Thunder Strikes! - Part I

Hello, fellow Card Player readers! I have been a devoted Card Player reader since my early days of playing poker more than six years ago, and now it is a great privilege for me to be able to write for poker's premier magazine. I have had great success in poker over the last several years in both tournaments and ring games, and I hope that through my columns, I can help you achieve much success in poker, or at least provide some entertainment while you're still in agony from your last brutal bad beat!

Can you remember the first time you played poker? The magic, the allure, the rush of winning, and the excitement of making your first flush were great, weren't they? Do you know why you still play? Perhaps it's the fierce competition that gives way to total camaraderie with random strangers – at least until the next hand is dealt. Or, maybe it's the heartbreaking bad beats that would crush most people but just inspire you to play harder, knowing that your opponents won't always get there, and that your rush is just a shuffle away. Certainly, the magical feeling of being in the zone – when every play you make is perfect and your opponents' cards are transparent – motivates you to keep playing, chasing this nirvanalike state. Even though poker pays the bills, I have never played primarily for that reason. I've always played for the competition, the camaraderie, and the feeling of being in the zone, when I know I am playing my absolute best poker and can sit toe-to-toe with the world's top players.

The $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the World Series of Poker this year fulfilled everything I've ever played poker for – and the money didn't hurt, either! In case you don't know the outcome of this tournament, I'll let you in on a secret: I won, earning $382,000 and a coveted WSOP gold bracelet, and experienced two days of memories that will last a lifetime. Only after the tournament did it dawn on me that this was the first WSOP event that I had ever played. I'd been playing tournament poker seriously for about a year at that point. Even though I had never played a WSOP event, I had a big tournament win under my belt – the $2,500 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at Bellagio in December. I also had a third-place finish in a limit hold'em tournament at Commerce Casino, along with various online tournament wins. Going into the $5,000 no-limit hold'em WSOP event, I was coming off an amazing few weeks, having just gotten married to my wonderful wife, Andra, and feeling fresh from our relaxing honeymoon in Maui. Months before this tournament, I had planned on going to Vegas just for this event, and then returning for the world championship final event. To be honest, I'm not even sure why I wanted to play in this event so badly. Most people in my position probably would have just relaxed after the hectic weeks leading up to their wedding and not gone straight from their Maui honeymoon to Vegas to play in a poker tournament. However, Andra and I had agreed to limit our honeymoon to only six days months before the wedding, just so I could make it back in time to play this event. I guess the fact that I hadn't played in a tournament for well over a month (no poker was allowed during the weeks before the wedding – wife's rules!) and had missed many of the big WSOP events leading up to this event had me eager to play. I also wanted to get in at least one tournament before the final event so that I wouldn't be too rusty. At any rate, I am very glad I decided to play this tournament, and I've promised my wife that I will make up for our slightly shortened honeymoon!

The $5,000 buy-in for this event kept out lots of amateur players, while the prestige of the event and the ESPN coverage attracted most of the world's top pros, which resulted in an extremely tough field consisting of 254 of the best no-limit hold'em tournament players in the world. Day one was a battle, starting at noon and going until 4 a.m. I had average to low chip position throughout most of the day, which was a combination of getting weak cards and a brutal two-outer that almost busted me out of the tournament before we even got to the money. About midway through the day, a player I didn't recognize but who seemed very comfortable with his chips raised the pot, making it about $2,400 with a stack of approximately $20,000. I smooth-called behind him (having $37,000 in chips) with pocket jacks, and the blinds at $400-$800 at the time. We saw the flop heads up. The flop came 8-7-2 rainbow, and my opponent thought for several seconds and then moved all in, immediately propelling me into deep thought. The pot was only $7,500, and the bet to me was about $18,000, so I was getting less than 2-1 pot odds if I chose to call. There were no obvious draws that an early-position raiser could have, so I figured he likely had either a set or a big pocket pair, given that a pure bluff for all of his chips would be unlikely in this case. But I also thought he could be trying to push me out of the pot with this bet; I thought he would have bet less with a hand as big as a set or aces on this flop. I finally decided it was very likely that he had either nines, tens, or queens, with a smaller possibility of kings (still thinking that kings was a pretty big holding for this all-in move, as only an ace on the turn would look scary to kings on this board). I figured I was getting the right price to call given my read and my analysis of his hand, and finally decided to call, putting $18,000 worth of precious chips into the pot. Sure enough, he had nines, and my read had been dead-on! However, the turn brought a devastating 9 to give him three nines, and with no help on the river, I lost the hand and was down to less than $20,000 with about 45 players left.

Losing a huge hand in this fashion when you're fairly deep in a tournament is a truly horrible, gut-wrenching feeling. When this happens, it is crucial to do whatever you have to do to regain your focus and stay off tilt, whether that be sitting out for a few hands, listening to some music, or just letting the pain of losing slide off your shoulders and keeping your attitude positive, since, after all, you still have chips left and your tournament isn't over until they take every last one from your vicelike grip. I was able to immediately regain my composure, which is one of my poker tournament strengths, and started to refocus and analyze my new chip position. I was now pretty short-stacked, having only 25 big bets in my stack. Fortunately, I was able to quickly double up with a flush draw/overcard against an opponent with top pair (I turned a wonderful king in the hand to make a bigger pair than his), and got back to about $35,000 in chips. Then as the tournament progressed, I won lots of chips off the very aggressive and unpredictable James Sousa, and built my stack up to more than $200,000 and a tiny chip lead when we finally stopped playing for the day at 4 a.m. with 10 players left.

I hope you enjoyed my first column in Card Player, and be sure to check out the next issue to experience the exciting climax of this prestigious tournament and find out how I became a World Series of Poker champion.

Editor's note: Thomas "Thunder" Keller is a 23-year-old professional poker player and one of poker's young and rising stars. To learn more about him, go to his website at www.thunderkeller.com.