Event #10 at the WSOP

Today was Event #10 No-Limit Holdem.

I sat down at my table to get the lay of the land and to my surprise there were no major pros at my table, which can be a good and a bad thing. The good is that you can take advantage of weak players. The bad, I sat down to a table of all unknown players that I had never played with before.
I told myself I am going to play very conservative and watch the players to pick up tells and the type of players I am playing against. It was very easy to do as in the first 2 hours I only saw one pair (7s) and only 3 hands with an Ace. So I was dumping almost every hand I saw. I don’t think there was one pot that wasn’t raised pre-flop.
After the end of the second round I was sitting at $4400 in chips and we started with 4000.
This is still fine as when we got back from break the blinds are 50/100 so I am still sitting at 44 times the big blind. I am going to skip forward about 4 hours. After we got back from break our table was broke and I moved from table 164 with no big players to table 5 with Harry Demetriou on my right and Erik Seidel on my left. For those who don’t know Erik has 7 WSOP bracelets. And Harry is one of the top European Players. I sit down and the cold deck continues for about 15 hands and the blinds go up to 100/200 with a 25 ante so pre-flop there is already 550 in the pot. I picked up a couple chips in the next hand I was in middle position and 2 folds to Harry; he raised to 600 and I called and so did one other player in the big blind. The Flop came 679 and both the big blind and Harry checked so I bet 2500 a pot size bet and both players fold, and I increase my stack to over 10,000 with the average being just under that. I picked up a few pots and then this crazy hand happened.

With the blinds now at 200/400 with a 50 ante, a guy in middle position raises to 1500 and then a re-raise from another player to 6000 and then the big blind says I am all in. The first raiser folds and then it is around to the player that raised to 6000 just mucks his hand to the dealer. Everyone at the table just stares in awe as the man says you have me. Not realizing the guy moved all in for only 400 more chips. It was the worst but not just because the guy didn’t call but the guy turned over a pair of 77 and the guy that mucked said he had A10 so he only had to throw in an additional 600 to win 14200 so now the guy that might be out had a fair amount of chips.
The reason this is so bad is about 6 hands later 3 callers and it comes around to me. I look down and have JJ and raise to 1500 I get 2 callers. The flop comes JJQ what a great flop. I have the nuts “4 of a kind” and even better the first guy bets out 3000 and then next guy raises to 7000 so I call because I don’t want to lose the first guy. The Turn comes a K and this time the first guy checks and second guy bets 5000, and now I want to just take it down now and not deal with any other cards just in case someone gets lucky… So I announce all in, and 2 my surprise and pleasure both players call. So now this is going to be a huge pot and will make me the chip leader. I turn over my JJ for quads and the first person turns over A10 for the straight so he is drawing dead as no card can help him but the second player turns over QQ for a full house. And then the river comes and my heart stops. I have never had such a BAD BEAT as this. It is the 2%, 1 remaining Queen in the deck for my 4 jacks have just been beat by 4 Queens. Every one just stared at me and said that it was the most brutal hand they have ever seen and I am putting my stuff in my backpack and heading out the door.
I just said nice hand and walked away from the table shaking my head that this just happened. But the reason I brought up the hand before this one is the guy that won the pot was the guy that should have been out on the crazy hand.

stats: 1500+ started
payed 140 players
first prize over 500k

until next time....