British poker pro Nick Gibson tries to salvage his depleted bankroll at the World Series
PART ONE – WARMING UP
I came back to Britain for a fortnight in the run-up to the World Series. Trust me, the last thing on my mind was playing poker. So, I was delighted to find myself in the middle of a charity event some 48 hours after arriving back. Celebrities galore mixed in with more than a handful of pros actually made it a very enjoyable evening. And I’m sure you can anticipate the ironic ending. Yes, I secured my first victory for months with a prizepool that just about covers your buy-in.
But back at my adopted home in Vegas, it really was time to knuckle down. The original goal of winning a new pad had been substituted for the more mundane, ‘I’d like to win back some of my losses’ objective. The first stop was the WPT event at the Mandalay Bay. As with several big events recently, the turnout was disappointing. I think it may dawn on tournament organisers soon that having so many big buy-in events overlapping each other is driving an enormous amount of players to go broke very quickly.
My first event was a $1,500 no-limit event and to my complete surprise, I actually played rather well. That was until we were down to 12 players – when I lost all my chips with top pair. Now what was that saying about not going broke in an un- raised pot with just one pair? Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve been playing professionally for four years or four hours!
Anyway, positives had to be taken from the day: a slight profit, but most importantly, some form being shown at last. I went home and planned my attack on the next day’s super satellite for the $10,000 main event. In hindsight, not much strategy was required as the place was filled with an extraordinary number of lemmings and I secured my seat without too many alarms.
But any misconceptions I had about getting back into form were quickly dispelled in the main event itself. I misplayed hand- after-hand and was down to 2,000 after the first three hours. By some miracle, I fought back to my starting stack of 20,000. I decided to take an early dinner break to reflect on just how lucky I was to still be in the tournament, and how it was now incumbent on me to capitalise on my good fortune.
First hand after dinner, I bluff off 10,000 chips and not long after I put a pair of Kings all-in pre-flop with that uncrackable monster, A-6 offsuit. Back to the drawing board.
Luckily, this was just a temporary blip. A couple of days later I came second in a Bellagio tournament, netting $20,000. And, a series of good results in the $10/$20 no-limit game at the Bellagio gave me a lot of confidence going into the WSOP. Maybe, just maybe, that house was still a possibility.
PART TWO – HATCHING A PLAN
My plan of attack at the World Series was a simple one: I was going to take on all the pot-limit Omaha events, a couple of Omaha hi-lo tourneys and a series of no-limit and pot-limit hold’em events. But, with so many other events running concurrently at the Bellagio and the Venetian, the plan was reasonably fluid.
The event I was really looking forward to was the $5,000 pot-limit Omaha rebuy event. Several conversations in the run-up to the event centred on the size of a player’s war chest for rebuys and the average figure appeared to be $30,000. This promised to be tremendous value if you could limit your rebuys.
I was fortunate enough to be drawn with Marcus Gosler to my left and Marc Goodwin to my right, who between them donated over $80,000 to the prizepool. As a result, I played the event as a freezeout and slowly amassed a decent stack. Unfortunately, our table broke with 60-odd players left and the change was the death knell for me.
I finally made a stand against Jeff Lisandro in a battle of the blinds. Given the prizepool and the distinct lack of Omaha talent left I bitterly regret making a stand against him. We got involved in a raising war that saw me re- raising him all-in with just Q-9-9-6 on a J-10-7 flop. His set of tens held up against my monster and that was that. Top tip here: despite how annoying the other blinds might be, try and find a stronger hand than Q-9-9-6 to make a stand with in an Omaha tourney!
The defining event for me was the $5,000 no-limit hold’em tournament, which had a field of nearly 700. At the end of Day one, I was lying in 82nd place with 85 players remaining. I had seen four pairs all day (in 14 hours of play), the best being pocket eights. I had to play my best poker just to hang in there.
Day two started really well as I doubled and doubled to a stack of 100,000. Iwan Jones was on the rail and I joked with him that apart from the first hand of the tourney, I had never had an average stack, which currently stood at 101,000. Not only that, statistically I was surely due a premium hand at some stage.
I sat down and immediately looked at pocket Kings. Nick Schulman, who had joined the table two hours previously with 200,000, was down to 90,000 mainly due to British poker pro Stuart Fox constantly re-raising him. He raised in early position, I re-raised, convinced he’d had enough and he duly moved all-in to show A-Q offsuit. Jennifer Tilly told me she passed an Ace and so did ‘Mr X’ to my right. With those words ringing in my ears, it was an absolute delight to see the door card was the A♠.
I exited not long after with only a paltry $12,000 to show for my efforts. However, before I left, Foxy found K-K against A-K. His hand held up and he went on to finish second for $448,000. I tell this story not to moan about bad luck, but to show the fine line between success and failure.
I certainly can’t say I’d have done as well as Stu, but it would have been nice to have a go. To put Stu’s achievement in context, this was his third final WSOP table in his last eight events. He has come second twice and third. That is a phenomenal record and underlines what a great player he is. Surely a bracelet is waiting for him next year.
PART THREE – END OF THE ROAD
For me, however, I was tired of poker and tired of the poker world. Generally I was playing well, but you need more than that to get through the huge fields scattered with the world’s best among a sea of muppets. The fields this year were simply enormous. The first event had a two-hour queue to become an alternate. But, for the first time in four years, I didn’t get a buzz from being at the World Series.
So with a heavy heart, I took the decision to call it a day. It hurt to miss the $10,000 pot-limit Omaha event where I made the final table last year, but I didn’t want to hang around in Vegas for two weeks just to play in one event. By going home early, I wouldn’t bankrupt myself and I’d save my remaining few quid for another tournament – and there are always plenty to be found around the world these days.
Albeit the best part of $100,000 lighter, I don’t regret the trip, although I think the title for the articles should have read ‘Nick Gibson’s misadventures’. It was something I had to try whilst I was still able to do it.
Upon arrival home, I called several friends. One of them was British poker pro Jon Kalmar, who jumped at the chance to take my now vacant room in the Vegas house with the main event looming. I really must speak to him to see how he got on……
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