So here's how it all went down for our first representative this year at the World Series of Poker. New to the game, Mr. Eric L. has made quite an impression with his co-takedown of our Road to Vegas satellite series, along with Jeff G.
Hopefully Jeff will also do a little write up of his tournament that he's playing in this weekend. I myself have already been and went for the millionaire maker, and I should get around to writing it up soon.
In the meantime read all about Eric's adventure and enjoy!
My Trip to the Big Dance -- by Eric L.
So, I’ll level with you guys – I didn’t join this satellite expecting to take it down. I just thought it was a fairly inexpensive way to get in a good amount of poker in a convenient location with some friendly people and hopefully improve my game. I did not think it would take me where it did, but I am exceedingly grateful for everything that went down.
I may not have done a great job explaining to my wife how this whole thing was structured. When I told her I had $1500 in my pocket after we finished step 2, she was ecstatic. I had to gently break it to her that that $1500 was my entry fee to the WSOP in Vegas, which she was
slightly less enthusiastic about. That said, once I properly explained it to her she was very supportive of the trip.
I was in Vegas for a gig about 3 weeks before the WSOP kicked off, so on my last day in town, on Chris’s recommendation, I went over to the Rio and bought my ticket. Event #12. $1500 NLHE. “Holy crap,” I thought, “I’m actually doing this.” What didn’t occur to me at the time was this was one of the first major Hold Em events (other than a couple of very expensive ones) so many of the best players would be there and would not yet be ground down by 6 weeks of WSOP poker.
Since I was playing a mid-week tournament, I waited until the last minute to book a hotel room,
knowing rooms are always cheap in the middle of the week. I planned to drive out to Vegas Monday afternoon to be fresh for the tournament that started Tuesday at 11. Monday morning I found a couple of nights at the Palms for a very reasonable rate and went ahead and booked. The drive to Vegas was unveventful, and once I got to the Palms and checked in, I decided I would take a walk across the street so I could get my bearings, having never really spent any time at the Rio.
As I walked up to the casino, I saw this banner. Again, I thought “this is really happening?” I took a walk back into the convention center area and was floored by the amount of poker going on at once. There were tables as far as the eye could see. I certainly felt in awe of this place and what I was doing.
The pavilion:
Hopefully Jeff will also do a little write up of his tournament that he's playing in this weekend. I myself have already been and went for the millionaire maker, and I should get around to writing it up soon.
In the meantime read all about Eric's adventure and enjoy!
My Trip to the Big Dance -- by Eric L.
So, I’ll level with you guys – I didn’t join this satellite expecting to take it down. I just thought it was a fairly inexpensive way to get in a good amount of poker in a convenient location with some friendly people and hopefully improve my game. I did not think it would take me where it did, but I am exceedingly grateful for everything that went down.
I may not have done a great job explaining to my wife how this whole thing was structured. When I told her I had $1500 in my pocket after we finished step 2, she was ecstatic. I had to gently break it to her that that $1500 was my entry fee to the WSOP in Vegas, which she was
slightly less enthusiastic about. That said, once I properly explained it to her she was very supportive of the trip.
I was in Vegas for a gig about 3 weeks before the WSOP kicked off, so on my last day in town, on Chris’s recommendation, I went over to the Rio and bought my ticket. Event #12. $1500 NLHE. “Holy crap,” I thought, “I’m actually doing this.” What didn’t occur to me at the time was this was one of the first major Hold Em events (other than a couple of very expensive ones) so many of the best players would be there and would not yet be ground down by 6 weeks of WSOP poker.
Since I was playing a mid-week tournament, I waited until the last minute to book a hotel room,
knowing rooms are always cheap in the middle of the week. I planned to drive out to Vegas Monday afternoon to be fresh for the tournament that started Tuesday at 11. Monday morning I found a couple of nights at the Palms for a very reasonable rate and went ahead and booked. The drive to Vegas was unveventful, and once I got to the Palms and checked in, I decided I would take a walk across the street so I could get my bearings, having never really spent any time at the Rio.
As I walked up to the casino, I saw this banner. Again, I thought “this is really happening?” I took a walk back into the convention center area and was floored by the amount of poker going on at once. There were tables as far as the eye could see. I certainly felt in awe of this place and what I was doing.
The pavilion:
After
walking
around
like a
tourist
visiting
New York
City for
the first
time, I
grabbed
some
dinner
and
headed up
to my
room. Well, maybe I stopped at a craps table and lost $60 and then headed up to my room. Oops. It is Vegas, after all.
