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July 8, 2006
WSOP Part Deuce
Wednesday was a relaxation day, and Thursday was my first WSOP event, the $1,500 limit hold'em. I started that one off with a bang, reaching 4,500 in chips by the first break and about 9k by the second. Right after the second break I won one nice pot and got up to 10k, which people were telling me was either the chip lead or close to it at that point, but that proved to be the last pot bigger than a blind steal I would win all day. I ended up finishing somewhere around 200th out of about 1,000 people.
I played exceptionally well and had a very fun time. And, most importantly, I gathered a few funny stories to recount here. At my first table there was some guy I'd never seen before who was playing tight but rather poorly. People kept coming up to him and joking about him being in a picture in some sort of magazine. Eventually I gathered that he and one of the guys he was talking to had gotten pretty deep in the main event of the WSOP last year and were seated at the same table with only 27 people left to go. I asked him how he finished and he said he got second. It turned out his name was Steve Danneman.
Everyone looked at me like I was from Mars, so I explained to them that I don't watch poker on television. I guess I was the only one at my table who doesn't find watching highly edited video of a bunch of donkeys I don't know who aren't very good at poker enjoyable. Nobody seemed able to believe that anybody willing to put up $1,500 for a tournament could possibly not know the guy who, by his own admission, got drunk and played like a donkey through most of last year's biggest tournament and fell ass backwards into millions of dollars, as if it's somehow unimaginable that I might have better things on my mind than random lucky drunks. I find it just as unimaginable that so many people don't.
That said, the guy was pretty nice. For the first hour or so of the tournament the seat to my left was vacant. Steve asked the floor how long they let the chips sit there before removing them, and the floor said they would be there until they blinded completely away because someone had paid for them. Steve said something like “How much do you want to bet that's Phil Hellmuth's seat?” Sure enough 15 minutes later guess who shows up. That's right, the self-proclaimed “world's greatest poker player”.
Unlike most people I enjoy playing with Phil Hellmuth. I can understand why people don't like it though. He isn't very friendly. He has tremendous self-esteem problems that cause every word out of his mouth to either be about how great he is or how bad you are. And he isn't the brightest guy in the world. All of that still might be excusable if he was actually a great poker player, but really he isn't. He can call himself “the world's greatest poker player” all he wants, it doesn't change the fact that the only thing he can win at over the long run is no-limit hold'em tournaments, and not even by much at those.
So it's easy to see why he's so reviled. He's a despicable human being. Personally I think that just makes playing with him all the more fun. I enjoy his combination of fragile ego, mediocre-at-best intelligence, and emotional immaturity because I can get him riled up and keep him that way the whole time, and he doesn't even know what I'm doing. You can pretty much map out his entire psyche from watching him on television for a half hour (with commercials) and at the table you can exploit it, if for nothing other than humor value. I long ago decided that if I ever got the chance I'd just throw little verbal jabs at him until he figured out what I was up to.
That's just what I did. He sat there bragging about how rich he is, and how great he is at everything, and I'd keep fueling him on. “How long would you say you've been the world's greatest poker player for?” or “How many of your bracelets came from tournaments with more than 50 people in them?”. Things like that.
At one point though I tired of that and blew my cover. He said he wasn't good at something (ping pong maybe? I can't remember) and I mentioned that fashion also wasn't his strong suit. He replied “this is a $3,000 Versace shirt I'm wearing”. It was the ugliest thing I've ever seen inside a poker room (and given the wife of this guy who I played a satellite with a few days before, that's saying something) so I told him that cost and taste are two different things. Someone asked him if people often criticized his fashion decisions and he said “well, when you wear the same black jacket for four years you have to expect that sort of thing”. That's when I told him that the reason people make fun of him is more likely that he gets his haircut at PetSmart. Only a couple people heard it but they nearly fell out of their seat laughing. He didn't respond.
That one was for my dad. He hates Phil. He once told me to hit him if I ever played with him, but despite being half German and half Lebanese I'm not a violent person. And the PetSmart comment is one of my father's favorites. Sure, I knew it would mean open warfare from then on, but I couldn't help myself.
Sure enough Phil got angry and started criticizing my play every time I did anything. At one point I called a turn bet getting 12-1 with a gut shot which, if you've read any poker book or are capable of simple division, you probably know is the correct play. Then Phil launched into a diatribe about how players start calling with everything in round two, glaring at me the whole time. I assured him that one day, long after he is gone of course, I might become the world's best poker player, but until then I'll keep calling those gut shots with 12-1.
Eventually I started making fun of his play which, unlike mine, was actually deserving of ridicule. He's seriously terrible at limit hold'em. I made a couple comments like “nice check” when he didn't bet a hand and cost himself a pot he should have won, or “nice bet” when he bet ace high on the river and got called by bottom pair . Things like that. And then came the Phil Hellmuth hand of the day.
Phil, to my left, limped under the gun. I immediately started asking “you know this is a limit game right?” as limping under the gun (or open limping from any position for that matter) is categorically stupid in limit hold'em. He said “I probably should have raised this hand” and I knew he meant it, which was actually almost a direct tip off to his hand. If he had aces or kings, or probably even ace-king he would have said “I should have raised this hand.” The “probably” made me think it was a big pair but not one of the top two. I would have wagered a good sum right there that he had either queens or jacks.
