As someone who’s been obsessed with the World Series Of Poker since he first heard about it, Nick Wealthall is still bemoaning the fact he’s never played in the ME
As I write this I’m in the middle of packing for Vegas and the 2008 World Series of Poker. My room looks like someone’s thrown a clothing hand grenade into it. Some items have made their way into the case, but I think that’s more down to chance than anything else.
The day before I leave for the WSOP takes on a familiar pattern every time I go. It’s a mixture of panic to finish all my outstanding tasks and a creeping sense of excitement that I’m mere hours away from The Promised Land.
The magical feeling that I get with the WSOP is hard to put into words. When I first heard of poker it was stories of the Series, the event that was the pinnacle of poker. The more I got into poker the more the Series obsessed me. When it took place every year and I was stuck thousands of miles away it would be like a wave of sadness. Not only did I feel I should be there but also that I should be competing – being the son of a bitch that puts a move on Chan.
The extent of my WSOP obsession became clear when I cancelled spending time with my girlfriend to sit in my flat and watch very slow text updates of Chris Ferguson winning the Main Event at the expense of my then poker hero T.J. Cloutier (hey, I was young). This would have all been fairly reasonable had my girlfriend not been moving flat that weekend. On her own.
There is, however, one horrible canker sore on my beautifully toned body of World Series pleasure. And that is the fact that I’ve still never played in the Main Event. There it is, I’ve said it – it’s out in the open. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried. Plenty of my money has been ‘played for’ in the Main Event. But with the $10,000 buy-in out of my reach, if not in terms of bankroll then certainly in terms of my lack of profligacy, the seat has remained elusive. In fact I’ve renamed June as ‘Let’s see how much Nick spends trying to qualify this year’ month. It’s not very catchy, but at least it’s accurate.
Painful memory
For those of you with similar frustrations, it’s worth remembering that you’re trying to win at least $10k in a poker tournament, which isn’t easy to do. It’s mitigated slightly because there can be multiple prizes (seats) but it’s still no mean achievement. The real pain of failing to qualify is recognising that the standard of play in almost all of the Main Event satellites, both online and live, is just horrendous. But apparently, I still can’t beat it.
The closest I came was in a multi-table live satellite in Binion’s, and it’s still a little painful to write about. We were down to about seven or eight players to go before the seats were awarded. I found myself in the classic satellite situation of not being crippled but being short enough that I couldn’t sit still and coast to a seat. The blinds were big and I figured if I could pick them up two or three times, or double up with a big hand, I’d have enough. After all, when the pressure is on quite a few people make mistakes and go out when there’s no need – survival is the key.
In a hand I’ll remember until I die I picked up 9-9 on the button. Needing to pick up some chips with the action passed to me, there was an argument for moving in with any vaguely playable hand, especially as the blinds aren’t supposed to want to play – but I actually had a decent hand. So I pushed all my chips into the middle.
The small blind folded almost before I took my hand off my stack and the big blind began to think. He’d been playing relatively tight and didn’t have many more chips than me. At a guess, the call was going to cost him about 70 percent of his stack. I was working all this out while he was thinking… and thinking. At this point I began to get worried. Obviously he had a hand of some kind and I started really rooting for him to fold. With the way he was thinking and the seats so close he probably had overcards and I really didn’t want to be in a race.
After an age he muttered something about how I could be stealing and called. I had about a second or so to indulge the fantasy that he had a dominated 8-8 rather than the A-10 offsuit he had. I mean, really, A-10 off… The flop was safe, but a Ten on the turn brought a world of disappointment. I think his call was probably a mistake given the situation, but it wasn’t as horrendous as I made out when the Ten hit – poor fella. Then again, he was ripping my heart out and stamping all over my Main Event dreams so he deserved some middle-class trash talk.
As I head out there once again, instead of the ‘years of hurt’ I’m going to remember the most important thing of all. Years ago I used to spend hours at my desk dreaming of poker and Vegas and the WSOP. Now I get to go write and talk about it as a ‘job’. I should really get out of the bitter barn and go play in the hay… or at least the 104-degree sunshine.
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