The Steinhorn Stare

As promised, here’s a WSOP update after my first weekend in Vegas…

Quick version: I played two WSOP events ($1500 NLH and $2500 NLH), and made relatively early exits from both. I also played the first event in the Bellagio Cup III, missing the money by seven spots.

Before I go into more detail, some general WSOP observations from this year:

First, as has become all too common, the rake has increased once again. This year, the rake is tiered between 7-9% of the total buy-in, depending on the buy-in amount. As an example, in the $1500 NLH event, 9% ($135) was taken off the top. This is completely ridiculous, especially considering the fact that very little additional money is going in the pockets of the dealers, who will no-doubt receive fewer tips due to the higher rake.

Second, while the number of starting chips for the WSOP events has doubled this year, the blind structure has increased as well, essentially negating the benefit of the added starting chips. While I understand the rationale for keeping the structure relatively the same – it’s already difficult enough to finish these things in three days – the relatively poor structure still favors luck over skill, especially early in these events. This has been a key complaint of mine for several years now, and I’d love to see this addressed next year, even if it means capping the entrants at some lower number (and yes, I realize that would mean Harrah’s makes less money, which is why it will never happen).

It’s interesting to note that a number of other casinos are providing serious competition to the Rio and the WSOP. On June 11, the Bellagio started the Bellagio Cup III series of events, with the same blind structure and starting chips as the WSOP, but with generally higher buy-ins ($2500 - $5000 for most events) and smaller fields (Event #1, the $1500 NLH event, drew 150 players). The Venetian has their “Deep Stack Extravaganza” going throughout June, with daily events ranging from $330 - $1060 buy-ins. These events feature one-hour rounds and starting chips ranging from $5000 - $10,000. Last Sunday, the $1060 event drew nearly 400 players, and personally I think this event was much more worthwhile (in terms of starting chips and structure) than anything the WSOP would have offered that day.

I’m curious to see if these and other tournaments, combined with Harrah’s inability to take care of their WSOP players, succeed in siphoning off WSOP players in the coming years. While those ugly little gold bracelets still have a lot of drawing power, I firmly believe the WSOP is going to have to make some changes to keep from losing players in the future.

Back to my update on the first weekend…

The two WSOP I events were relatively uneventful; in the first, I slowly bled chips until just before the dinner break, and to be honest, don’t even remember the hand I went out on. I wasn’t playing particularly well, and didn’t quite have my “feel” back after not playing for much of the past year.

The second event was a bit more eventful, but unfortunately ended less than an hour in. For the better part of the first round, I spent a bunch of time sparring with a young, aggressive player. We traded chips back and forth over the first couple dozen hands, and about 45 minutes into round one, this hand came up between he and I:

$25/50 blinds, $5000 in my stack, $7000 in my opponent’s stack. I pick up JJ under-the-gun, and raise to $150. My opponent, in middle position, barely hesitates after looking at his hand and raises to $450. Folded around to me, and I decide I don’t want to play the hand without more information, so I raise to $1450. My opponent thinks for a long time, and I assume at the time that he’s trying to decide between calling and folding. He eventually calls, and we see a flop of Q62.

At this point, I decide that I need to give myself an opportunity to get away from my hand if I’m beaten, and I want to do that as cheaply and with the most confidence possible; I decide that my best alternative is to check raise, and if my opponent comes over the top again, I can safely lay my hand down. So I check. Fortunately or unfortunately (as we’ll soon find out), my opponent checks behind me.

The turn is a Jack. Without hesitating, and assuming my hand is now good, I bet $1500, about three-quarters of the pot. Without hesitation, my opponents says “all-in,” pushing his chips in front of him. This is where I made a critical mistake that could easily have been avoided had I done one simple thing…stopped to think.

Had I thought about it, I would have realized the following: when my opponent called my big three-bet pre-flop, he essentially was telling me that he had AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT, or AK. He didn’t have JJ. It’s also unlikely that he would have put in the second raise with TT pre-flop, so I could rule that out as well. This leaves AA, KK, QQ, or AK. With AA or KK, it’s highly unlikely my opponent would have checked behind me on the flop, risking giving me a free card to draw out on his overpair. With AK, it’s unlikely my opponent would be pushing in this situation, as he must realize that my range of hands is likely more narrow than his, all of which I’d be likely to call. So, that leaves QQ. And I would expect that with QQ, my opponent would have checked the flop (as he did) and push on the turn (as he did). So, while I could have known I was against a bigger set had I thought about it, I unfortunately didn’t think about it.

I called and my opponent turned over the QQ for the bigger set.

A couple friends I spoke with said that there was little opportunity to get away from my hand, and hitting the Jack on the turn sealed my fate. At first I agreed with them, but after thinking about it for a little while, I honestly think I could have (should have!) gotten away from it. Then again, hindsight is 20/20…

After busting out of that event, I headed over to the Bellagio to play the first event of the Bellagio Cup III, a no-limit event that drew 150 people. For the first time this year, I finally started to hit a groove, and controlled my table throughout much of the first five hours. I ran my $3000 in starting chips to $16,000 and likely would have made the money (the top 18 places got paid) had I not been outplayed by a guy with AA when I hit top pair with my AQ. I finished a respectable 25th, but can’t say I’m not disappointed, as I’m ready to break the streak of non-cashes…

Heading back to Vegas on Thursday evening to play some more events next weekend…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 12th, 2007 at 2:28 pm and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.