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August 5, 2006
Final Chapter
I woke up today feeling a bit of a cold coming on but otherwise in pretty good shape. I meant to stop by the PokerStars room to pick up some of the modified gear since I had left the stuff I had gotten the day before sitting on a table at Starbucks but was running late and didn't have time. I decided that if I hit the dinner break I'd take care of it then. We players were all told on day 1 that we couldn't wear any gear that said Pokerstars.com (at that time .net and .org were permissible) and that I would have to put tape over the jersey, so I just threw it away and played all day in a t-shirt. I felt bad about it because PokerStars has been so wonderful (and after hearing about all of the hassles from people who won their way in on other sites I have to say I'll likely play satellites exclusively on theirs from now on) throughout the entire event. So I wanted to be sure to wear their stuff if I got any TV time. As it is I was filmed a decent amount on day 2, and a little on day 1, but I wasn't at a featured table and didn't cash big so I'll probably be lucky just to appear in some sort of rapid montage.
Play began promptly at noon and I quickly discovered that my day 3 table was by far the worst of the entire week. There were a lot of chips and most of the players were at least decent. A couple were really good. I knew right away that it wasn't going to be as easy as the first two days. My only real luck in those was my table draw, so today I knew I was going to have to hit some hands. That's never been my strong suit.
I lost a few chips early in small to medium sized pots and was down to under 200k when my first big hand of the day came up. The blinds were 800/1600/200 and it folded to me in late position. I raised with Tc9c to 5000 and the big blind, an aggressive and possibly very good player who had what appeared to be about 90k in chips, called. The flop came KcJd6c and my opponent bet 7,000. I called with my gut shot and four flush and the turn came the 8h. My opponent bet out 20k and I pushed all-in. He made a crying call for what turned out to be 55k more with bottom set and the river wasn't one of my many outs, so I was down to around 100k.
I wasn't upset at all about that hand as I don't think I could have played it any better. There was a lot of money in the pot on the turn but he had enough chips behind that I think he's folding anything worse than KJ, and he might even fold that. He didn't seem too happy about having to call with the set that he did have. He played his hand well and I didn't really expect to see 66, but even then I had about a 30% shot of winning.
After that things kept going badly and I think I made a couple small mistakes. Nothing noteworthy or extraordinarily important, just a bad turn call and a bad river bet, both of which cost maybe 10k. A lot of hands that I think I played well went sour for small amounts, and of course the blinds kept coming through. At one point I was as low as 40k, but I worked it back up to about 70k during the period where everyone was trying to squeak into the money. Fortunately I had been moved to another table during that time (my original table only had a few farmers) so I was able to get back some of my lost stack. Whoever invented round-for-round play (as opposed to hand-for-hand) deserves at least half of the $5.7 million Harrah's raked from that event.
After we made it to the money I got QQ in middle position when the blinds were 1k/2k/300 and a loose-aggressive (and I think not very good) player who had been trying to bully me around for the entire time I was at that table reraised me. A short stack went all-in and I felt he could have had a number of hands that I could beat, and I knew the other guy could so I shoved. The big stack had AA, the short stack KK, no help came, and I was out.
I was escorted to the tables where I had to fill in my payment information. The line was long but Mike May had just been knocked out too, so we chatted for a while. We then had to wait in another big line at the cashier, so we instead decided to go get dinner at Gaylord Indian restaurant, which I'd heard was great. We went there, had them put us down for a reservation a half hour later, and then went back to cash out.
After we had gotten our money (it's going to be a joy walking around in the airports tomorrow with a bundle of bills the size of a brick in my pocket) we went to the restaurant and had the worst service I've ever seen. They didn't take our order for probably a half hour, never brought refills on the water (a cardinal sin as far as I'm concerned), forgot an appetizer, and didn't bring us all of the food that was supposed to come with our meals. But the food was decent and the company was enjoyable so I even left my share of the waiter's tip, in strict violation of my food service employee eugenics program.
I spent the rest of the night in my room brooding, watching my backlog of Daily Shows and Colbert Reports and some Family Guy DVDs, talking to friends, and writing a bit. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and try to catch the first available plane back home. The 2006 WSOP has been quite an adventure, but now it's over and I'm glad for it. I'm ready to go home.
Posted by themaroon at August 5, 2006 3:14 AM
Comments
Glad you enjoyed your adventure, sorry it didn't last at least one more day. Still, a $16K cash isn't bad. There are more than 7,000 other players who would gladly trade places with you!
"Whoever invented round-for-round play (as opposed to hand-for-hand) deserves at least half of the $5.7 million Harrah's raked from that event."
Glad they made the switch. I've never played in a live tournament, but everyone says hand-for-hand is a real PITA.
AA vs. KK vs. QQ? Nothing like going out with the coldest of cold decks!
Posted by: fun160 at August 5, 2006 4:31 AM
Good job, Matt. Sounds like you played as well as you could and the deck didn't cooperate enough. That's all you can do.
Posted by: Michael at August 5, 2006 10:07 AM
Congrats Matt, well done for getting into the money. That was a tough draw for day 3.
Posted by: Pokerdogg at August 5, 2006 11:20 AM
Tough breaks, Matt, but well done.
Posted by: howard treesong at August 5, 2006 1:24 PM
Good job Matt. I've never followed a poker tournament so closely. Thanks for making it interesting for us all.
Posted by: Martin at August 5, 2006 3:17 PM
Matt, way to go. Oh well!! Nice showing getting in the money. It's funny I was nervous and didn't even play. It was fun getting the updates and looking for you.
Posted by: mcgheeworld at August 5, 2006 4:36 PM
Nice showing Matt. You took your shot, that's all you can do.
Posted by: Mike at August 5, 2006 6:26 PM
Where are your friends?
Posted by: craniac at August 5, 2006 7:03 PM
Are the pictures on CardPlayer when you search for "Maroon" in the Main Event really you?
Posted by: TheBagMan at August 6, 2006 3:47 PM
Excellent run Matt, be proud of the finish!!
Posted by: Drizztdj at August 7, 2006 10:48 AM
No offense, but I think that's a pretty easy call his bottom set vs your flush/straight draw. I don't see anybody folding a set with no straight or flush on board.
Posted by: sirsloth at August 10, 2006 4:40 AM