wsop part i

over the summer i played in a world series of poker event. my friend greg "sarcasmo" jorgensen liked my write-up of the event enough that i've decided to post it here for possible later use. (as an aside, this was all typed entirely with my thumbs on a hiptop.)

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a corporate decision necessitated me being in las vegas for the four weekends covering the world series of poker, right at a period of time in history when the wsop is its very biggest.not all bad, in and of itself ...but then that got me to thinking ... hey, if i'm going to vegas anyway, maybe i should play in the series.

now before you draw your breath and gasp, it's true that the top wsop event costs $10k, and those good/fortunate enough to fight their way to the end become multi-millionaires and gambling household names, BUT that's just the culminating event ... the series is actually a bunch of events of different buy-in's and game types ...

it just so happens that the lowest buy-in tourney of the series is today. at $1000, this would be the 7-stud hi/lo split event (i'll call it "7(8)" for brevity). 7(8) is a mutant game where the lowest hand on the table (only if it is no higher than an 8), splits the pot with the highest hand on the table. there's not always a low qualifier on the table (in which the high hand wins it all), but there is always a high.

in essence, low hands are what you're looking for, and the effort always, always is to scoop the pot with something like a lowcard-loaded flush, or a tiny straight -- essentially winning both the high and the low hand with the same freak set of cards (known as a “scoop”).

this is complicated by the fact that it is a limit tournament – meaning you can only bet certain amounts at certain times, with those amounts grinding ever upward according to a set clock schedule.further complicating this is 7(8) strategy changes over time in tourneys -- in early rounds you should play focusing on low cards, but in later rounds hone in on high (because you're forcing people to draw to low hands, and eventually miss).

7(8) is not a heavily played, nor sexy, game. it's essentially the 2-headed cow on the poker range, where something like hold 'em is the professionally-bred stud bull. in fact this particular tourney will not be televised even on the all-poker-all-the-fricken-time espn 2. it's simply not worthy.however, it does come with one extremely coveted prize -- a world series gold tiffany bracelet ... there's one attached to every event -- the $10k entry bracelet is diamond encrusted.this tourney is a mutant, and relatively speaking it's cheap. and if those 2 things don't scream “b1,” i don't know what does ... so i'm playin'.

on the down side:* i've never played a stud tourney in my life ... and here i am starting at the very top.* i've only ever had 2 losing stud sessions (that is to say, leaving the table with less money than i brought) in my life. both of them in the last month, one of them in 7(8).* i haven't played a whole lot 7(8).on the up side:

* i've always wanted to play in the series ever since i saw armarillo slim on abc's wide world of sports all those years ago. and now i am.

* i get to play at full tables. the last 2 months my poker play has been almost exclusively short-handed, a style and type of play i'm not great at (although i am winning again, after a brutal downward slide).* it's a mild form of thrill seeking.

* 7(8) is far enough removed from the mainstream that the giants in the game aren't over-whelmingly crushing. tiny boys still have a chance. almost.

when you balance the 2 sides against each other, there's only one conclusion you can reasonably draw: i am what gamblers call, "dead money." a fish. the person who gives their prize money away to the tournament hotshots.

and there's no question that for someone to win a tourney like this, you have to be 2 things: lucky and good. i can get as lucky as the next guy, but there's no question, even in my own mind, that i'm not good"enough."

but that doesn't mean that i won't play, and that doesn't mean i won't try. and it doesn't mean that i won't feel depressed when, like all but one of the other players today, i get knocked out of the tournament. and it doesn't mean that i won't sit and wonder about all the cool places i could have gone on 1000 bucks.

is this the best way i've ever spent money in my life? hell no. but it makes at least as much sense as, oh i don't know, say renting an apartment for 12 years on a month-to-month lease with a $300 monthly premium attached.

and if you don't have a house, and if you don't have a family, you damn well better have a good set of stories, or live under a bridge. who knows? maybe i'm headed both directions here.

the event lasts 2 days if you play well ... you'll get at least 1 more email from me as an update. hopefully, hopefully, it won't be notification that i'm knocked out. just don't be surprised if it is.what's funny is i used to play tournament backgammon with karpov and would sweat the bejesus out of a $125 entry fee ... so much so that i'd swap equity portions with him to help cut the loss potential. it's not an exaggeration to say that i studied backgammon much, much more heavily than i did mathematics.

but with this event here, for some reason i'm truly not worried about it ... weird because my overall financial standing (certainly my credit rating) was much stronger then than it is now. god knows why. maybe as i get older, i'm just more and more becoming my father. financially irresponsible. crikey. we all know how that story ends if you turnforward a lot of pages.

awake in 9 hours, tourney start in 11. and you better believe that i'll sleep like a baby until then.