My November Foxwoods Experience

I boarded the tiny 15-seat Cessna in Champaign, Illinois, and headed to the East Coast for the first time since I left New York City five months ago. I wasn't going back to hit the bars in the West Village, though, and in fact wasn't even heading to NYC, regrettably. I was bound for Connecticut, and the felt battlefields at Foxwoods Casino. I was determined to try to leave my mark on the tournament scene, and I hadn't done so yet in 2005. I had one big problem staring me in the face – er, wallet – though: I had brought only about $6,000 and the events I wanted to play were going to run me about $17,000. Even by fuzzy math standards, that just didn't add up. Regardless of that fact, I had decided to make my way to Foxwoods with just the $6,000. It would be a challenge, as well as good fun to try to pull it off.



My plane landed and I picked up my rental car and headed into the dark Connecticut night. It was a little bit of a drive to the casino, so I began planning my attack. I figured I would hit the cash games hard to make up the difference between what I had and what I needed. If I was lucky, maybe I would win a seat in the main event, and that would solve most of my problems. When I got to Foxwoods, though, I quickly realized that there might be some added difficulty: Every game had a waiting list of one to two hours. Hmm …



I decided to just pay my buy-in for the next day's event ($2,000) and get some rest. I then hopped back into the car and drove another couple of miles to my home for the next week or so, the Hilltop Inn. That's right, the Hilltop Inn; I had to save some cash. It had to be done if I had any hope of scraping together the money to enter all of the events I wanted to play. The hotel actually turned out to be perfect for what I needed, and it came equipped with an authentic Connecticut village just two miles away. After having lived in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles the last few years, this seemed like some sort of alien land to me. It helped my preparation, though, as I went running before the events, through the village, thinking about my game plan for the day.



The $2,000 event didn't go exactly as I had planned, and I ended up going out after a few hours. I never really picked up any hands, so I couldn't feel too bad about my exit. I ran into my good friend Liz Lieu, who also had gone out unceremoniously that day, and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the trip. There really weren't many pros playing the smaller events other than us, so it was certainly nice to see a friendly face. She would prove to be truly invaluable later in the trip.



After my exit, I headed to the cash games to see how brutal the wait would be. Unfortunately, there were 30 names on the board ahead of mine. Thankfully, I had brought my laptop with me to the casino that day, so I decided to set up camp right outside the business center and pirate its Internet signal for my computer. I ended up having a great session, and took down about $3,000 playing $30-$60 on PokerStars. All right, I thought; if I couldn't get into a live cash game, I would just play online in the casino. It was kind of like going to a sandwich shop and ordering a pizza, but it was working for me.



The next day there was no event, so I decided to play in the satellite for the $10,000 main event. It was a brutal day, as I went out 12th, and they awarded 11 seats. To make matters worse, some joker who had won a seat came up to me immediately thereafter and said, "Well, you just never know. I was down to $1,100 in chips a while back, and now I have a seat!" That clearly was not what I wanted to hear at that moment.



After disposing of his body, I headed back to my hotel and beat myself up for not being able to close the deal that night. I decided not to let it ruin my desire to pull off winning a seat, though, and instead let it fire me up more. One way or another, I was going to play in the main event. With my cash whittled down to only $3,000 now, I really needed to come up with some creative ways to make some money. So, I did what every young poker player does when the going gets tough: I headed to cyberspace.



The next couple of days were all-day sessions on the "tables." My back was sore, my shoulders were aching, and my eyes were burning, but by the end of the second day, I had made another $7,000, which brought my online total to a whopping $10,000 in just a few days. The only problem was that I needed to convert this money to actual cash, and quickly. Re-enter Liz …



I transferred her $10,000 in PokerStars dollars for $10,000 in cash. Problem solved. Life was good, and I owed Lizzie a huge favor in the future. She had really saved me.



The next day, I laid down my $5,000 for another event, and was greeted by more disappointment. I just couldn't seem to really get started in either of the events I had played thus far. I was proud of myself for outlasting about three-fourths of the field while never having more than $7,000 in chips, after starting with $5,000! Wins are rarely made of stories like that, though, so I was ousted right before dinner. On a brighter note, Liz made the final table and took down fifth place in the event. That's good karma at work if I have ever seen it.



I decided to try my hand at another satellite for the main event, which was just a few days away. I was determined to win a seat in this go-round. There is just something to winning a seat at one-tenth the price that makes it more satisfying.



This satellite began slowly, and I was scraping to get some chips together as the blinds raced up. Luckily, aggression is rewarded in poker, and I am nothing if not hostile at the tables, so I was able to pull off some big steals. I ended up fighting my way to a nice finish and took down one of the 23 seats. I was never really threatened once we got about halfway through the field, and I was ecstatic to have achieved one of my goals on this trip.



With much of the pressure off, I was free to just play some poker during the rest of my time at Foxwoods. My cash more than had me covered now, despite my concern when I had arrived. There was another off day before the $10,000 event started, so I jumped into one more satellite. I wanted to keep myself sharp and didn't want to play too much limit poker before the no-limit event.



I ended up winning another seat, and was really on a freeroll. I made another $10,000 for the trip after selling the seat to a friend, so I was feeling content. It really was a great feeling to go to Foxwoods, not knowing if I was going to be able to pull the money together to play in all of the events, and then find a way to make it all happen.



I wish this story had the fantasy ending of me taking down the huge win in the main event, but alas, this is poker, and it often doesn't come with a storybook ending. My K-K ran into A-A early in the event, and I was crippled from then on. I managed to limp along for a while, but David Benyamine finished me off after I took a poor stab at stealing a pot from him. All in all, though, the trip was a success. I fought my way to some nice wins, won a couple of seats, and solidified my belief that I can battle through whatever gets thrown my way in the poker world. The moral here is to keep your head up when the circumstances appear daunting – or make sure that Liz is close by to save your rear end when you are in trouble.