Cashing The WSOP Main Event Was A Lifelong Dream Fulfilled But Now It's Left Me Wanting More
Every year I play the WSOP Main Event, and every year I go home with 0 dollars. It's not for lack of trying, or because I suck at poker, but in reality it's just hard to cash a poker tournament no matter who you are. When you enter a poker tournament, the expectation is you won't cash. 85% of people who play any given tournament go home empty handed (side note: I chatted with Tom Dwan for a few minutes, it was also his first Main Event cash). It's a cruel game where 1 card can change your entire future. You can be playing your A+ game and then lose pocket aces to pocket kings and it was all for nothing. But it's when you're playing your A+ game AND your hands hold up, that's when it's the best. When you are dominating and building chip towers and chugging along towards the final table, there's no better feeling in the world. And that is how I felt playing the Main Event this year, until it ended towards the end of Day 4 in 717th place, cashing for $27,500.
If you followed along on Twitter, this might be redundant, but for the sake of just putting it down in the blog, this is how my WSOP went:
At first, I wasn't going to play at all. I invested all my money and decided to take this year off because $10k ain't nothing to sneeze at when you're an equity-less blogger. I worry about money basically all the time and decided to be financially responsible and skip the Main with the plans of getting my finances straight for next year.
And then Ben Mintz happened.
You see, Big Cat had 10% of Mintzy and Mintzy busted before dinner break on Day 1. Big Cat, being the action junkie that he is, decided he still wanted a sweat in the tournament, so he hit me up and said "hey, can you still play?" I said yeah. So we talked on the phone and BC took 60% of me, which to be honest is still pretty funny because I could have sold 60% if I wanted to play originally, but the entire point was I wasn't going to play at all. But because it was on Twitter and at the end of the day it's only money and deep down I knew I wanted to play it anyway, I took 40% of myself (later became 38% because Josh Arieh wanted 2%), and off to Vegas I went!
I registered for Day 2D, got seated, and off we went. My first day went pretty well. I built my chip stack up to 226k from 60k starting, well above average. But then in the last level a few bad things happened, ending with me putting 108k in the bag for day 3. (Note: They let you register on Day 2. You get the full starting stack but you miss the opportunity to come into Day 2 with above starting. I think I much preferred skipping Day 1 and not playing for 12 hours but still having a ton of chips.)
Day 3 literally could not have gone better. I had a dream table and I ran it over. At the end of the first level of Day 3 I took my chip stack from 108k to 336. At the end of level 2 I had over 400k. At the end of level 3 I had over 500k. At the end of level 4 I had eclipsed the 1 million chip mark.
And then I ended the day with 867k, more than double average.
It was honestly just the best poker day. Easy table to run over, I had them seeing ghosts. It's the best feeling ever when that happens. It also spoils you because you want every day to be like that, which rarely happens. Most days have roller coasters, mine was mostly smooth sledding. I did lose trips to a full house and I did have a guy shove 22 into my top pair and river a set, but that happens over the course of a long day and I bounced back.
Day 4 started about 20 or so from the money and I was on the PokerGo featured table. That was another bucket list type of thing, to play on the Featured Table with my cards showing. I put on a clinic, running a couple sick bluffs and making a HUGEEEEEE hero call with pocket 4s that PokerGo missed and I am mad at them about.
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The money bubble burst and after that, things didn't exactly go my way. I went card dead and my table got tougher. I had 2 Euro pros with big stacks on my left, a Canadian high stakes crusher, and the rest of the table were either Euros, pros, or both. That's where it got way less fun! I could no longer run the table over- every open was 3bet, every Cbet was raised- this wasn't the minor leagues anymore. What happens is the longer the tournament goes on, the more the pros pick apart the amateurs and the tournament gets tougher.
I went to dinner break on day 4 with still a big healthy 600k stack. And then poof, right after dinner, it all disappeared. I ran KQ into AQ on a Q high board, and then got my chips in good with 99 vs AT, and he flopped a Ten. Pretty sick how quick it can happen. If my 9s hold up, who knows what happens next. But he flopped an Ace and that's all she wrote baby. 717th for $27,500. My first Main Event cash, but still that annoying feeling of "what could have been".
After thinking about it and sleeping on it, I'm obviously happy with the score but I know I can do better too. I know I can get better at poker and compete at a higher level. So that's what I plan on doing. I'm happy with the cash, but not satisfied.
So now the plan is set- get better at poker, play a bigger WSOP schedule next year, and get some better results! What stinks about tournament poker is you can be the best in the world and still brick 40 tournaments in a row. Variance is a motherfucker. Look at this guy Adrian Mateos. A top 5 tournament player in the world. First he makes this sick fold with pocket Kings
And then a couple hands later he loses aces to AK.
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It's a cruel, cruel, cruel game indeed.
Thanks everyone who followed my little journey on Twitter and supported me. Fuck you if you didn't! Just kidding, only if you're a hater like Dave, who gets super jealous any time I get a little bit of shine. It's bizarre how uncomfortable, bitter, and weird he gets when anyone else, especially me for some reason, gets a tiny bit of notoriety and he can't make it about himself. Meanwhile he's still avoiding playing me heads up while nonstop talking about it. Hopefully old age doesn't get him before I can take $20k off him.
All in all it was a great experience, a lifelong dream fulfilled, and has left me hungry for more. Job's just started, nowhere close to being finished. Namaste.
PS: Here are some other pictures from the week.
1) They give you your winnings in cash.
2) I wore the VIVA hat sort of ironically at first but it actually looks great and I love it.
3) I met Boston Rob seconds after losing AQ to QT on a QT9Qx board, which was tough. That's why I didn't bag a million on day 3.
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