Partial Victory
(Note: if you want a reference to poker lingo, click here.)
I started Day 2 of the WPT Prime Championship at noon today. The prize pool was over $10 million! First place would get over $1.3 million! There were 1,309 players left in the tournament out of 10,512 entries.
In the hallway before play began, I ran into Lynn Gilmartin, the TV anchor for the WPT. I see her at these events sometimes, and I had planned what to say if I ran into her. She has a commercial that plays over and over during the televised WPT events where she says, "People are always asking me what's the best way to learn poker." So, not wanting to be left out, I went up to her and said, “Lynn, I have a pressing question that I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“Yes?”
“What’s the best way to learn poker?” She started to reply before she realized I was teasing. We had a nice laugh. She's sweet. She wished me good luck.
The tournament started out very badly for me. On the first hand, I got pocket 6s. Professional player Cherish Andrews shoved with a stack slightly shorter than mine. I called. She had KJ and got a K on the river. I was left with a pitiful stack of 6 big blinds.
On my second hand, things looked better when I got pocket 10s. I shoved and got 2 callers, one with AK and the other with AQ. I hit a 10 on the flop to triple up! This was particularly fortunate since an A also showed up on the flop. My stack was then right about where I started.
Shortly after that, I shoved under the gun with A9. I got called by pocket Js. The flop was AKQ. Really good for me, but I wasn't out of the woods yet. I needed to avoid a J or a 10. The next cards were 3 and 4. I doubled up!
There were 1,083 players left. I had about 20 big blinds. Not great, but actually better than the 15.5 big blinds I had started with.
They held up the tournament because I think they needed to pay so many players who busted out so quickly that they were losing track of their positions and thus how much money each was owed. They also needed to move players around to fill up the tables. We were down to 1,003 players, but then the number kept decreasing as they recounted all the players who had busted. The number eventually settled at 991 players left.
I was down to 10 big blinds when I shoved with A♦9♦. I got called by a player with K♦10♦. Neither of us improved with the cards that came out, so I won and doubled up.
I was down to 10 big blinds in the big blind position. I got dealt J9. Everyone folded. The small blind raised from 12K to 32K. I called. The flop was 788. I decided to shove, hoping that my jack-high hand was good or that I’d get a 10 for a straight or he’d think I had an 8. The other player called but unfortunately had pocket Ks. I needed a 10 or two Js. I only got one J. I busted out at #849.
It was a good run, and I made money, but it was not nearly as good as I was hoping. It gave me a little boost to know I could still go far in a tournament. We’ll see how I do in the next one.
If you like my poker blogs, you’ll like my book Election Hacks, a first-hand account of the story of my debunking the 2020 election fraud “proof” of pillow salesman Mike Lindell and the subsequent arbitration that awarded me $5 million.