An ecounter with security

As I said in my last World Series of Poker (WSOP) article, while busting the Main so close to the money stung, I’m a lot more seasoned and battle-hardened these days than the player who used to think the day I bust the Main was automatically the worst day of my year.

For the last hour I was in the tournament, I didn’t see a single waiter, so I was thirsty as Hell. I went to get water not just for myself but also my friend Paulina who was expressing similar levels of thirst. Overall the WSOP this year was a much better organized affair than any other I attended, but letting 1,600 people slowly dehydrate in the pressure cooker environment of the WSOP Main Event bubble was a real low. To make matters worse, when I returned from a scamper to the nearest store with a bottle to rehydrate Paulina, the over zealous security wouldn’t allow me to do so.

“Are you media?”

The yellow uniform barked, obstructing my path. I knew there was no point bluffing here, as the actual media circled around with prominent media passes hanging from lanyards.

“Well no, but my friend is dehydrated. I’m just bringing her this water.”

“I can’t allow you to do that.”

“Why? There are no waiters. I’m just doing the job they should be doing.”

“OUT NOW!”

This battle was clearly lost, as I realized too late I should just have said I was still in the tournament,? but the war continued. I went for a flank manoeuvre, circling around to the far side of the room, and then just strode past a different security guard with the confidence of a man still in the tournament impatient to get to his seat. This security guard didn’t even challenge me to lie to him. For added devilment, I exited through the gap the first security guard was guarding like his life depended on it.

The next day

I woke up the next day to the inevitable flood of sympathy messages (thank you everyone, they do genuinely help) and the seemingly even more inevitable handful of “do you not think you could have got away from your Queens so close to the bubble?” While I fully understand that a lot of the fun of poker for some recreationals is challenging or even criticizing the play of pros playing higher stakes than they can only dream of, and I’m generally sympathetic to people who have so little going on in their own lives that they are reduced to criticizing the play of players in the tournaments they dream of playing, I really wasn’t in the mood to argue, particularly since I recognized most of the same names as the ones who send me “all you ever do is min cash, why don’t you go for it more?” messages every time I cash but don’t win a tournament. So instead, I just made judicious use of the mute and block buttons. However, I don’t mind explaining my decision to the more occasional or genuinely curious critics, even if the day after I bust the main and am regrouping for the rest of my campaign isn’t the time to do so.

Queens in the hijack was as good as it was likely to get

Now is though. Although we were only 100 from the money, and that doesn’t seem like much in a tournament that pays over 1500, I knew from experience that we were still at least an hour from the money (in actual fact, it turned out to be an hour and 20 minutes). I’d lost half my stack in the previous hour folding every hand (not because I was trying to fold into the money but just because I got no playable hands or good spots) at a table that was playing super fast. If I folded every hand for the next hour, I’d blind out, so I had to take a spot, and Queens in the hijack was as good as it was likely to get. Had my Queens held, I could fold into the money (if I so chose, which I wouldn’t have).

Contrary to what many seem to believe, I don’t just play to rack up min cash after min cash. Nor do I play to win as many tournaments as possible. I play to try to maximise my equity (and that of my swaps and investors) in every situation. If that means folding into the money like a coward in a small side event, or risking it all with a big stack on the bubble of a big one because I think that’s the mathematically correct play, so be it. Regardless of outcome, my job is to do that, and so long as I feel I have done that, I can live with the consequences. The day I start doing otherwise will be the day I’m no longer a pro in my own mind.

Some thoughts on variance

Every year I find myself having to try to prepare some newbie pros for the variance they have to steel themselves for at the WSOP. The speech I give invariably contains the following words:

“This is my 15th WSOP. Of the previous 14, nine were significant losing trips. Two were small losing to breakeven. Two were small winning trips. The other was a big winning trip. Lifetime, I’m a big winner overall at the WSOP.”

There are two points I’m trying to make here. First, if you’re a tournament player, you will almost inevitably have more losing trips than winning ones (it’s different for cash players: they can expect to have more winning trips than losing ones). It’s fine to be hopeful, but if you’re not realistic about this fact, you’ll end up disappointed a lot. EPT winner Padraig O’Neill told me that once he’s decided how much he’s going to commit to a particular trip, in his mind, that money is already gone. I think that’s the best way to think about it. Just consider the money gone, so you’re not wasting mental bandwidth on how far ahead or behind you are at any given point in the trip, or on what you want to happen.

