WSOP ME Day 3 – The End

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Well, that’s it for my run at the WSOP Main Event. I made it halfway through day 3. The highpoint of my stack the entire tournament was 62k. There’s not much to say here. I made it through this far picking up blinds and 3 bet stealing. There was very little in the way of actual hands.

I did some calculating and if we played 9 hours on day 1, 8 hours on day 2 and I played 4 hours on day 3 that is 21 hours of poker – or 1260 minutes. If you estimate 2 minutes a hand I played 630 hands.

I had AA once, QQ once, AK once and AQ twice. It’s just really hard to amass chips when you can’t cooler someone at some point.

Such is poker and I take some pride in my persistence and hard work at making it this far.

Today there were just a few spots of interest. First off – about 20 minutes into the day a hand develops that I am not involved in. The guy to my right a 2 time bracelet winner in stud who’s name escapes me (his bracelets are from the 90s), is relatively short stacked and is all in on a flop of 9 2 4 rags. He has A9 and gets called by a big stack who has 66. The turn is a 6 and when the guy with A9 realizes it, he jumps up and punches his water bottle exploding it all over me. It was actually pretty funny but I had to chase away a few weirdos who ran to the table to take pictures.

Handwise I pulled off a massive bluff vs Da_Professional who was sitting at my first table with over 200k chips at 600/1200. During the first hour of play I’d been pretty tight not getting into any confrontations mainly due to no cards. I opened a few times, took down a few pots here or there but nothing major. I was at about little less than my opening stack of ~45k.

Me ~40k in BB, Da_Professional ~200k in MP blinds are 600/1200

I figure now that antes have gone up and I have established a tight image I need to get involved and accumulate some chips. DP has been opening into my blinds a fair bit and I haven’t challenged to far. He opens to 3k from MP, and in the BB I call with KTo planning to just lead a bunch of flops given my image.

The flop is QJ2r (~8k in pot). I lead out for 5k. He calls.

Turn is a blank (~18k in pot). I check he bets 8k. I shove my remaining stack of about 30k. He tanks forever and says if you had 3k less I call. We were close to breaking tables and asks if I will tell after we break. I told him and he said it he knew it was either KT or QJ and he wasn’t sure. He had AQ and made the big laydown. He said it was all because my image was pretty tight so I thought I executed that well.

That briefly brought me up and right before break I had a very tough spot. I open JJ to 3k from MP3 and the HJ (~180k stack) 3 bets me to 8k. He did this once before and I folded because I was light. This time I was about 40bbs deep and given the history I was pretty much just jamming the JJ on him when it got back to me. Except the CO shoves 70k into the pot. The CO is a 2/4 instructor at leggopoker. He could totally have observed the previous dynamic and shoved light here. I would not put that past him. I doubt AA or KK just put it all in at that spot, or do they? I was a little confused. I thought his range was mostly TT-QQ/AK but I wasn’t sure. He could have missed the previous 3 bet this guy put on me and just puts him as super strong. If that’s true then he’s got AA/KK here too. Not to mention, 3 bettor actually has a hand here some times. So I folded. The 3bettor did too. Wasn’t sure what to make of that I but I think conservative is fine there.

The only spot of the day that I got to play real poker was when I was moved to my new table and I open A3cc from HJ at 600/1200 with a 40k stack. I got a call from the BB.

Me ~40k in HJ, BB with ~80k stack blinds are 600/1200

I open A3cc from HJ, BB calls and flop is AA9ss. He checks and I check.

Turn (~8k pot) is a low spade putting three on board and I bet about 4.5k and he calls.

River (~17k pot) is a 3 giving me a boat and he checks to me. I tank for about 45 seconds then bet 13k. He calls.

That was my high point of the day. From there it was downhill.

I folded mostly bad hands and didnt’ really get any good light 3 bet spots. The one I did get backfired as the CO 3 bet me large and I had to fold my junk.

Finally after 2nd break I get into my final hand.

The SB in this hand was at my first table as well. We got moved together. He was extremely tight. He started the day with about 40k and got to the new table and just folded. He did open once and when he got shoved on by a 30bb stack he folded TT face up. The hand right before break he opened with a 28k stack and tanked a long time when shoved on again. This time he called with 99 and he said that he called because the guy was really loose and he couldn’t fold this size stack.

So it folds to him in the SB and he makes a full 3x at 800/1600. I have KT. Once he put the raise in I said to myself that I was jamming all As, all Ks, and a lot of other stuff. I just think now that he has a stack he is not calling light. He could be opening anything (~30% of hands) from the SB now that he has over 65k and just folds sooooooo much. I estimated he only calls TT+, AQ+ which is like 5% of hands. So 5/6 of the time I pick up a decent pot, the rest of the time I have some equity (turns out KT has about 29% equity vs his call range).

Well, I saw the KT and fistpumped in my head. I jammed. He instacalled with QQ. Game over.

I won’t like I feel awful right now. Busting the main event is one of the most depressing things a poker player can feel. You see tweets from people putting coolers on people like AA > QQ to get 300k stacks. You see awful play at your table. You soak up the environment and live in an a continous rush for 3 days and then it ends in an instant.

I am leaving vegas at 8am tomorrow morning and because of time zone and plane changes I won’t be home until 8pm. I miss my family terribly so I do look forward to seeing them again but the departure is bittersweet. I know I could have made an impact if I just had a few more playable hands but that is not what I must take with me. There was a lot of fun seeing many of my poker friends in person and making new ones.

Also, thank you all for your support. It’s nice to know people are rooting for you. Until next year, it’s time to become a poker fan again.