This is the second article in a series. To read the first article click here.
Warning: sections of this article contain poker terminology. If it feels like reading another language to you, please ask a poker friend for a translation!
On Monday night I drove through the blistering Las Vegas heat to the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino full of hope and dreams. This was the very beginning of my 2015 World Series of Poker adventure.
I was here to play event 291, scheduled for 8pm June 29 Las Vegas time (11am June 30 Macau time) – a US$550 buy-in No Limit Hold’em satellite to the US$10,000 Main Event.
I’m not normally a fan of satellites, but I love playing these satellite events in the lead-up to the World Series Main Event for a number of reasons. The main reason is that the fields are fluffy soft. I mean like feather down soft. Duck feather down. Crazy guys playing every second hand, guys who look down at KJ like it’s a pair of Aces – that kind of thing. “Oh, is there a straight out there, sorry, I didn’t notice.” Yup, donkey city.
So there I found myself, in the sprawling Pavilion Room at Table 298 in seat 9 in the Yellow section (yes, the rooms at the WSOP are so enormous they are carved up into colored sections).
Suffice to say, it was not a good day. Card dead for most of the four or five levels I played, I only played about six hands in over two hours! Three of those were standard raise pre-flop and take down the blinds and the other three were all bad beats. Sorry to turn this into a bad beat story, but here goes.
Bad Beat#1: Raise in the cut-off with QQ. Both blinds call. Flop 89J. Checked to me, I bet, big blind calls. Turn T, giving me the straight to the queen. All the money goes in. I expected to see him roll over a queen, hopefully not KQ. Imagine my surprise when he shows me Q6 offsuit for the chop! WTF – he called my pre-flop raise (and I had a totally nitty image) with Q6 off? And then called my decent flop bet with a gutshot? Craziness. Like I said, duck down.
Bad Beat#2: Raise under the gun +1 with KK. Lovely. An imbecile two seats on my left (hey, I call it as I see it) shoves into me – all-in. Beautiful, yummy yummy yummy come to Daddy! Everyone else folds and of course I call it off. I have him covered, just. He slow rolls AQ. Just need to fade an ace. Here comes the board: J73TK. Gross, I throw up. To make matters worse he gets up thinking he has lost, and the other players have to call him back twice and explain to the imbecile that he actually won the hand. Aiya!
Sort of Bad Beat#3: Very next hand, now I am under the gun and desperately short stacked – 3 big blinds. I look down to see A6. No choice – I shove. Get called by the guy on my immediate left. Everyone else gets out of the way. Oh, hello, AQ again! At least this time he didn’t slow roll me. Now its time to get lucky and hit a 6. The flop: 6xx. Nice! The turn: Q. Ouch. The river was no help and it’s bye bye Andrew.
Next intended satellite: Event 303 – a US$550 buy-in No Limit Hold’em satellite to the Main Event. Exactly the same event format. Hopefully a different result. Scheduled for 8pm on July 1 Las Vegas time (11am July 3 Macau time). Wish me luck!
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Andrew W Scott is the CEO of World Gaming Group Limited, a Macau-based gaming services group of companies.
