WSOP ME: Just a tournament like any other?

The Main Event of the World Series of Poker is one of those rare days every year that poker players wait for, look forward to and dread.

So much attention and importance is placed on this one day which in reality is just a tournament, like any other.

Except of course that it is the World Series of Poker; No little bit of pressure there!

Variance can just smack you in the face

I’ve seen a lot of friends of mine have horrendous day ones where they either couldn’t make a hand or they managed to get all the money in as a big favorite only to get sucked out on, or to be coolered all day and underset until their chips just vanished.

It’s so frustrating to want to do well, to look for good spots and situations but to not find them. There is a fair amount of luck involved in poker (table draw being a big factor there too) and sometimes, even though we’re very deepstacked, variance can just smack you in the face.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen to me yesterday. I had a great day and managed to win some very large pots as well as a fair number of small and medium sized ones. For much of the last 3 or 4 months, it’s felt as though I was winning lots of small pots (live and online) and losing the big ones, one after another. Getting a good run at the Main Event feels fantastic after all of that.

I was pretty exhausted yesterday as I think our dog was even more excited about the WSOP than I was and she woke me up at 6.30am to let me know about it. Hopefully I sleep better tonight and am fresh going into my day 2. I have 69k chips which is well over average and I’m interested to see my table draw when that information is released.

Warned by the dealer

I was lucky yesterday to sit down at a table with faces that I didn’t recognise – always great not to have to tangle with the known pros right out of the gate! I think there were a fair number of players who had not played much live poker before as there were lots of problems at the table with exposed cards, acting out of turn and my personal pet peeve – people talking about the hand while they’re not involved in it.

There was a guy at our table who would fold pre flop or on the flop, and then when he saw the next community cards to come he would throw his hands in the air in disgust. It’s really bad because it gives the people in the hand an indication that you would have hit the board hard and it completely changes play from that point.

He even once mumbled something about how a 556 flop would have been ‘the nuts’ for him while there were still 3 people left in the hand. I tried to tell him that this was NOT allowed but he became defensive and told me that he knew what was allowed and as long as he didn’t say exactly what he had, he could make whatever noises and gestures he wanted. He was warned by the dealer but I do wish I had called the floor after the 3rd time he did it. He calmed down a bit but it was still pretty bad!

So that was my day and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. Good luck to the Party Poker Pros and qualifiers in todays day 2a – go get it!