. Seated to my right was Jason Mercier, now commonly ranked as the best live tournament player in the world, and a bracelet holder in the $1500 PLO. To my direct left was Shaun Deeb, generally recognized as the best online tournament player in the world. One hell of a seat.
I didn't recognize the other 3 names at the table but upon getting to the tournament I soon found out that the player two to my left was Chance Kornuth, winner of the $5k PLO the previous year. Chance, Shaun, and Jason all knew each other fairly well so a fair amount of banter ensued at the table right off the bat. I was certainly intimidated playing with such an elite group of players, especially Jason Mercier who owned me a few times, but I at least felt that I was a better Omaha player than Shaun and Chance's style of play didn't seem too hard to play against. About a half hour in, one of the two randoms was bounced and a new player took his seat. I happened to know him too, as he happened to be Chris Moorman, probably in the top 5 tournament players in the world with over a million in profits to his name. Wtf. Again, the one thing I had going for me was that while he was an absolutely amazing poker player and untouchable in NL Holdem, I had more experience than him in PLO and he actually played a very tight style. Jason and Shaun were talking shit to him the entire time telling him he needed to play more hands and that he sucked at Omaha. I could only sit and laugh as I witnessed one of the biggest names in the game taking shit with a smile. Before long, they had come up with the idea that any time you won a hand you had to show 2 of your cards. In PLO this isn't too big a deal as there's a decent chance you can show two inconsequential cards, but frankly I had no desire to give these poker masterminds any more information than they already had at their disposal. All four of them were eager to adopt the rule and the random French-Canadian dude across from me agreed as well. Fuck. How could I say no to Jason Mercier, Shaun Deeb, Chance Kornuth, and Chris Moorman? I would look like such a bitch. After about a minute of deliberation, I reluctantly agreed as a crowd continued to grow around our table, several reporters included.
Over the next hour I was able to win a few pots on semi-bluffs and show two random cards, once against Shaun Deeb that felt pretty damn good. I was also able to 4-bet light against Deeb's 3-bets a couple of times as he was 3-betting very aggressively. Unfortunately, Jason took a couple of pots off me and I was unable to really chip up, sticking to around 60k. Chance had blown most of his stack to Jason on a few really bizarre lines and found himself with around 15 big blinds when I flatted Jason's open with a strong KK hand in the cutoff. Deeb folded the button and the action fell upon Chance, who pot-raised. The big blind quickly folded and the action was on Jason, who considered his options. Sitting behind him I was planning to go all-in regardless of what he decided as Chance should be 3-betting a fairly wide range with his stack size and the action leading up to it and Jason clearly didn't have aces based on his body language. After about 30 seconds Jason elects re-raise and attempt to isolate Chance all-in but I announce that I call as soon as he does so, to which he looks at me in surprise and says "Ooops." The cards are flipped and while I'm disappointed to see that Chance does somehow have aces, he only has about 20k to my 60k so I can still chip up fairly easily with my KK vs Jason's thin-drawing AJxx. The flop is perfect for me aside from the lack of a K, as Jason's only outs are the case ace. The turn, however, brings Jason his only flush draw, and I sigh in disgust as the river completes the flush. Jason shakes his head in disbelief and offers a "Wow, sorry man" as Chance laughs at how good Jason runs and I silently walk away from the table.
After taking a breath I walk back to say good game and it was fun playing with you guys. I don't usually just storm off from the table like that. Shaun gets up out of his seat and shakes my hand and asks me what I had on a few different hands. When the words "You were really tough to play against," leave his mouth I can barely contain my glee. Leaving the Rio that day was probably the happiest I've ever been losing a tournament. Knowing I could hold my own at that table truly meant I could hold my own at pretty much any table they threw at me the rest of the World Series, as that was truly an unimaginably tough group of players. On the car ride home I called my dad to excitedly tell him the whole story, something that I never ever do.
I was able to build stacks here and there in the following couple weeks of tournaments and made day 2 of the $2500 Stud8/O8 mix running on fumes from a full weekend of non-stop dancing at Electric Daisy Carnival (the best weekend of my life). Day 1 actually saw me sitting at the same table as my roommate, Tim, and we were somehow put at the same opening table in the very next tournament, a $1k NL that had over 3,000 players in it.
