Main Event Day One

I spent most of the day stalling around waiting to set traps at an aggressive table, continually frustrated by my seat and cards. Then late in the night I caught a big break and doubled up against the big stack, and now head into day two (Wednesday) with a healthy 82,325 chips.

The Twenty Players Most Likely To Win The Main Event

Okay - finally time for my favorite annual post. Gone from last year's list: Kenny Tran, Michael Binger, Patrik Antonius, Andy Black, Lee Watkinson, Dan Harrington.

20. Michael Mizrachi
Yeah, I know the Grinder just pulled off an inconceivable Golden Sombrero in WSOP prelims. I also know he's the most impressive player I have ever played with - both times in weak fields.

19. John Juanda
One of three players in the all-time top ten money list without a top ten WSOP main event finish.

18. Brandon Cantu
I heard some guys talking about how Cantu won the $1500 PLO8 even though "he has no idea how to play the game." I think they're missing the point. Cantu may not even know how to play no limit hold em, but he knows how to win tournaments in weak fields.

17. John Phan
Just to prove this list was compiled before the main event started.

16. Mike Matusow
Does anyone want it more?

15. Allen Cunningham
Though he has been rather quiet over the last year.

14. David Pham
Too maniacal for this structure?

13. Nam Le
Can't think of anything to say here...I will be playing day three (Sunday).

12. Carlos Mortensen
One of four former main event champions on this list.

11. Elky Grospellier
The hottest player on the circuit since the start of 2008.

10. Erik Seidel
Feel like this is the kind of guy that will be lurking unassumingly in the chip counts for three or four days, and then suddenly there will be 60 players left and he will be in the top half.

9. Scotty Nguyen
Overlooked far too often.

8. Erick Lindgren
One of the biggest losers of this WSOP, looking to recapture the magic of last year's Series.

7. Steve Sung
His results speak for themselves.

6. Chris Ferguson
The most underrated big name in the game.

5. Phil Hellmuth
May have finally found his game in the $5k six-handed this week.

4. Phil Ivey
It has now been six years since this dramatic hand went down - perhaps the most momentous hand in the game's history.



3. J.C. Tran
A main event final table is the only thing missing from J.C.'s sterling tournament resume.

2. Daniel Negreanu
You have to love Daniel's chances in the best-structured event of the year.

1. Gus Hansen
Gus only plays deepstacked events, and his results in them are unmatched. The original crazy Scandinavian, and still the best.

June Top 15

15. The Avett Brothers - Pretty Girl From Chile
14. The White Stripes - 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outdoor Blues
13. Queens of the Stone Age - Gonna Leave You
12. The Waifs - How Many Miles
11. The White Stripes - A Martyr For My Love For You

10. George Thorogood and the Destroyers - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
9. U2 - With Or Without You
8. The Avett Brothers - Shame
7. Frank Sinatra - This Town


6. Katy Perry - Hot 'N Cold
5. The Waifs - Goodbye
4. The Avett Brothers - Will You Return
3. Rogue Wave - Temporary
2. The Avett Brothers - I Would Be Sad

Song of the Month: The Avett Brothers - Die Die Die

One of the Best

So we have this joke in our house about how I am always saying so and so is "one of the best" players. I can say confidently that my friend Jason "TheMasterJ33" DeWitt is one of the best tournament players in poker today. He finished second in the $3k Triple Chance event Tuesday for $313k, the biggest take of his career so far.

I Will Have To Miss the 5k Six-Handed

Because I made it to day two of the last $1500 NLHE. I've got a solid stack of 64,700 which is less than the ridiculous 67k I had at dinner.

MasterJ has a gigantic chip lead with sixteen players left in the 3k triple chance. Tomorrow he goes for the bracelet and $500k.

Mistakes in the $3k Triple Chance

For the first time this summer I felt like I misplayed multiple hands in a WSOP event.

