Tunica, T.J., and Me

After my triumphant simultaneous cashes (see my first column in the Dec. 21, 2001, issue) in the World Poker Challenge at the Reno Hilton, my first real tournament, I was flying high. This is easy, I thought. I'm the next Phil Hellmuth Jr., I thought. Now, keep in mind that this was from a guy whose total tournament gross at that point was less than $5,000. So, perspective is something I lack, obviously.

My next tournament target was going to be in Tunica, Mississippi (actually, Robinsonville, but I guess Jack Binion's place is in Tunica County, so everyone calls it Tunica). I flew down and checked in, raring to go.

I did nothing. I didn't sniff the money in the events I entered, and I entered almost all of them the first 10 days – ugh. That was my first taste of desolation and fear on the tournament trail. There would be more, rest assured.

My low point came in a single-table satellite for entry into the $5,000 main event. I got down to heads up with Kathy Kohlberg. I had a chip lead of about 2-to-1. I promptly got full of myself and stupidly got crippled. With about five chips left in my stack, Kathy graciously agreed to a save of the $540 buy-in. She didn't have to do that. But I felt ashamed, nonetheless.

Finally, with my time at the tournament running out, I managed to salvage some pride by winning a single-table satellite, this one also for a seat in the main event. I paid off the second-place guy this time ($1,000) to save myself from the indignity of blowing off another big heads-up chip lead.

This would be my first main event, and I was pumped. But, I had to fly home the next day. As I walked through the tournament ballroom with my garment bag, Melissa Hayden asked, "Where are you going, Adam?" She knew that I had a seat for the main event the following week.

"If I want to keep my girlfriend, I have to go home for a week, but I'll be back," I answered. Then, in what seemed like a miracle at the time, T.J. Cloutier looked up from three tables away. I had never spoken to him directly, nor had he ever addressed me. But now he did, and the words seemed like they were being delivered from on high.

"There are plenty of girls out there, kid, this is work."

I don't know if I responded: I only remember being very nervous at having the great champion bless me with important advice. T.J.'s gone on to give me lots of vital advice, but I'll never forget that first nugget.

I decided to take a page from T.J.'s book and fade the white line from my home in Brooklyn, New York, back down to Mississippi for the championship. I don't know if taking the interstate in a Lexus SUV with a six-CD changer and heated seats counts as fading the white line with the old-timers, but in my mind, that's what I was doing.

After driving 1,100 miles, I lasted 15 minutes – 15 minutes – in the championship event. Oh, my God, I'm a failure. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say I had the best of it in the hand for the first four cards off the deck – but they put five out there. As I slinked out of the ballroom, I could have sworn I heard tumultuous laughter. Everyone was looking at me and pointing. There were big letters floating in the air … Ha, Ha, Ha. I swear it's true. I think I was the second player eliminated out of the entire field.

Back upstairs in my room, I felt like I had been doused in the face with ice cold water from a bucket – and that the bucket hit me, too. I went over the hand in my mind to make sure what I thought had happened had happened. It had. I was out. I came mentally and physically prepared for a three-day event. I lasted a quarter-hour.

I was supposed to go home. That was my schedule, after all. Instead, less than an hour after busting out, I did what all of us road gamblers do. I did what I needed to do. I did what T.J. would do. I got right back in my car and headed for Las Vegas and the World Series of Poker.s