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Date: 2006-06-01
Author: John Mehaffey
It is almost that time of the year again. The 2006 WSOP is right around the corner and many online players are thinking about taking a stab at one or more of the events. I was in the same position last year and decided to take a shot at the $1000 Stud8 WSOP. It was the best experience in my poker career.
About this time last year I went down the list of events. I prefer playing high/low split games so I tried to find the one that best fit both my bankroll and my skill level. This is very important in my opinion as playing a tournament out of your bankroll can be devastating. The variance is huge in these high buy in events no matter what your skill level. Only the top 8-10% of the players will get in the money so you must go into the event with the mentality that it is a risky proposition and there is a good chance that you will lose your entire buy in no matter how good you are. I decided on playing the $1000 Stud8 both because I was doing well in Stud8 single and multi table tournaments and it was the game I was playing the most. It was also the lowest buyin event so it was less risky then other tournaments and I figured it would have a lower skill level because of this as well.
I hardly slept the night before at the Rio knowing that the next morning I would be playing in my first World Series of Poker event. I came up with a list of start hands I would come in with and created an overall game plan. I was so anxious I was one of the first players to show up and I took my seat. Finally at noon the event started. I was told it was the biggest stud event ever. There were 595 players. It was very intimidating, especially with all of the big names in the tournament.
Players started with $1000 in chips. I ran very poorly at first and grinded down to about $600 in chips. The first couple of rounds were very loose at my table. There were several players that had no idea how to play the game and it was obvious. Since the event was high/low split it took a while for players to start to drop. Finally about halfway through round two players started to bust. During round 4 players were dropping so fast that the floor had a hard time keeping count. After 6 rounds the number of players was down to 160 and it was time for dinner. I had been knocking people out left and right and had a nice stack. I was so anxious to get back I could not even eat.
As time went on I started to realize my stack was going to bring me in the money. After 13 hours the player count hit 48 and we were all in the money. We went to break and played 1 more hour. The last hour was full of players busting and finally at 2am, 14 hours after the start of the tournament, it was time to get chip counts and put them in the deposit bags. This was an unorganized mess that took another 30 minutes or so. Finally by 3am I was back in the hotel room.
We had a 12 hour break. I hardly slept again. I was in the top 5 in chips and I am starting to dream about winning the whole thing and winning a bracelet in my first event. Thirty eight players remained, many so low in chips they had no shot of winning. The combination of exhaustion and cold cards took its toll on day two though. I slowly bled chips and soon I realized I just needed to try and conserve my chips and let others drop. I then beat Paul Darden in a huge hand, knocked out several other players, and suddenly had another chance for hope. I went through a terrible hour though and it was time for the dinner break. I was 14 th in chips out of 15 players. I knew my time would be coming soon.
After the dinner break I came back and in the first hand the #15 player was knocked out. After a few more hands I ran into a monster where Mike Wattell came in with rolled up queens and knocked me out and hurt Men "The Master" Nguyen. It was time for me to go collect my winnings, $4875.
After all of the stress of the last 2 days I finally was relieved as the grind was over. It was quite a stress lifted off of my shoulders. Although I was disappointed to not make the final table after the strong start I certainly was happy with placing 14 th in my first World Series of Poker event.
This year I plan on playing in the $1500 Razz and $1000 Stud8 events. I even have a 2-1 last longer sidebet with Jek187 at BonusWhores.com. I am certainly looking forward to playing again, especially with the amount of experience I have gained in the past year and by playing last year’s event.
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