So anyway he limped, someone raised, and two people called. I defended the big blind with 4-5 of clubs. Then Phil reraised and said “now the truth comes out about this hand”. I was pretty sure I already knew the truth, but that made me 100% positive. The preflop raiser called, as did another guy, then one of the callers reraised it to 4 bets. I called again, as the pot was 5 handed for 4 bets. It could have gone one more bet (it's a five bet cap out in Vegas), but I didn't think it was going to. Even if it did I would have been getting 22-3, and if it didn't I was getting 18-2, either of which were way too big to lay down any suited connectors. So I called, as did everyone else.
The flop rolled out 652 rainbow, so I bet. My goal was to get Phil to raise and knock out any crap that might be in there, making it more likely that I would win if I hit a 4 or a 5. That's actually a concept that a lot of poker players don't understand. Sometimes you want to protect a hand that you know isn't the best if it has a good number of outs that aren't the nuts and the pot is big enough, especially in hands like that one where you might be able to knock out someone else who has the same outs you do. It's hard for some suited crap with a 4 in it to call a raise on the flop there. And if someone has a 3 and I make them fold then I've made my 4 good if it pairs, giving me three extra outs to win that whale of a pot.
Phil raised and the first preflop raiser three bet. The guy who had raised the second time (who was obviously just trying to build a pot with some goofy crap) called. At that point I'd protected my hand as much as possible, any further aggression on my part would have just been putting in money with the worst of it (though probably only slightly) but my draw was far too big to fold, so I thought a call was pretty clear cut, especially when you consider that that would have been a great spot in which to just call (planning to check-raise the turn) with a monster hand. So I called. If it were a four bet cap (and I didn't have to worry about the potential of it going 5 bets) I would maybe have reraised, but that's neither here nor there.
The turn was a ten or something similarly innocuous. I checked, as did Phil. The next guy bet, and we all called. The river was a beautiful 5 and I bet out. Phil and the next guy called, the last guy folded A6 face up. I showed my 4-5 and sure enough Phil flipped over QQ. The other player had JJ.
Phil went ballistic. He told me how bad I had played. He said he would have called the first raise from the big blind but not the second one. And he thought my flop bet was stupid, as was my turn call. I don't know where he came up with those ideas. Really the only thing I could have done differently would have been to cap the flop. There was never a fold in sight. And that's when he told me “you probably won't make it past 7 o'clock. It's hard to win with hands like 4-5.” It didn't occur to him that I never had worse than 9-1 odds preflop, or that I played that hand with a level of sophistication of which he has never in his life even been capable. To him I called a raise with 4-5 and hit a lucky river. And that's the way I like it. As Nelly once said “You don't gotta give me my props, just give me my rocks.”
Phil continued to play terribly, as always, and quickly went broke to Danneman in a rather unremarkable yet quite remarked fashion. Steve referred to it as the highlight of his career. Then our table broke, which was unfortunate for me. I had such complete control there that it almost brought a tear to my eye. I didn't know what lay ahead of me at my new table, but I knew it couldn't be better than where I was.
Sometimes when you're playing perfectly, and catching cards, and everyone is reacting to you, hanging on your every move, never having any idea what you're holding, wondering what you're going to do next, poker becomes an art form, a thing of real beauty. It ceases to be a grind. It no longer vacillates between boredom and agony. It gives you that rush that you know George Clooney feels when he wins an Oscar or Tiger Woods gets when he sinks a long putt to win the green jacket. It's the typical gambler's high, already powerful enough in and of itself to cost millions of people their mortgages annually, to the tenth degree. The laws of time and space and mathematics break down and you reach a higher plane of existence. You become, for just a few minutes, God of your own little degenerate universe. It's a feeling I'd guess fewer than 1% of poker players ever achieve, and it's what I had going until the dealer came over and dropped seat cards on our table.
My next table was still pretty good. Most of the players were simply weak-tight and I felt like I was going to be the table captain until Joe Cassidy sat down. He came in very short stacked, but quickly tripled up off and became a threat. That was still alright though, it was a good enough table that I liked my chances as co-captain. Not to mention I'm one of those sickos who prefers to play against good players, at least when I'm not in bill-paying mode, and when it comes to limit hold'em a lot of people in the know think Joe Cassidy is about as good as they get.
Joe was two seats to my right, and while I was definitely not going out of my way to confront him I did keep finding myself with something like AJs on the button facing a lone raise of his. I did outplay him on a couple sick hands and got in his head to the point where he even commented on it, but that was, I'm sure, somewhat a function of circumstances.
