‘Loving every second’ of WSOP

“You got aces?”

I’m in the World Series of Poker’s Main Event, a $10,000-entry, weeks-long event that is a bucket-list item for any home game player like myself. I won that home game, based out of Mendota, and as a prize the league paid for my entry.

I’m not playing this tournament for me, I remind myself. I’m playing for all my friends in that league, too.

It’s Day 2, and boy has the tournament been a roller coaster. On Day 1, I sat with Jeffery Lisandro, one of only 15 players in the world who has won at least six WSOP events, and I ran a big bluff on him for my whole stack. I would have been embarrassed had he called and eliminated me. But he folded, and I have quite the story to tell in Mendota next week.

But now, I have a new decision to make.

If my opponent in the current hand has two aces, and I call his bet for all of my chips, my experience in the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event is almost certainly over.

But if I fold, it’s not exactly looking great for me either. I’d be left with less than the 50,000 chips I started with 16 hours of poker earlier. The average stack among the players at this point is more than twice that.

“You do have aces, don’t you?” I ask again.

“Do I need aces?” he asks back. He’s smiling, laughing even. It’s a response I’d expect if I’d been bluffing a lot, which I’ve not.

He’s very casual, I note internally. Comfort is a clue that an opponent has a strong holding.

If it’s not aces, I think, it’s either kings or queens. I check my cards again.

Yup, I still have the ace and king of diamonds.

It’s an elite starting hand itself, one I would never fold in this situation in Mendota, nor the other home game of which I am a member. (Travis Hantke, of Grand Detour, won the tournament seat from that home game, based out of Dixon. He made a strong run before being eliminated at the end of Day 2.)

With the information my opponent is giving off, I decide he has to have either aces, kings, or queens. I do the math.

Since I have one ace and king each in my hand, there are only three combinations left of either of them to make pocket pairs. Since I don’t hold any queens, there are six combinations of cards to make a pocket pair of those.

If my foe does have aces, my odds of winning are 1 in 8. Against kings, I’m a 2-to-1 underdog. If queens, I’m 50-50 to win. Altogether, if I put my ace-king against this range of hands, I’ll lose more than 60 percent of the time.

This might seem like a lot of calculating, but after years of running these types numbers in my head at a poker table, it takes only a few seconds for me to know what to do.

Sigh.

“I fold.”

I flip over my cards, something discouraged because it gives information to your opponents about your style of play. I guess I just wanted some sympathy for my plight. The table is stunned I’d fold such a strong hand, considering I have so few chips left.

My tormentor shows me some mercy, and turns over his cards – two kings.

It was indeed a proper fold, but in the end, all it did was kick the proverbial can down the road, as I was eliminated midway through Day 3 on a missed flush draw.

I “died” just a few hours and about 500 eliminations short of the money bubble, the point at which all the players left in the tournament were guaranteed to win at least $15,000.

(No tears for me, though. My story has a happy ending. A friend helped put me in a much smaller tournament the next day, and I finished third out of a field of 600 for about $10,000. We split the winnings fairly.)

Nearly 8,000 people played in the main event, and I finished somewhere around 1,700th. It’s something to be proud of, I suppose.

A couple hours after I was eliminated, I felt miserable and was still futilely trying to cheer myself up. I decided to watch friend and fellow Mendota home game member Ron Ramacci, of Ottawa, grind out the bubble. I looked to my left and I saw a face I recognized. It was Max Steinberg.

Steinberg is famous for finishing fourth in the 2015 Main Event, during which he gained notoriety for being handsome and well-dressed while carrying a professional and respectful demeanor. It was precisely him I thought about when I decided to wear a blazer with my blue jeans as part of my wardrobe during the tournament.

Steinberg gained further fame this year for being eliminated on the very first hand of the main event after his pocket aces were unexpectedly beaten by an opponent’s pocket kings.

I mentioned to him how brutal his elimination was, and I obliged him with my story after he asked what brought about my demise.

“You see, mine’s the better way to go,” he offered kindly, smiling wide. “I’d hate to play for 3 days and come up just short.”

I thought about it for a second, but I decided I could not agree with that, and suddenly I felt much better.

“Nah,” I said as I watched Ramacci scoop a pot on his way to placing 987th for almost $16,000.

“I had a blast. I loved every second of it.”