Hand one:

Karlo Lopez (new to the table) limps in early position. I limp on the cutoff with 98o. Blinds complete. Flop JTx two diamonds. I do not have a diamond. Check, check, Karlo bets 225 into 400. I call. Turn 8d. Karlo checks, I bet 525, Karlo calls. River offsuit ace. Karlo bets 675. I should raise to 2k here I think. Karlo's most likely holdings are KQ with a diamond, AJ, AA. He could have a flush. I think he, being a veteran, thinking player, is going to have a hard time calling with anything but a flush. The way the hand played out, it makes a lot of sense for me to have a flush and not much sense to have anything else (if I raise on the end).

Hand two:

Internet guy raises to 525 mid-late position at 100-200. I call with JhTh right behind him. All others fold. Flop A9h2h. He bets 700, I snap-call. Turn offsuit king. He bets 1600, I tank pretending to have an ace and call. River x he checks quickly. He will have an ace and call here a lot of the time, so I should just make a small value bet bluff in case he was bluffing himself. He can definitely be bluffing if he has been paying attention to me, as I peel most flops in position heads up in raised pots. I should just make a small bet of like 1600 but I totally dogged it and checked behind. He announces "you got it, sevens" and wins.

I was so upset with myself after this hand. The day before, in the $1500 event, I felt like I played some of my best tournament poker ever and was evolving from a decent player into a really good one. But then today I dogged it on those two bluffs and am very disappointed in myself.

The $5k six-max event is on Tuesday. Traditionally, I have used this event as a measuring stick in evaluating my tournament game. I feel like success in that tournament, playing deep six-handed poker, can be achieved unless you really get unlucky. In '05 and '06 I elected not to play it because I felt like I wasn't good enough. In '07 I was starting to feel pretty good about myself after my final table but I got owned by Sorel Mizzi and realized I had a long way to go. In '08 I thought I played it well but looking back I know there was more I could have done. I will be very disappointed on Tuesday if I walk out of the Rio feeling like I made mistakes.

The Degradation of the World's Finest Gambling Game

When I started playing poker for "serious money", it was playing ten-handed $2-$4 no-limit hold em (NLHE) on Party Poker with a max buy-in of $200, or fifty big blinds (BBs). Party had four tables; Paul and I would get on all the waitlists and eventually play four tables at once. It is not hard to play four tables of ten-handed poker at a time online, as most of your hands are folded before the flop. You can follow the action at the other tables without much difficulty, keeping an eye on the action and checking out hand histories.

Nine months after I started playing those tables, Party opened up higher limits while simultaneously increasing the max buy-in to 100 BBs. Deeper stacks lead to more intricate thinking, as pots swell, information increases, and more decisions must be made at later junctures in the hand.

Eventually, like many pros, I converted to playing six-handed cash games. I think six-handed is more enjoyable and interesting than ten-handed. It is right to play more hands, so there are more decisions - and decisions are what make games fun. As time progressed I grew more comfortable playing with even shorter tables, all the way down to heads up.

Party closed to Americans after the UIGEA, so I took my business to other sites. The two most popular sites, PokerStars and Full Tilt, do not offer any tables that seat more than nine players.

The most common and popular events at the World Series of Poker are $1500 NLHE tournaments, played ten-handed for most of day one and nine-handed the rest of the way. Players who want to play just one WSOP event often choose these $1500 "donkaments." After the first couple hours, the average stack in these tournaments is generally around 30-50 BBs. Many players, from novices to professionals, are most comfortable playing under these conditions. Even players like me, who find this sort of poker irritating and dreary compared to its other forms, can't pass up the value of a $1500 WSOP NLHE and sign up for as many as possible.

It's frustrating to me that this has become the most popular form of poker. Playing ten-handed live with average stacks of less than fifty BBs is so banal. I can understand "grinding" online, playing four or more tourneys at at time. But live, with people often thinking for a minute or two about what to do, is just too boring. It doesn't help that playing ten-handed is physically miserable, squeezed between men with no room to move. What worries me is the thought of amateurs coming out here to play their one WSOP event, cramming into a ten-handed table, playing five hands in three hours, and then losing queens to kings or whatever and going home disenchanted. Poker is such a wonderful, complex, fascinating game. I have this cliched image in my head, small groups of cowboys playing the game in a saloon or around a campfire. Playing ten-handed with short stacks is not the way it was meant to be played.