Holy Crap! I’m out of Jail!

Ok…I wasn’t really in jail jail.  But the WSOP feels a little like jail every year.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I look forward to the WSOP all year.  In fact, only a week after I finished it this year I am looking forward to it again next year.  It is a completely exciting and invigorating experience that I am very lucky to be a part of.

That being said, being away from home for 5 weeks and playing poker every single day for 10 hours or more is a tough proposition for even the most hardened tournament pro.  I had a good WSOP, cashed over 120K, and that meant I was playing till basically 3 am every night.  Now when you finish a tournament at 3 am it is not like you go to bed at 3:30am.  you have a lot of adrenaline still going and, for sure, a lot of caffeine still in your system..at least I do.  So it always took me till about 4:30am or so to wind down enough to go to sleep.  Then I would generally have to be back down at the Rio before 3 pm to start is all over again.  Try that on for size for 5 weeks running and you would feel a little like you were in jail too. I never went out, only got to see my kids for a few hours every morning, got very little time with Joe, despite the fact hat he came down to the Rio with me every day and was incredibly supportive.  I only even got to see my brother during the tournaments, mainly on dinner break when we would get to eat a meal together.

So I’m tired. And really happy to be back in my house in LA.  I know I haven’t blogged in forever but despite my best intentions every WSOP somehow the poker takes me over and things like blogging go by the wayside.  I am back now and ready to journal a few times a week again.

So over the next few journals I thought I would give highlights of my WSOP because despite the downside to feeling like I have no life for 5 weeks it really was incredibly exciting and satisfying.  I already celebrated my 3rd place finish in the 1/2 Omaha 8 or better and half Stud 8 or better event.  The winner of that event, Tom Schneider, went on to win a second bracelet at the WSOP.  I also played with him during the Razz event and, I have to say, not only is he a great player, he is also a really nice human being.  It is always gratifying to see the nice guys win.

The main thing that was different for me this year was that I played almost exclusively limit events.  Pretty much every day at 5 pm there was a limit event whether it was stud, stud 8 or better, hold’em, omaha 8 or better or horse.  I was really excited that they had added all these other games back into the series.  Last year the WSOP felt like the World Series of No Limit Hold’em.  But there is so much more to poker than just no limit.  The WSOP used to represent a fantastic balance of all the games and that somehow got lost last year.

So over the course of the year the Player’s Advisory Council really pushed to get the limit events back in.  The WSOP responded and we got what we wanted.  At noon there was generally a no limit or pot limit hold’em event and then at 5 pm there was some other variation of poker to play, generally limit.  This was perfect for me.  I am a good no limit player but there are lots of players much much better than me at that game.  In limit, however, I will pit my skills against anyone.  I am very confident in my limit game, particularly on the 8 or betters.

So I made the one final table in the split game.  I came in 13th in the $5K buy in omaha 8 and really feel I should have done better except I went totally card dead at two tables.  And then there was the surprise for me…a strong 17th place finish in the $10K PLO.  Believe it or not, I was more proud of that than my final table.  This is because the Pot Limit Omaha fields are always super tough fields.  There are so many amazing European PLO players and it is not a game that is played too often in America so Americans tend to have less experience at the game.  I was very please not just with the finish but also with the fact that I felt like I played the tournament really well.  I lack confidence in that game and it was a big confidence boost to me, but I’ll talk about that later cause I think my lack of confidence there is a blog in itself.

Anyway, I only played like 5 no limit tournaments total.  The rest I completely stuck with limit and I think it was a great choice because the skill level in no limit has gone up so vastly in the last few years with all these internet pros who play 100′s of hours a week online.  They are so in stroke and have so much more time to devote to the game than I do it is terrifying.  Doyle and I had many discussions along those lines during the series.  He was also sticking more to the limit events because people just play no limit so well nowadays. 

Limit on the other hand is not a game people are playing too much anymore.  And I have to say the fields in the limit events were so much weaker than in the no limits.  Every table I was at had people at them where I wondered if this was their first time playing the game.  Even though limit used to be the staple before the Poker TV boom, it seems that limit has lost its footing and no one plays it anymore.  Well I would rather play the game no one plays anymore than play a game against a bunch of super geniuses who play 100 hours a week every week, wouldn’t you?

I hope the schedule stays much the same next year, for my sake

Next up, I am going to blog about Ante Up for Africa (www.anteupforafrica.org) which was a HUGE success!