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Hey all,
Been a week since I've updated, hi. After about six weeks in Las Vegas I'm back in Chicago for the foreseeable future. I'll tell you a little bit about the past week, which has been, without question, one of the most memorable of my life. I've never experienced such a mix of such euphoric highs and agonizing lows in such a small window of time. Enjoy, I'm writing this down now so I can look back in the distant future and try to recapture just how this felt.
To start, I'll pick up where I left off with the Main Event. I really felt great after the first two days. I don't think I could have played any better, I made one big hand in 18 hours of play and managed to chip up from 30k starting stack to 134k, giving myself a stack that was about 20% above average. I laid down a set, made some other laydowns that in the past I would have begrudgingly called and chalked up to "can't fold, it's a live tournament." I also made some hero calls that were correct. In short, I felt proud that I had actually given a live tournament 110% effort and the results were there.
As soon as I got home from Day 2 I knew something wasn't right. I blogged about this just a bit, but I felt horribly. I spent the two "off days" between day two and three laying in bed. I probably slept about 16 hours a day. The night before day three I woke up in my hotel bed, soaking wet, sweating like crazy. It was so bad that I had to go take a shower and then lay on top of the sheets in the corner of the bed because the whole king bed was just soaked. Anyway, I was feeling probably 70% or so by the time the tournament started at noon. It was just frustrating to me to go in with a pretty big stack but still feeling crappy. I proceeded to draw a horrible table and play what I would call C poker. No excuses, I was really trying, there were just a few plays that I wish I could take back. I gave it my best shot though, and eventually went out on a 65/35 type hand, standard.
So great, I thought to myself. I had a big stack, played over 24 hours of live poker and had nothing to show for it, I'm feeling crappy, and I'm ready to get out of Vegas. Then I headed over to check on my friend Joe (LatestLines2). Joe had a pretty big stack for all of day 1 and 2, so I was expecting him to be cruising along as usual. Joe had something like 300k at this point, when the average stack was maybe 180k.
Now, a little background on Joe. He's one of the nicest kids you'll ever meet, poker player or not. He plays SnG's professionally, grinding out the $100+ SnG's for what amounts to a comfortable living. He's never really cared too much about playing as high stakes as possible, any sort of fame or recognition, but he's a really good player. He could definitely beat high stakes cash games if he put his mind to it. He'll play a ton of volume for a month or two, then just inexplicably take a month off, go to Disneyworld, hang out with friends, and just enjoy himself. Not a bad lifestyle, indeed.
Anyway, Joe is such a solid player that I'll gladly put him into pretty much any tournament if he ever wants to play one. Stinger talked him into playing the main event and we bought some action. So fast forward to this point near the end of Day 3 and I am really frustrated. I've just finished a blog about how I can just feel something good about to happen to me, I'm due fo some good luck, yet I just bust out of the Main Event and got sick at the absolute worst time. Since there were only about 900 people left in the tournament at this point, I decided I'd stick around and see how far Joe could make it.
By the time the bubble burst, Joe had built up a stack of like 500k or something like that. Stinger and I were feeling pretty good because by the end of day 4 I think his stack put him in 30th place with 400 or so people left to go. I kept pushing my rental car and hotel room one day back every day, expecting Joe to catch some bad beat and bust any minute now.
I'll tell you one thing, sweating someone you really want to do well in a live tournament is infinitely more stressful than playing in a live tournament. I was a freaking MESS on the side watching Joe's action. He wasn't even playing a ton of hands, but everytime he was in one I was absolutely going insane. You sort of "have to be there" to understand, but think about this. When your guy raises, you don't know if you want a call or a fold. When you get a call, THEN you have to hope that his hand holds up if it's good which is the most stressful thing in the world. Someone came up to me at one point and said "Taylor, the pokernews people were laughing at how nervous you look watching Joe." I was like "Yeah, can't you tell? I'm a wreck, this is the most stressful thing I've ever done."