The next morning, on less sleep than I would have liked – nerves made it a little difficult to sleep -- I ate some breakfast, grabbed my backpack full of snacks and headed back to the Rio. I started in the Amazon room. I took this quick photo before we got underway.  That guy in the red was super nice – we kept making eye contact when other players made dumb moves. I saw him again on day 2, when we chatted again – we were both happy to see the other had survived. He got knocked out about 20 people before me. To his left was Jay Farber, who came in 2nd in the main event a few years back. He busted out before the dinner break on day 1. Having worked in plenty of convention centers, I knew that they’re always too cold or too hot and packed several layers and hoodies. Unfortunately, I left all of them in my hotel room and had to buy a rather overpriced WSOP one from the gift shop at the first break. Oh well, it’s a decent souvenir. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start. I lost a few small pots, one big pot and ended up with only about five big blinds. The poker gods were not giving me much love at this point. I had a string of hands like 92o, 72o, etc. It got to the point where shoving with my 2d3d on the button was a legit play, and I did and I had one caller. We flipped up the cards, he had something like KJo, I don't actually remember. The flow was 45x, the turn was an Ace. I had hit the straight on my Hail Mary play. So I had another life but was still pretty short. I managed to steal some blinds from some super tight players at the table and by dinner I had built things back up to a little less than 5K. |
I still thought I wasn’t going to last the day, but I had started making small goals for myself, and that was the next one – just get to the end of the day. I knew that if I was going to be viable in this thing, I was going to have to double up a couple more times.
Thankfully, the cards helped. Shortly after dinner I doubled up with KK, and then on the next hand doubled again with AA. About three hands after that the cowboys reappeared, and I didn’t double up there but did increase my chip stack quite a bit. When it was time to bag chips, there were 275 players left. Of those 275 I was 11th in chips. The group text with all of the PSP Satellite players was getting pretty excited at this point.
After bagging my chips, I headed back to my room and tried (and failed) to go to sleep. The adrenaline was just too much. I stared at the ceiling for a while before finally falling asleep – I think I got about 3 hours in. I also booked myself a room for the next night at the gold coast across the street, because the Palms wanted way too much for a 3rd night and I’m a cheap bastard. The next day came, and we were in a new, brighter and less freezing room. I unbagged my chips and stacked them up
neatly. I sent all the PSP guys this picture, which got them very excited.
Since there were only 14 players left who were not making money, we got to hand- for-hand play very quickly. There were a lot of people at my table who were pretty short so there was a lot of folding, and I took the opportunity to push my big stack around and steal some blinds and antes,
since none of them wanted to walk away empty handed. After about 45 minutes of hand-for-hand (which was maybe) 10 hands, 2 people went out at the same time, and they split the last-place money.
So now we were in the money – everything after this is gravy, right?
My next goal was make it to dinner.
Dinner came and went, and I won a couple of huge pots that were featured on the WSOP news wire.
I had put him on AJ or something similar calling my 3bet, so thought my Aces would be good
after the flop. I hesitated after the turn thinking he might have had the set of 9s, but also thought
the bet would be bigger if he did. I was fairly certain he was trying to push me out of the hand
with a lesser pair with the river bet, and I was right.
This one was super exciting – he had only been sitting at my table for about 15 hands and had folded everything. The table folded to me pre-flop and I saw a chance to steal some antes, so I raised to 2.5BB. He called, which I was surprised at.  The rest pretty much played out as it says. After the turn I thought his bet was trying to defend his middle pair, so I called. And then when I made 2 pair on the river I felt I had to call. This was probably the point where my stack was the biggest. The PSP group text was definitely going bananas at this point. Shortly after this hand, my table was broken and I moved to what would be my final table of the tournament. I was dealt KK on the button, 3-bet and had 1 caller. The flop came 8 J 9 and she bet 100K. At this point I had been playing for more than 19 hours out of 36 and was pretty exhausted. I admit I didn’t even see the possible straight on the board, so I called with my over pair. The turn came another 9 and she went all in. I only saw my 2 pair and thought I was good, so I called. We flipped, and I was way behind, with only 4 outs – another 9 or a K was the only thing that could save me from losing nearly 90% of my stack. The river was a 7, which was no help. This left me with less than 10 big blinds. A few hands later I was dealt JTs and had to go all-in with it. I was called by someone – I don’t even remember what they had. It was a race, but I lost it. Lucky for me, there was a pay bump between 37 and 36 place and holding on for an extra 5 minutes or so earned an extra $1800.  Sadly, that ended my trip to the WSOP. I collected the check, went back to my room, got some sleep and left town the next morning. I admit I was starting to have visions of a final table and a gold bracelet, but alas, it did not |
happen. That said, I cannot overstate how incredible an experience this was; I’m already thinking about how much I want to come back next year.