One such hand came shortly before the dinner break. He raised first in from early-mid position and I threebet with AQs. He called. The flop came Q22 and he check-called me. The turn was a king and he checked, so I checked behind him. At that point I figured I was facing one of three things. The first possibility was ace-king. He could have played that hand that way. The second was something that had me drawing dead or close to it on the flop, which would have to be either 22, A2s or QQ, and I didn't even know if he'd raise the first two of those. The third was something like a mediocre pair. In the first two cases I want to check, as I'm drawing slim or dead but my hand is hard to fold. In the last case I decided I would also be best checking and trying to get a bet out of him on the river, which shouldn't be too hard if a blank comes. The river was a blank and he bet, so I called. He rolled over A2s. I showed him my AQ and he was upset about his missed bets.
Unfortunately Phil Hellmuth's prediction proved false and I did make it past 7. I say unfortunately because that meant I had to eat dinner at the Rio. All of my friends had recently busted or skipped the event entirely and were heading out to dinner at some of the worlds best restaurants, meanwhile I dined alone at the counter at Buzio's. I like to eat alone on dinner breaks (in the rare even that I make them) because I need an hour free of poker and that's the only way to ensure it, but not at that restaurant. I had some sort of lobster soup that tasted like warm mayonnaise and a crab salad that was mostly warm mayonnaise, washed down with the least inexpensive Pinot I could find on their by-the-glass list. Then I went back and lost the rest of my chips on the second hand and spent the rest of the night playing pool back at the house.
Posted by themaroon at July 8, 2006 12:39 AM
Comments
I find it interesting that your not playing more poker in vegas. It shows how different the online game is to the live game. Good luck with the other events you play in.
Posted by: cauwel3 at July 8, 2006 1:18 AM
All the roommates are doing a pretty good job of distracting eachother from ever playing poker. It truly is interesting witnessing the differences between the people who use poker simply as a means to do other things (and thus rarely play because there are constantly other things to do out in Vegas) and people who do nothing but play poker. The two types really can't understand eachother, except for the fact that those that rarely play poker anymore were like the latter most likely the first year or two that they played.
Posted by: andy at July 8, 2006 2:21 AM
We definitely are all in the latter stage, with the exception of Mike #2. Lately poker to me is a stepping stone to a life of food, wine, ping pong, and pool.
Posted by: Matthew Maroon at July 8, 2006 2:53 AM
Hey son, quit using my lines!!! They're all patented by the U.S. Government. Next time you're sitting with Mr. Hellmuth, tell him I've seen his parents on different t.v. shows, they seem like fine people, and I know they raised him to act better than that.
Posted by: Dad at July 8, 2006 5:39 AM
Wow.....You must have riled Phil up quite a bit in seeing how he goes on to place 2nd in the 5k NL and 13th in the 3k limit. In addition to having many cashes at limit events including final tables and 1st thru thirds maybe there is something about tourney play you dont get and he does. Of course it could just be the sheer number of events he enters....but I guess he can afford it when you take into account all his wins and deep cashes....Jason...not really a Phil fan either
Posted by: Jason at July 8, 2006 9:30 AM
Best post ever.
QL
Posted by: Quiet Lion at July 8, 2006 11:06 AM
How would you be able to profile Phil Hellmuth through watching TV tournaments for 30 minutes if, by your own admission, you don't watch poker on TV?
Posted by: Jeff D at July 8, 2006 3:02 PM
Matt, Great post. Hopefully you can sit next to Kathy Liebert and give us your take on that classless bitch. Please try and get under her skin if you're at her table.
For what its worth, the cash games are great at the Rio.
Posted by: reddog at July 8, 2006 3:10 PM
Matt won a dollar bet during last years series by going up to Kathy and Cyndy and commenting that "you've really been an inspiration to female poker players like myself"
Posted by: andy at July 8, 2006 5:38 PM
I'm curious what Kathy did to inspire such anger. I've spoken/played with her a number of times and she's always been very mild mannered and friendly.
And thanks for reminding me about that Andy, I had totally forgotten.
Posted by: Matthew Maroon at July 8, 2006 11:42 PM
That was very nearly a 4-star post. It had the same story arc as a good movie: Clever beginning that sets the hook and foreshadows future plot twists; solid second act that clearly defines protagonist/hero and antagonist/villain and chronicles their conflict. But the third act, as with so many good-but-not-quite-great films, was a huge letdown. Dude, you are obviously capable. Now you need to win one of these suckers.
Especially enjoyed the line, "most importantly, I gathered a few funny stories to recount here."
Posted by: unkletony at July 9, 2006 1:51 AM
Here's Hellmuth's version of the limit holdem tournament: http://www.philhellmuth.com/phil-hellmuth-poker-blog.html?id=684 (6/29 entry)
"I got up at noon, and made it to the poker tournament by about 1:10 or so. In the $1,500 limit Hold'em tournament I picked up J-J and Q-Q and lost with both. Then I raised on the button with Qs-9s, and Steve Danneman (who I still like) called with A-5. The cards came down Q-9-5-4-A, and I lost that pot too! Steve then four bet it with K-Q, after I three bet it with a pocket pair, and busted me. Of course, throwing K-Q away for three bets was an easy and proper move to make, but it was his first limit hold'em tournament EVER! Too bad, because I would have won a big pot and doubled up if he didn't play. I was a little shocked when I saw the K-Q, but OK. So I was out by 1:45!!"
Posted by: Mike at July 10, 2006 10:51 PM