During day 5 and 6, Stinger, Bruce, and I went to the Rio's poker room to play some small stakes to kill time. I just couldn't stomach watching Joe the whole day, so I would get into a 1-2 or 2-5 game and just sweat the pokernews updates for a couple hours. These games turned out to quite fun and profitable, I think I managed to win about $1500 in 5 hours of play or so. We had a pretty fun table the first day, with this crazy asian gambler who bought in for 2k at 2-5, plus Mickey Appleman who talked to us a fair bit about sports betting. Mickey also seemed to think that many of the online kids who have had success will go broke, which I don't necessarily disagree with, I just don't think it will be me. I'm not sure he agreed with that, ha ha, oh well. Stinger and I both managed to successfully kamikaze bluff the asian guy, which let me tell you, was generally NOT a smart move. I decided to barrel three streets OOP into the guy, finally getting him to fold on the river. While he was tanking, I ordered a burger from the restaurant and was carrying on a conversation with the left side of the table. I think this helped my cause, because after a few minutes he mucked the hand. I showed him the hand and Mickey looked at me like I was the biggest fool in the world. Truthfully, I might have been.
So eventually near the end of Day 6, Joe has something like 1.4mm and the average stack is probably just a bit more than that. He's got a decent table, nothing too difficult but not an easy one. There's 110 players left at this point, and we're really starting to think he might be able to make a deep run. I'll just paste the PocketFivesLive news coverage of this hand, because I really can't do the situation too much more justice:
Joe Wards Off Elimination by Brett on 07.13.09, 9:02 pm
 Joe "LatestLines2a€³ Ward is running well during this year's WSOP Main Event. He'll tell you that himself, especially after the way he scooped a massive pot just minutes ago to double up to nearly 3 million chips.
With the blinds at 12K/24K ante 3K a player raised from under the gun and Ward came along for the ride. The flop came 7 65 and the two players got into a raising war that resulted in all of Ward's chips going in with a chance for him to double up or go home:
Ward: 88
Opponent: J J
With Taylor "GreenPlastic" Caby and several of Joe's friends on the rail (and almost forcing it to collapse), the dealer peeled over the A on the turn. No help to Ward. He needed a nine, four or eight to stave off elimination. The river: the 4, giving Ward a straight and sending his rail into a frenzy. Caby was so excited that he actually ran between the ropes and into the tournament area, causing a secrurity guard to give him one last warning before he'd be thrown out. Ward, meanwhile, began stacking an enormous pile of chips that total 2.8 million, placing him around 20th out of 107 players still in the field. The current average is 1.8 million.
Wow. We were going crazy. Anyone that knows me or has played with me knows I'm generally a pretty laid back guy. Something just came over us and we HAD to sweat that action. The floor guy wasn't letting us in to see the turn and river but with all the time we had invested watching this tournament and because I wanted this so badly for Joe we just had to sweat it out. When Joe binked off the straight I immediately ran over to him, hugged him, and we were just jumping up and down like crazy. The ESPN cameras were all over us and it was total euphoria. I've never felt a feeling like that, Stinger and I agreed it was the best sweat of our lives, even though we had both had some pretty serious high stakes hands to sweat out. My whole body was shaking after this pot. It's really weird, it was like the adrenaline or whatever it was was just causing me to hardly be able to function. I think it was a combination of having felt like I've run pretty damn awful so far this year and also wanting this so badly for Joe. I told my friends, I'd rather have a piece of Joe and have him win the main event than have me win the whole thing for 8 million. That's how much I really wanted the kid to do well, he's that type of guy.
Okay, so Joe was onto day 7. There were 80 people left or so and his stack was basically average. Not a whole lot happened to be quite honest, he was chipped up just a little bit when he smooth called an EP's raise with KK, the blinds squeezed, EP reshoved, and Joe called it off. He was up against QQ and JJ! He knocked out both of these guys, and with 36 people left, he was in 8th place! This was the most unbelievable feeling ever, Joe was in great position with only four tables to go!
Of course, who but Phil Ivey gets moved two to Joe's right. Joe had played with Ivey for about 4 hours already so he felt about as comfortable as you can feel, but it wasn't a great draw. The very next hand, Joe picked up KK again and raised from UTG. Ivey called with 97cc, and eventually took about 1mm from Joe on Q7473 board. Joe was down to about 9mm, with the average stack at 5.75mm or so. Only a couple hands later, Joe got it all in with KK v AA, total cooler. KK couldn't suck out and he was again down below average. He stayed steady for a couple hours, and eventually got it all in with 66 v AQ. Thankfully, he won the flip and was now in about 20th place with 28 people left.