(Tim is in the white hat, I am in the Cardinals hat)
I swung up and down a bit on day 2 but again the cards didn't fall for me late and I busted the tournament as we neared the cash. For the next week I was deathly sick as the weekend of going to bed at 10 am and getting up at 5 pm to get ready to do it all again caught up with me. I ordered green tea after green tea as I continued to grind it out but felt great about my play in spite of my body feeling the exact opposite. I soon found myself down to my last tournament of the summer, the $5k PLO8, my 2nd best game.
The tournament got off to an ominous start as I found myself in a marginal spot that decimated my stack early on. Starting with 15k chips, I quickly found myself trying to nurse a 3k stack back to health, which at one point was down to as little as 2100. I played patiently but aggressively and found a few good spots to rebuild my stack to 18k going into day 2, nothing to write home about but just making day 2 in what had turned out to be a fairly soft tournament was pretty exciting considering where I had been. On day 2 I started off strong and for the first several hours didn't look back. My 18k stack was soon 35k, then 60k, and 6 hours in I found myself sitting on 180k with 45 left in the tournament, 36 cashing. I could comfortably tighten things up and glide into the 10k cash but that isn't exactly my style. I raised in AK2x double-suited behind a limper...the hand was reported on by Poker News:
Gary Bolden limped in middle position and Brandon Paster raised to 11,000 in the hijack as the next to act. It was folded back around to Bolden who made the call as the two checked the
flop. They both checked the 
on the turn as well but it would be like the 4th of July when the 
hit the river as there were fireworks.It started out with Bolden betting 20,000 and Paster announcing raise. Paster then slid out two giant piles of yellow T1000 chips totalling 80,000. Bolden then counted out the chips for a call and went into the tank. He got up from his chair and asked Paster how much he had left. Paster counted out his stack and it looked like he had an additional 80,000 behind. Bolden finally announced all in and Paster folded as fast as humanly possible. As Bolden raked in the pot, he showed
for a turned royal flush and said that he wished his opponent had held
at least aces full. Nevertheless, Bolden, who started the day atop the
chip counts, is once again sitting near the top of them as Paster blew
quite a few of the newfound chips that he had won a few pots ago.When he led the river I felt as if he had a stronger hand than mine but that there were very few hands that he would be willing to call off a big raise with. After a bit of consideration, I decided raising was my best option and as he went into the tank I certainly felt as if I had made the right play. Little did I know, he was essentially slowrolling me. Sure, the act was an attempt to get me to put the rest of my chips in but it was completely unnecessary as it would have no bearing on my decision whatsoever. I wasn't angry so much as astonished. I hadn't even considered the possibility of him having a royal flush. Lee Watkinson was at my table a few seats away and just shook his head in disgust.
With 80k left in chips, I was still in a fairly comfortable position when our table broke and I sat down with Phil Laak two to my left and Lee Watkinson two to my right, who were notable more for the enjoyable banter they provided than any trouble I had playing against them. Phil Laak, in fact, was sitting there with a book about Omaha 8 or better in front of him, reading it as he played. To my direct left was the Russian guy who had taken almost my entire stack early on in Day 1 and I asked him friendly, "How are my chips doing?" I expected him to laugh and maybe we'd talk a little, but instead, he immediately began to start reprimanding me for the way I played the hand. And not just a little bit, he went on and on for like 5 minutes as I just sat there incredulous, laughing at the guys sheer douchebaggery. The guy on my right was Russian as well, and he was so appalled by the guys actions that he felt the need to apologize for him. Phil Laak and Lee Watkinson exchanged glances with me like "wtf" and Lee even asked me "Is this guy serious?" Finally the guy gave it a rest.
About an hour later I raised in A257 double-suited and we went to the flop 5-ways. The 996 flop brought a club flush draw which I didn't have and it checked around. The turn 9 was checked to me and I found myself in a pretty good bluff spot, firing about half-pot. The small blind flatted as the ret of the table folded and the river came an innocuous 2. He checked to me and I considered before betting about 35k into the 50k pot, feeling as if I could likely represent aces. I tried to keep completely still and stare at the table while my opponent deliberated the call. Finally, after an excruciating 4 minutes of waiting, he made the incredible call with just AK. I was stunned but I was impressed with the call as I felt that he had thought it through and against me its not that bad. The pot was sent his way as I heard a laugh come from my left as the Russian guy turned to me and stated "I would've called that immediately, such an obvious bluff." To be noted is that he had folded the turn. He goes on to tell me that my bet sizing was terrible and that I should've bet really tiny to represent strength. Regardless of the merits of his comments (which there wasn't much of) it was completely inappropriate for him to say anything at all, especially after I had just lost 2/3 of my stack nearing the bubble of the tournament. I snapped and yelled at him "Why don't you just shut the fuck up about a hand for once." An immediate hush fell over the table. Thankfully the break started just a minute later and I took off for the hallway to fume. After 20 minutes of discussing the hands with a couple friends I felt better and returned to the table and apologized to the guy I had lost the hand to for snapping and he told me it was no worries whatsoever and that the guy was completely out of line. It turned out that the whole table was actually on my side, as everyone refused to speak another word to the Russian guy from there on out. It was a really nice moment of poker camaraderie.