I see guys jumping into low value big buyin tournaments they have no business being in

Second, if you’re not willing to embrace the variance, you’ll never be a big winner in tournament poker. That one big win back in 2015 when I locked up 300k in a headsup chop washes away all those losing years, and then some. That’s one side of the coin. The other is if you throw good money after bad, chasing short term losses in a misguided effort to “get out,” you’ll lose more than you should in the long run on the losing trips, and have to win even more when the big winning trip comes along. At the end of every series, I see guys jumping into low value big buyin tournaments they have no business being in either because they’ve had a good trip so they don’t mind losing 10k or whatever, or because they’re so far buried (in their own minds) that another 10k doesn’t matter (again, in their own minds). If you wouldn’t play the 10k 6 max at the end of the series if you were up 5k for the series, you shouldn’t be playing it if you’re up or down 100k, even if to the human mind the difference between plus and minus 5k feels a more than the difference between 100k and either 90k or 110k. But in all these cases the difference is the same: 10k.

The final tally

I ended the trip with a final “score” of three cashes in bracelet events, two in Daily Deepstacks, and one in the only satellite I played. This represented a reasonable cash rate, and a good recovery given I bricked the first half. But with no truly deep runs, my biggest cash was that 10k in the satellite, leaving me down at the tables overall. However, those losses were more than washed away by swaps, staking (I got lucky that the one player I staked in the Main had a semi deep run), coaching and commentary, meaning I ended up having a small profit on the trip, even after expenses. As such, while I could have run better personally, I can’t complain too much. My satellite win ultimately came down to a flip (my opponent made a call that torched both our equity, something I’ll go into in more detail when I do a hand history review of the entire satellite on JakaCoaching), and as I said my one stake in the Main delivered. Had both of those gone against me, it would have been a big losing trip. And to be honest, I’d have been fine with that, so long as I was still happy with all my decisions at and away from the table. In a strange way, my near bubble in the Main makes me more rather than less optimistic of my future prospects. If I can get that close to the money with such bad distribution and all in EV, I have to feel that if or when the sun run does come in that particular tournament, I can have a truly deep run, and possibly even go all the way. Technically, my game is better than ever, former weaknesses in deep stack play having largely been addressed, and the fact that much better players than me seek me out for coaching on specific aspects like ICM and exploitative play is very heartening (and lucrative). This was the series where several of my current or former students made final tables, and one won a bracelet, while some real beasts approached me to start working with them.

The WSOP itself still has many areas for improvement but they seem to be moving in the right direction

Before looking forward, a few credits. I met and hung out with a lot of great people this year, too numerous to mention, but I think you all know who you are. The WSOP itself still has many areas for improvement but they seem to be moving in the right direction. The dealers and floor staff were the best I’ve seen at any WSOP, and the organizational staff too. The Poker Org lounge was a wonderful refuge from the lung cancer inducing Horseshoe, and Giulia and Marco in the GG lounge were real bright spots. The schedule was well constructed, and the general atmosphere very convivial.

Looking forward

In my early 40s, I was acutely conscious that my time as an elite ultra runner was running out. It was this which caused me to cast my eye around for a replacement to sate my competitive urges, a replacement where age would be less of an issue, and it was on poker my eye finally landed.

As I close in on 60, the same thoughts are starting to appear. I probably have less WSOP campaigns ahead of me than I have behind me. I almost certainly have less where I will feel I have a decent edge over the field. My age is not yet an issue (my health fitness and stamina remain the envy of many of my friends less than half my age) but time marches on relentlessly. It’s hard to imagine I’ll be in this good a shape in ten or fifteen years time, so I need to start thinking about what I can do to maximise my chances in the remaining years when I’m at the top of my game.

more leaps forward are possible if I study more

For next year I want to continue to really prioritize health and fitness as much as I have in the past year. There’s always room for improvement. I also want to increase my own study efforts. It’s a difficult balancing act with all the other stuff I do but I really feel that while my game is stronger than it’s ever been, more leaps forward are possible if I study more.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully quit poker. The simple fact is I love it too much. I quit chess, bridge, backgammon and running pretty much as soon as I realized that I’d plateaued, that I’d never be better than I already was. Poker, however, is different. Decline due to age may be inevitable, but is not necessarily a death knell to ambition. There will almost certainly come a day when that decline starts to kick in, but that’s not necessarily in my mind a good reason to stop completely. Here’s to finally luckboxing an Irish Open or a bracelet in my late 90s!