I Messed Up Big Time And Punted The WSOP Main Event

Pretty much the only thing in life I look forward to is the WSOP Main Event. That's it. I have written a few times about how incredible it is that I get to play it, as growing up I never would have imagined I would be able to do it once, never mind 4 times now. It's quite an honor and I do not take it for granted. This year, by the way, I was not put in by sponsors or anything- I sold %s of myself, but still had a decent chunk because I was so confident going in. 

You see, I have been working on my poker game a ton. A lot. For the last 9 months or so my daily routine has been go home from work, order dinner, and watch poker training videos. I've been immersed in studying and getting better. And as a result, I have never felt better about my poker game. And for me, it was set to all culminate at the Main Event, the Super Bowl of poker, where I would compete with thousands of others for millions of dollars. But not just that, I wanted to prove to myself and to the world that I am good at this game. That I'm not all talk, that I can back it up. That's why I was looking so forward to the Main. And suffice to say, I completely fucked it up. I punted. I blew it. And it's 100% my fault. I didn't get into a cooler situation like running kings into aces or a straight into a full house, I wasn't sucked out on, none of that. I was snapped the ball and unleashed a 100 bb punt for absolutely no reason. It feels like absolute garbage to do that in the Main Event, and I hate myself today as a result.

Yesterday's Main wasn't going great for me at all at first. You start with 60k chips and after the first had I had 65k. It was a lot of downhill from there. Got unlucky in a few spots- for example I flopped a set of jacks 4 ways and the man to my left turned a straight. Then right before dinner break I lost with K8 to 22 on a K82 board to go down to 39k. Thankfully the tournament is so well structured it was still plenty of chips and I was not worried.

After dinner I felt very refreshed and ready to play my A game. 

I chipped up nicely in the level after dinner and got back to 59.9k with one, 2 hour level remaining in the day. going from 39k to 60k in a level was huge, I felt untouchable and in control of my table. I chipped up a little more and then THE HAND happened. I'm not proud of it. I regret it. I wish I folded preflop and it never existed. But it happened. I won't give away the details in depth in the blog because we talk about it in depth on the podcast, but let's just say 4-betting 43ss wasn't the best idea.

Sorry for the deep breathing at parts of the show, Mintz was higher than eagle pussy and L-I-V-I-N-G.

I am being nothing but honest in this blog- it sucks. I feel I let down my investors, the pod listeners, and myself. I felt so good about my game and I imploded for no reason. None. Just 1 hand in 11 hours and POOF, there goes the tournament. Showers. 

As always though, the Main Event is an unreal experience. I had a great time, if even only for the day.

And Smitty got some TV time which is very cool.

All I can do now is keep getting better. I still feel my play for the majority of the 10-11 hour day was fairly good. Made a few mistakes, sure, but felt good almost the entire time pre-blow up. I still have leaks to fix and have miles to go until I'm as good as I want to be, but going to use this as a learning experience and keep moving forward. I mean I'm gonna eat a shit ton of candy today but after that, it's onwards and upwards. And hey, what is the point of life if not for some ridiculous regrets? If life was smooth sailing, we wouldn't appreciate the good times because we would never have felt the bad. When I am a poker god we'll look back on this and laugh. Til next WSOP, it's been a pleasure.