British pro Nick Gibson continues with his mission to win a fortune in Las Vegas and there are some harsh lessons
Chapter One: A reservation for…
When I first arrived in Las Vegas, I tried to get across to San Diego to play in the World Series of Poker circuit event at the Rincon. I politely turned down the hotel’s offer of a room for $459 per night on the basis that clocking up over $3,000 in expenses to play in a $5,000 event with a small field was not great business sense. So, in an effort to avoid similar problems, I had booked my flights and hotels for the WPT event at San Jose well in advance.
Now this is a great strategy if you are playing well. Sadly – as I said last month – my game was far from being at its best and as a result, I was not exactly keen on stumping up $10,000 for a tournament. I have learnt the best way to minimise your losses during a bad spell is to stop playing, but my conscience told me I couldn’t simply bum around. Then again, I’m a poker player, so my conscience didn’t get a look in and it was off down the Californian coast for some not so hard-earned rest.
I spent a couple of days eating, drinking and shopping before heading back to Vegas to buckle down. I played one $500 and two $1,000 tournaments at the Bellagio on three consecutive days, one session of $40/$80 mixed, one session of $10/$20 no- limit hold’em and one session of $5/$10. I managed to lose a total of just over $8,000 over that 72-hour period.
Having a 100% record is generally considered a good thing unless, of course, it refers to your ability to lose cash liberally around card rooms and to various untalented poker players. I managed to maintain this rather unwanted record by also dropping several thousand dollars online over those three nights. It was at this point that I became totally satisfied with my diagnosis that I was playing like a complete wanker.
With no distractions, a nice house to live in, the blessings of my wife to seek my fortune and a massive variety of poker to play, I was really struggling to find someone or something to blame. Clearly as a last resort I figured I might have something to do with it and the only way to handle the situation was to head off up the Californian coast again to reflect on the trip so far and to put in place a plan to reverse this worrying and worsening losing streak.
Chapter Two: Lost in Reno
A few days spent at a health spa while travelling to San Francisco reinvigorated me to push onto Reno to change my fortunes. I was greeted by the most miserable taxi driver in the world when I arrived, who tried to persuade me to get the free shuttle bus to the hotel as it was not worth his while taking me. He was then looking for pity when I only tipped him 25% for the five-minute journey. Try losing at poker for one month straight buddy and see how that makes you feel!
I had planned to arrive in Reno the night before the WPT main event; pay in, get some food and relax so that I could start the tournament totally fresh, clear of any demons that had been building up in my mind for the past few weeks. An excellent plan you say? Well, it was until I overslept and got to the bank 20 minutes after it shut.
Thinking I could get the money out on my debit card, I was frustrated even more when I was told I would be charged $300 for the privilege of taking out $4,500. Naturally I felt robbed, so instead of swallowing my pride, I tried my hand at a couple of single-table satellites. Two hours later I retreated to the cashier once again where I withdrew my money at a mere cost of $300, plus two $570 single table satellites and a buy- in to the main event. So much for the plan to stay relaxed, focussed and fresh!
Nearly 500 people started the $5,000 buy-in main event the following day. The tournament had its usual ups and downs. Good calls, bad calls, bluffs, moves, all- ins and everything you would expect from a 10,000-starting chip event. In actual fact, an amazing amount happened during the four hours that I managed to last. My major mistake came when I pretended 9-9 was a really big hand on an 8-high flop. As is normally the case you find out where you are when the villain opposite you says ‘I call’. The upside for the rest of the table was that I showed them the guy who had been repeatedly representing hands did actually have one and his pocket Aces were more than enough to send me packing.
I was back home less than 24 hours after I left and down more than $6,500. More importantly though, having not played a hand of poker for seven days, I had still played badly. When you are playing well I find you rarely run into massive hands simply because you make correct laydowns when you feel you are beat. It became very obvious to me on the way back from Reno that over the past few weeks I was ignoring my gut and just hoping my marginal hands were good.
I can actually recall three occasions that I have put all my chips in with A-K against A-A; something that I rarely – if ever – do when playing well. As a result of this poor run, I decided that I would quit tournament poker until the Bellagio WPT Championship festival as it can be soul destroying – not to mention expensive – at the best of times. My new focus would be purely $5/$10 no-limit hold’em cash games until I got some form back and started to read the game well again.
Amazingly, my next two sessions yielded over $3,500 profit and I actually stuck to my guns and played a far tighter game then normal; focusing on my goal of actually ‘booking’ a win to put in the profit and loss column.
Chapter 3: Back on track
With the WPT championships and the imminent arrival of my friends JP Kelly, Stuart Fox and co-owner of the house, Pete Haslam, I am sure that I can turn around my form and make a profit before coming back to the UK for a couple of weeks prior to the WSOP. Having some company from people who have wider conversation topics than just poker will definitely help.
You might be thinking I have spent the last month holidaying, rather than playing poker. To be fair, you’d be right. Unfortunately my bankroll that read $7,300 profit last month now reads as $9,000 in the red. When combined with my expenses for the trip this leaves me with a $23,000 deficit to make up before I break even!
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