In my last column, I talked about my 2006 WSOP, in particular the Pot Limit Hold’em event. I covered a lot of the early tournament play that brought me up beyond my starting stack and got me cruising through to the middle stages of the tournament.
The middle stages were mostly a grind and there weren’t a lot of significant hands involved. I kind of cruised my way to about 27 players left and, at that point, hit a bit of a wall. I had never really played much Pot Limit Hold’em before (although tons of No Limit) and started to, for the first time in the tournament, get short-stacked. I wasn’t sure what to do in a Pot Limit tournament where you I couldn’t go all-in and let myself bleed down in chips until I was 21st out of 21 players left. I distinctly remember the following series of hands that took me from 21/21 to 1/10 and eventually 1/9 going into the final table.
The first one was probably the toughest. I was able to figure out enough at the table to know that my best bet when I couldn’t just shove all-in was to find a spot to re-raise all-in over a loose player. I had a loose-aggressive player at my table opening a lot of pots. He opened in the cutoff and I had A-2 offsuit on the button. I decided that was good enough and re-raised all-in, not quite full pot. I knew I was giving him 2:1 to call, but I figured to be ahead of his range and knew with my stack I had to do something very quickly or risk being blinded out. The player was solid, realized the price he was given, and called with Q-6 suited. I don’t remember the board, but I won the pot with ace-high to double up and get a little breathing room. I was still short and after that double-up, was 19/21.
Then, the following hand came up. A player raised under-the-gun and I called in late position with 9-9. Honestly, with the stacks the way they were, I doubt I was getting the price to be calling here and probably in hindsight should have pushed or folded, but I played it badly and called. We went to the flop heads-up and it came out A-9-6, which I remember thinking was a great flop for me, as A-K/A-Q hands were a big part of his range. He continuation bet and I made a small raise. He almost instantly re-potted for my entire stack. I called and said “Aces?” Much to his credit, he immediately said “No, nines?” We show our hands and he had 6-6. I faded the one outer and suddenly I was back around an average stack.
A few orbits after that, a weak player opened in late position and I decided to re-raise out of the big blind with J-T suited. My raise is for most of his stack and I’m shocked when he calls. The flop is A-X-X, with both of the other cards being under my J-T, but I have no draws (other than backdoor straights) and jack-high. Even though he’ll be getting nearly 8:1 to call, I put him all-in. He grins, folds, and says, “Just had to see if I could hit my set.” I let out a (quiet) deep sigh of relief, as I knew that any reasonable player would never fold there. Fortunately for me, he wasn’t reasonable.
Almost immediately after that, an aggressive player opens in late position and I have 8-6 suited in the big blind. I decide to defend and the flop is J-8-6 with cards not of my suit. I check-raise and he goes all-in (at this point I have him covered, but barely). I call and he has Q-J suited for the pair plus a flush draw, which actually makes him a favorite in the hand. I manage to fade his million outs, though, and suddenly I’m the chip leader!
Shortly thereafter, we are 10-handed on the final table bubble. It’s actually a very tough lineup with Dewey Tomko, Burt Boutin, Rafe Furst, John Juanda, and Can Kim Hua. Two of the players, however, are bragging that they have five-figure logo deals for the televised final table. At this point, ninth place was less than $10,000, so I quickly realized that those players would never dream of getting into a confrontation before the final table. I started off the final table bubble just raising the two players in question every chance I got, but was quickly realizing that no one at the table wanted to play a pot with me. I was very surprised because I thought with the skill of the lineup left, there would be a lot of tug of war going on over who got to pick up all of the television bubble pots, but everyone seemed content to let me have every pot I played.
Going into 10-handed play, I had just over 150,000 in chips, good enough for first, but not by a lot. Since they seemed content to let me win every pot, I started raising more. Before I knew it, I had a stack of over 500,000 and 50% of the chips in play. I finally got played back at a few times and doubled Furst up with A-4 suited versus his Q-Q then eventually busted Tomko on the bubble with 4-4 versus his A-Q offsuit when I made a one card flush on the river despite an ace-high flop. I went into the final table with a stack of over 400,000, or 40% of the chips in play.
The episode was broadcast on ESPN, so everyone is probably familiar with the conclusion. I actually went home shortly after this tournament until the Main Event because I was only putting myself in four events in 2006. My confidence was at an all-time high and in the next column, I’ll walk everyone through some of my key Main Event hands.
