Dodge the Donkey Punch

73 days until Vegas!

This year I'll be playing in the first ever $1,000 buy-in WSOP event. It'll also be my first ever WSOP bracelet-tournament and my first time staying at The Rio. We got a great deal, too. Sin City is having a hard time attracting folks to its casinos right now, so the great deals are aplenty.

It turns out that The World Series of Poker isn't recession-proof either, so they'll be offering their least expensive bracelet tournament ever--a $1,000 No Re-buys/No Add-ons NLHE event. I've read a lot of complaints about this, too, saying that it's breaking the tradition of the usual $1,500 event being the first NLHE tourney each year. The "donkament," as I've heard it called, is expecting an extra large field. My guess is between four and five thousand. Last week they posted the tournament structure on wsop.com, and I was a little disappointed to see that everyone will be starting with only 3,000 in chips. I know that it's a relatively low buy-in tournament, but it'll be the most expensive tournament I've ever reached into my pocket for, so I was hoping it would be a little more deep-stacked. That gives everyone 120 big blinds at level 1 with levels lasting 60 minutes. It's not exactly a Turbo, but I'll still need to make some moves with less than premium hands to stay afloat.

Last year I played in a WSOP Circuit Event in Tunica. It was a cheap little $125 Turbo event. I remember we were nearing the end of our trip, and I was coming close to the end of my money, so I just bought into the cheapest event they had. Aimee and I were on our New Year's vacation with Paul and Ashley, and Paul and I had each originally planned on playing in the $300 (I think that was the amount) event, but neither of us had done quite as well as we'd hoped up to that point, so I played in the cheaper tourney and Paul just played in a couple satellites (to no avail).

The night before Paul took a 1-2 donkey punch combo to the teeth at the $1-3 NL table after turning $75 into $600 in about two hours. I had gone busto and was watching him for a bit because he had built a monster stack. He was on a rush and was really dominating the table like I'd seen him do before. At one point I remember he even had one of the players surreneder his iPod over to him. I think he actually had the guy hypnotized or some shit. He was on quite a roll, but I was wishing he would just call it a night and cash out as it was getting late. It would have been a huge win. I know how he felt, though. A rush like that is hard to get up and walk away from. Something takes over, and you get greedy. Just as I was becoming convinced that he might break the entire table I saw it all come crashing down in two donkalicious hands. It was like watching that clip of George Brett's pine tar incident--sickening. I don't remember all the specifics, but I think one of the hands involved some gutshot straight-chasing by a donkey puncher on the far side of the table. Some people can only take so much domination before they go on tilt and start making bad decisions. I'm sure Paul remembers just how it went down. He lost that entire stack. His teeth probably still hurt.

Anyway, there were only about 100 entrants in my turbo tourney with the final table of nine finishing in the money. I think we started with 2,500 or 3,000 chips and blinds at 25-50 with levels lasting only 40 minutes. I remember feeling pretty nervous and not very confident coming out of the gate. I wasn't in a very aggressive mood which is pretty much required for success in short-stacked tourneys. I also had a guy two seats to my right who came out making monster raises left and right, so I didn't have much room to maneuver anyway. After three or four orbits, I had seen and missed a few flops, and my stack was down to about 1,800 or so. We were at level two, 50-100, and I was two off the button when I looked down at Qs2s. Surprisingly, the super-aggressive guy folded after just one early position limper, so it was a good spot for me to get aggressive. I made it 350, and everyone folded to the big blind, who called, as did the EP limper. I had decided to be aggressive on the flop no matter what, so I was planning on a continuation bet at the very least even if I missed. A sight for sore eyes appeared on the felt, though. Dealer turned A-Q-2, rainbow. I flopped two pair. The two EP players both checked to me. I fired what I wanted to look like a standard continuation bet out of about 2/3 the pot, around 700. I didn't put much thought into it at all. It was pretty automatic. I was quite confident I had the best hand. The EP limper called and the other guy folded. Going to the turn I only had about 700-800 left in front of me. Dealer burned and turned a 5, leaving the board still not very draw heavy, but I felt that I needed to go ahead and get it all in there, so when the guy checked to me, I went all in for my last 700 or so. He went into the tank, which I took as a good sign since any hand he would have to think about was probably worse than mine. I still wanted him to fold. He did not. He said, "I'm gonna make what's probably a bad call here." He turned over A-4, top pair. I turned over my two pair which got a couple "Oohs." I looked at his cards and then back at the board. The first thing I noticed was that he had a gutshot draw, but I quickly dismissed that outcome since it was highly improbable. In fact, I was just about 3 to 1 to win after the turn. Any A, 3, 4, or 5 (12 outs) would win him the pot and send me packing, and any of the other 32 cards would double me up. Feeling pretty good about it, I watch the dealer burn and turn the river--the 3.

The guy reached into a bag of four marbles and pulled out the the only one that would win him the pot. I was done. It felt like I had just walked behind a horse and got kicked in the junk. Somehow I managed to make it up from my chair and hobble away, though.

I can't ask for much more than getting it in good. I'll take that all day. Let's just hope I'm able to bob and weave come May.