The Ecstasy of Gold

In tournament poker, the blinds and antes increase with every level. The Main Event at the WSOP has long levels and a slow structure. Your starting stack is 300x the big blind, and levels are two hours long. This gives a lot of room to maneuver, especially in the early levels. You can be patient for hours, waiting for the right spots or premium hands.

Today's event at the WSOP, the Super Turbo Bounty $1k, is not like that.

Levels are 20 minutes long, which means you'd be lucky to be dealt ten hands before the blinds go up again. And if that’s not enough to create a frenzy, it’s a bounty event. You get paid $300 for every player that you knock out. That creates an incentive for players to gamble and apply a lot of pressure to the short stacks.

This will be a wild event.

As I walk into the Pavilion ballroom at the Rio, the title song from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is playing on repeat. I smile at the reference, and attempt to channel Clint Eastwood’s Blondie on my hunt for some bounty gold.

I lose 40% of my stack on the very first hand.

I attempt to grind back up, but it seems like every time I win a pot, I lose a bigger one shortly afterwards. After a few hours I'm so short there's a target on my back — my opponents are drooling to pick up my bounty.

One of the bigger stacks limps UTG¹. I'm next to act, and look down at pocket nines, the best hand I've seen in what feels like hours. I move all-in and it folds back around to the big stack who insta-calls with 97o. The flop comes 875, giving him the chance to chop with me if a 6 hits, or win outright with another 7. I'm thankful for a 5 on the turn, an ace on the river, and a double-up.

Several hands later it folds to me in the HJ and I look down at two red jacks. I go all-in again. The SB calls, who's stack is slightly smaller than mine, which means I can bust him and win my first bounty. My hopes are dashed when he turns over two black queens and I'm not rescued by the board.

I'm left with almost nothing, and out of the tournament a few hands later. I dart out to catch a cab to the Wynn to late-register a $1600 event there.

I'm card-dead, and every time I do seem to have a playable hand, someone appears to have a far better one. I do manage to make the nuts in the biggest pot I play of the day. But then my opponent flips over the exact same hand I have, so I profit less than one big blind.

After a few hours I'm down to a short stack and jam from the BB with pocket tens against a CO open. He flips over AQ and hits a queen on the flop. I need one of the last two tens in the deck to survive, but it doesn't come.

I rebuy — it's the last level before late registration ends. At a new table, I try to make something happen but don't get the cards to do so. My best chance comes when I defend my BB with ATo against the UTG open. The flop comes ten-high and I check to the opener. He bets small and I check-raise him. As he calls, I think I pick up a tell of weakness. A king comes on the turn and I jam. He insta-calls and flips over pocket aces. Again, I need one of the last two tens in the deck to survive. And again, it doesn't come.

I still have a few more minutes left to rebuy, but I check in on myself, and decide to walk away. On that last hand, I was certain I'd made the right play pre-flop and on the flop. But as I'm honest with myself, I realize I jammed the turn mostly out of impatience and frustration. Later, I study that last hand in a simulator and it does turn out that I played it perfectly. And maybe if I had slowed down and objectively analyzed the situation, I'd still have made the same play. But I know that's not what I did, and I can't allow myself to rebuy when my head's not in the right place.

As I step outside to catch a cab, a cool breeze hits me. I look up at a beautiful blue evening sky and take a deep breath.

It's a long series. There will be plenty of shots. I don't need to take every one.

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Pairs of clean underwear I have left: 1

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