Blurbs From Foxwoods

I recently returned from a week at Foxwoods, where I attended the World Poker Finals. I made the trek across the country for two main reasons: to play in the World Poker Tour main event there, which figured to be a monster tournament (and it was), and to speak at the World Poker Players Conference (WPPC). In this column, I'd like to share with you some of my observations and experiences from that trip.



The WPPC: This annual seminar put on by Card Player Cruises features a number of speakers representing various cross sections of the poker-playing population. It was the first time that this event had taken place outside of Las Vegas, and certainly could be considered a success. The day's highlights included a seminar by Lee Jones, who spoke mainly about strategies for playing heads up. Barry Tanenbaum followed up with a typically excellent presentation. Barry is a great presenter, as he is able to combine good humor and good information in a highly informative, relevant, and entertaining fashion. I spoke later on; the theme of my talk was skills and attitudes that are crucial for success in the poker arena. I will share some of them in upcoming columns.



Presto was unkind: While at Foxwoods, I played in both the $5,000 buy-in no-limit event (in which my good friend Lee Markholt placed third) and the $10,000 main event. I busted out early in the first tournament, when my A-Q went down to Liz Lieu's pocket fives after a flop of Q-5-2. There's nothing like getting your money in when drawing close to dead!



The main event was huge, with two first-day flights due to the nearly 800 players in the field. First place paid more than $2 million! I got off to a good start, turning the $10,000 in starting chips into about $35,000 by the dinner break. Not much went right for me after dinner, though, and my stack began to shrink. Late in the evening, I got involved in a big pot with pocket aces. I was against one player (a young Internet star who had been playing well all day, with a nice touch of unpredictability in his game) who had limped in and then called my oversized raise. I made a big raise here for a couple of reasons: I didn't want this particular opponent to see a cheap flop to outrun me, and I thought there was some chance he would read my big raise as a steal, rather than a legitimate hand, and may try to "resteal" the pot.



He just called my raise, and we saw a nice-looking flop of J-5-5 rainbow. Now, I wasn't ever going to give him pocket jacks in this spot, since I believed he probably would have played the hand differently preflop. Of course, as the title of this "blurb" alludes, he actually held Presto (pocket fives). After I made a big bet on the flop, we got the rest of the money in on the turn, and once again I was all in when drawing dead. I have come to the conclusion that it will be difficult for me to win tournaments if this keeps happening.



So much for the tight image: My early tournament exits provided me with some time to play cash games. For the most part, the games at Foxwoods had plenty of action. However, one night I played in a $75-$150 H.O.E. game (a mixed game in which we played hold'em, Omaha eight-or-better, and eight-or-better stud, switching games with each new dealer) that was a bit tight, to put it mildly. The problem was that there didn't seem to be much else to do, so nobody was quitting. Finally, Pat Poels, a top player from Arizona who won a bracelet in Omaha eight-or-better at this year's World Series of Poker, suggested we add some props to the game. Basically, props are side bets that don't require any poker-playing skill, for example, we may wager on whether the flop will come with all red or all black cards. A few of us gladly accepted this proposal, in an attempt to add a bit of spice and gamble to what was an unusually flat game.

Whenever one of us hit our prop, we collected from all of the other participating players.



Before we knew it, we had side bets on just about everything, and six of the nine players in the game were participating. Props are often used in the "big game" in Vegas, sometimes for amounts that eclipse the stakes of the game. In our case, we were betting just enough to add a bit of interest to the game.



Without question the most interesting prop was the "badougi." A "badougi" is four unpaired cards, one of each suit. We played with the badougi prop in Omaha eight-or-better using our holecards, and we developed a system so that all six of us could play with the badougi prop in hold'em, using the flop and turn cards on the board.



The badougi prop was most fascinating in eight-or-better stud, though. Since there were no community cards, and each player received only three cards initially, we had to find a way to make it work. So, the rules were set that in order to collect, a player's first four cards had to form a badougi. Obviously, this prop changed the play of this game a bit. We were much more likely to see a fourth card when we were drawing to a badougi (you certainly can make a good and valid case that this is bad for the game, as it artificially changes the play; however, the players not involved in the prop bets weren't about to complain, as they observed some of the garbage that the badougi hunters were taking to fourth street).



This worked in my favor in one hand, as I saw another card with that stellar eight-or-better stud holding, K-Q-8 rainbow. Ultimately, I split a big pot when I made a flush (yes, I was drawing to a badougi and made a flush!), chopping with another player who made a wheel in his first five cards. A third player held pocket aces in that hand.



A bizarre home-game happening: One evening when the poker room was fairly quiet, I went up to Gavin Smith's room to play some fourhanded poker with him, Chris Bell, and Mike Gracz. We played a three-game combination of Chinese poker, badougi, and triple-draw deuce-to-seven lowball. We played eight hands of one game and then moved on to the next. Although I came to Gavin's room expecting this to be a "beer game," I quickly realized that we were playing for fairly high stakes. So, on the very first hand of deuce-to-seven lowball, I dealt to myself and was quite happy to look at my cards and find the absolute nuts: 2-3-4-5-7. Now, I've been playing this game for a few years, and it was the first time I'd ever been dealt a pat wheel. I thought to myself how odd it was that I happened to be dealing it. Ultimately, the hand did not reach the showdown, but I showed my cards anyway.



The next time I dealt the same game, something really scary happened: I didn't get another pat wheel, but 2-3-5-6-7, the third nuts. This time, I won a fairly large pot when Mike Gracz made the fourth-best hand, 2-4-5-6-7. I more or less told Mike what I had, since I frankly was not very comfortable with what had happened. I mean, I've been playing this game fairly regularly for about four years, and had been dealt three or four pat sevens. Now, the first two times I'd ever dealt the game myself (and perhaps more importantly, the first two times I'd dealt it in this particular game), I gave myself pat sevens. The math on this is amazing: Taken together, the odds against dealing yourself two consecutive pat sevens on your first two deals, in which one is a wheel, is more than 1.6 million-to-1 against. Hmm – maybe I have finally found my true calling.