About six short stacks doubled through when the following hand came up. Keep in mind we had been sweating Joe for about 4 full days now and about 9 hours so far on this day. Cutoff raises to 250k at 50/100 blinds, joe makes it 950k on the button, cutoff shoves all in for 4.4million, Joe goes "well, it's time to gamble," and calls with AK. Cutoff shows AQ and Joe is looking great! I am SOOO nervous at this point, I can't even see the cards because there is a swarm of people and and media watching. I knew there was no way I could pull a bush-league move like last time and run out there, so I just decided I'd watch Joe's reaction and sweat his face. ESPN makes the dealers wait for like 30 seconds between each action, so on with the sweat. Joe looked calm after the flop, I knew we were okay. One of my friends goes "King! King!" And someone at the table turns to him and goes "the King will give the other guy more straight outs, he'll have four outs instead of three." My friend goes, "DEUCE, DEUCE!" Haha, it was pretty funny.
Turn was a deuce! AT82 board, Joe needs to dodge a Queen on the river and he will have 8.8 million in chips, putting him in 10th place with 28 to go. I turned to the pokernews guy next to me and said "only a queen can hurt him, right?" He said, "yep, looking good, just needs to dodge a queen." I still couldn't see the board at this point so I sweated Joe's face once again. River: death. I knew it immediately by Joe's reaction. He turned and yelled an expletive and threw his hat at the rail. In what will certainly be good TV this fall, Joe's fate was sealed with Queen on the river. It was the most agonizing thing I've ever seen. Joe was one card away from timely double up, a big stack with 28 people to go, and he couldn't dodge the Queen. The whole room was cheering because now we were down to our final 27, I felt so bad for him. We walked over to meet him, asked if he wanted a beer, and he said "no, got a gun?" It was a pretty funny moment that thankfully we have all sinced laughed about.
The floor guy counted out all of Joe's chips. Joe was outchipped by a mere 200k, or two big blinds. We immediately left the building, I went home, booked a flight for the next morning, took a shower, and met the guys at the blackjack tables at the Encore.
We played about an hour of blackjack. We talked about nothing besides the poker tournament, and almost nothing besides that last hand. The floor guy didn't really seem to understand why we kept talking about it, but no one really wanted to let him know just how big of a deal having a non Q river would have been. Joe ended out cashing for $250k for his troubles, a great run that he should be proud of, but we couldn't quite help but wonder what would have happened if that river had been a different card. I decided to bet whatever money I had on me on my last hand. It turned out to be about $1100. I wanted to lose it. Something felt right about leaving Vegas with an empty pocket to go along with my empty dream of Joe final tabling the Main Event.
My hand played out like this: Dealer showing a T, I get dealt 15. Apparently the right play is to surrender. I was in no mood to surrender, having felt so crappy and just wanting some pain, but I felt like if I'm going to be playing blackjack, I should always at least be making the right plays. I surrender and get $550 back. Joe is next to me, he hits, and of course, it's my 21 card, a 6 :(. Oh well, I think, I'm not looking for anything but pain. Next hand, I bust, and walk up dejectedly to my room.
All in all, it was a great summer in Las Vegas. Thanks to Joe, I had a nice little score and a very profitable summer. I'll never forget us celebrating that 4 on the river, the agoniziing defeat on Day 7, and all of the good times in between. I recently blogged about how I was due or some good luck, and this life experience was worth more to me than any amount of money I could have won. Being 25 and spending the summer in Las Vegas with some of your closest friends is an experience that most people will never get to have. It's amazing that it took a crappy beat in an inoportune situation to pick me up from my preverbial funk, but I feel better now. I'm ready to get back to the grind at the CR office and take on whatever is coming next. This truly was one fine week, and I'm really glad I was able to experience it. Good luck and thanks for reading.
Taylor
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