My two weeks here in Vegas have been an up & down affair, with a big win, a smaller win, and several poker losses. The smaller win was one that just ended a few minutes ago, and I sit here on my hotel room bed feeling an odd sort of malaise over the cards that almost were, and the huge win that could have been, but won't be.
I originally came to Vegas for the World Series of Poker, but quickly tired of the huge buyins and minimal chance of success given the ridiculous number of players (and many really really good players) entered in those events. One of my dealers in a $1000 event there told me about the less expensive, more fun events at The Venetian, and I gave one a try about ten days ago. Since then, I've played probably seven or eight events with either $350, $560 entry fees, or the $120 nightly "Second Chance" tourney. About six nights ago I ended up essentially winning a Second Chance tourney when we did a "chip chop" when I was the biggest stack. A chip chop divides the remaining purse money by percentage according to the amount of chips held. So my stack earned me more money than the others.But yesterday's tourney (which finished for me a bit ago) was special in that there was the potential for a $60,000 first prize. After fourteen hours of poker yesterday, I found myself with an average-sized chip stack at the resumption of play today -- right in the middle of the pack with 34 people still standing out of 450+ who all paid $560 to enter the tournament, a Deep Stack Extravaganza at The Venetian.I played well all day long, with no major errors I can think of offhand and one very nice call when I held a pair of fours and a big stack tried to push me around when he held pocket twos. He bet big on the river with a board of 5-8-K-K-J, and I considered everything carefully for a couple minutes and eventually called with my pocket fours. "Two pair," he said, no doubt expecting me to muck. I nodded, waiting patiently for him to flip over his hand, and feeling ecstatic with my call when I showed the table my fours, earning a round of "Wow"s and "Nice call"s for a huge pot that kept me going late into the night. Those fours were about the best hand I'd seen for two hours, as I was almost card dead for most of the night. I finally picked up some hands and knocked a couple players out to chip up, then doubled up a couple short stacks when I held mediocre hands (A-6 offsuit, J-8 suited) in an effort to knock them out, too. But I survived to the money. Then I prospered until the end of the night when we bagged up the chips for storage until the next day.Today, after we resumed, I made a couple of moves early, picking up some blinds and antes when I raised in late position, and I also made two mistakes, giving up some chips when my suited A-2 hit only a deuce and I was raised by someone who, I believe, clearly had better cards after the flop. I also gave up a lot of chips to a chip leader when I tried to steal his raise from the small blind when I called with mediocre connecting cards (7-6 off-suit, I think) and the flop brought a king, which he check-raised me on.But the reason for this post -- the bummer feeling of opportunity snatched away -- was when I raised with 1/5 of my stack and was re-raised all-in by the big blind. I called with KQ offsuit because we'd sparred a couple times before and I thought I might be ahead and he might do that with any king or maybe even a suited queen, since his stack wasn't much larger than mine. I was crushed when he turned over his AK. Then I was elated when the flop came K-Q-6 and I had two pair to his pair of kings. The turn brought a jack, which gave him a straight draw. At that point, there were seven cards in the deck that could make his hand. Any ten would give him a straight, and an ace would give him a higher two pair. He got an ace, and I was out of the tournament with only a modest win: barely three times more than I paid to enter.Poker -- particularly Texas Hold'em -- is a roller-coaster game, and one that sees way too much obnoxious celebrating or whiny bitching about other players' poor play or lucky breaks, but my psyche is very well-suited for poker. My resting heart rate is 50 beats per minute. I can be as stoic, silent and calm as many of the best players you see on TV who care much less about the money than I do. And when I lose, I can shrug it off as well as anyone, remembering the many times that river has helped and brought me quiet elation while crushing someone else's tournament dreams. But this time, at the close of a long two weeks in Vegas, as close as I've ever been to a very large payday with a very well-played tournament, the unveiling of that last card, the river ace, just stung -- still stings -- in a way that's kind of hard to describe."Nice hand," I said to the guy. "Good game." I stood up from the table and wandered numbly up to the podium to claim my 24th place winnings, looking back just once to see my chips being pushed to the AK guy, hearing him say something about how he has enough chips to really do some damage now, and although he was best when the money went in, it's difficult after that great flop to not start planning, already, what I'd do with my newfound aggression when those chips were shipped over. I was already considering the chore of stacking those 240k chips and how I'd be amongst the chip leaders. I started wondering what the tournament LCD monitor's scrolling payouts said about the final table's minimum prize. I held my breath and waited for one more card. And then the brutal river took my tournament away.TT