So as we find ourselves down to just 39 players left in the tournament, I am suddenly one of the shortest stacks in the room. Over and over again I find myself raising half my stack (essentially all-in but its a pot limit format so I can't just go all-in) but don't get action. Meanwhile, a girl has shown up on the rail of our table and stolen everyone's attention. Additionally, she is in my direct line of sight. As in, if I just look directly forwards, I am staring right at her. And this isn't your ordinary girl. She's about 5' 9" with incredible long, tanned legs, beautiful face, and long-blonde hair. She is wearing a Victoria's Secret fashion show and I wonder if she might just be a model. After about 10 minutes of torture, she wanders off, and I say to the table, "So which one of you guys was she here with." Our whole table erupts. Lee Watkinson exclaims, "Oh my god you mean the blonde?" No one takes credit for her and Phil Laak says to me "I assumed she was here with you." I laugh. A ridiculous statement. He continues, "No seriously I thought she was here for you."
Granted I was the only person under the age of 30 at my table and she looked about 23, but there was no question as to what league this girl was in, and it certainly wasn't mine. As we got down to 37 players left and the true tournament bubble, she came back. Phil Laak held his book up to his face and pointed from behind it and looked towards me, "Hey man, she's back for you." Lee Watkinson laughed as we all continuously stole glances. Phil Laak told me to go over to her. Tables were now playing hand-for-hand and players would mingle around other tables to watch in the hopes that someone would bust the bubble, bringing us all into the $10k money. As we talked, a couple people asked me if the girl was there with me. I was like wtf is going on, no, she is clearly not here with me but you guys are really making me feel good about myself. Any time we were at the table, Phil tried to convince me to go over and talk to her. To be honest if I wasn't on the money bubble of a huge tournament they had built me up so much I might have, but I had to focus on my play, albeit there was little I could do.
For some reason it seemed as if I was the only one in the tournament getting their chips into the middle. Only two people had shorter stacks than I do and they were completely intent on just cashing, each of them dwindling down to no more than 5 big blinds. Soon I find myself all-in with ATT5 vs Lee Watkinson's AA3x. The entire tournament gathers to watch the first all-in of the bubble and about 10 of my friends are there on the rail, cheering for a T as we await the flop. A T peels off on the flop and a low comes on the turn to chop the pot. My friends and I erupt as if we have doubled up, the entire tournament getting into our banter. The very next hand I am in the big blind and look down at aces, not a bad hand to see with just 5 big blinds left. The hand was again reported on Poker News:
Lee Watkinson raised the pot on the button and Brandon Paster, who was all in against Watkinson the previous hand when the two chopped, raised all in from the big blind for 22,000 total. Watkinson made the call and after having to wait until the other tables were finished their hands, the players flipped their cards.
Watkinson:
Paster:
Paster was ahead until the
flop came down to give Watkinson the lead with bottom set. Paster could
still stay alive with an ace, jack or running cards. The turn was the 
to give Paster a flush draw but the river was the 
to fill Watkinson up and eliminate Paster in 37th place, one short of
the money as this tournament’s bubble boy. The remaining players will
now all receive at least $10,091 for their efforts.Again I took it surprisingly well, perhaps a result of shock more than anything else, but I had a great time playing at the table, and was very proud of how I played. That said, it was pretty heartbreaking.
As I left the tournament room my friends offered consolation but I needed some time alone to let it all sink in. I wandered down the hallway and just paced back and forth, hands on my head, as the reality of the massive bubble and the end of my 2011 World Series sank in. It is tough to describe my emotions at the time. There wasn't really an overwhelming sense of anything so much as shock. Disappointment sang its tune in the background but a feeling of numbness engulfed me as I sauntered back over to my friends and noticed a new presence in the hallway, the blonde from before.
I'm not sure if it was just an "I just don't give a fuck" attitude I had developed in the recent moments after busting the tournament, but after a couple minutes I had built up the courage to go talk to her. As I walked with Tim and Mike past where she was sitting, I slowed my pace behind theirs and opened, "So were you there watching someone, or were you just sent there to distract the shit out of me?" She smiled and laughed, I panicked...I had no gameplan. She replied that she was there to watch Phil Laak which confused me a bit as he had said he didn't know her, which I told her. She explained that she had also been watching a final table that was running next to me, where she knew Minh Ly, another famous poker player. At this point I began to wonder who the fuck this girl was, so I asked. She said she was a cash game player who played with Minh at the Aria, one of the nicest casinos in Vegas. I was enthralled, but at this point I was freaking out a bit with how long this conversation had lasted and didn't know where I was going from there. So I simply asked, "So what are you up to now?" She said she was kind of tired and might just head home in a bit. Think Brandon... "Want to come hang out?" She smiled and asked what our plans were. I had nothing. We were moving out of our house in Vegas the next day to spend a week at the Rio and had to do a ton of packing and cleaning the next morning. The plan that night was to final table the $5k PLO8. "Ummm, probably just going back and hanging out and drinking." My brutal honesty brought another smile and a laugh. She inquired as to where. Oh shit, please let this be the right answer. "We're about 15 minutes south of the strip." A look of disappointment spread across her face. Nooooooooooo. "I live in North Vegas, that's kind of tough for me." I was desperate, "I can give you a ride back?" She smiled and said maybe another time. My nerves were spent and at this point my brain was out of answers and all I could offer was an earnest "Ok, hope I see you around" as we smiled and parted ways. About halfway down the hall Tim and Mike were waiting for me and after taking a few more steps we exchanged excited high fives. What a rush. And then about 15 steps from the car we realized, wait, why didn't I ask for her number? Who knows if she would've given it to me, but what did I have to lose? Unfortunately I felt as if the moment had passed and was content riding the rush from those two rare minutes of insane sober courage.
And so my World Series was over. I had played about 15 tournaments and cashed one but felt incredible about my play. In the meantime, I had played a handful of cash game sessions and had crushed every one of them. My worst session I had made $1100 and I had played about 6 sessions at this point so I set out to play a good amount of cash for the last 10 days I was in Vegas. The rungood kept coming. One night, I went to dinner at a place off the strip called Rosemary's with Dan and Tim. The chef there was a former second in hand to Emeril and the food was absolutely incredible. Tim and I had decided to try a new place in Vegas every night for the last week we were there as we had done a good job limiting spending up until that point and there a ton of great restaurants to eat at. This one took the cake. 4 bottles of wine later we returned to the Rio and played a few table games, which I still managed to hate in spite of my inebriated state of mind but we had some enjoyable banter with other players at the tables and a few more drinks. We went up to the room and drank a bit more before Tim and Dan decided to retire for the night. But I wasn't ready for my night to be over yet.
Emboldened by my recent successes at the cash tables, I went downstairs and hopped into a $5/$5 game and ordered another drink. I can only remember the rest of the night in very brief flashes but I was just completely in the zone. Normally I am completely quiet while I play but I was talking endlessly, betting exact amounts as soon as it was my turn, everything flowing. At one point my $1k had turned into a $10k stack of $100s sitting in front of me. River bets consisted of me slapping my stack of hundreds down in the middle of the table, indicating I was putting my opponent all-in. At around 9 am my memory finally became a bit more lucid but I was determined to play til noon so as not to wake my roommate who would be coming down to play his Day 1 of the WSOP Main Event. I struggled through the last few hours, aided by the friends I had made in the cash room over the course of the night who would come over and give me massages and even got me quesadillas when I was starving at 10 am. As I stumbled into the Main Event room to wish Mike good luck, I had $6k in my pocket, a 35 year-old dealer's phone number in my phone, and a massive smile on my face.
This was pretty much the last session of 5/5 I ended up playing for the trip as my stay was just about at an end. Between myself and a few friends I put together a tiny bankroll to take a shot at the 5/10/25 games but ran horribly and quickly went busto. When I finally counted up all the money I had won/lost/spent in Vegas, I was down $1k overall, not bad for having lost a fair amount in tournaments, but a bit disappointing given I had made $14k at 5/5 PLO over the course of the month and a half.
I began my trip back home to D.C. with tears in my eyes thinking about all the amazing times I had in Vegas and the incredible poker experiences but now it was time to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my poker career. Decision time.
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