I began day three of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event at the
World Series of Poker with a slightly below average but still fairly comfortable chip stack. There were 52 players remaining, and we were scheduled to play down to 21 (with 16 making the money, I can't quite figure out why we didn't just play down to 16). My day began much earlier than the scheduled 2 p.m. starting time, as Mike Matusow gave me a premature wake-up call at around 4 a.m. "Did you see our (expletive) table draw for tomorrow? It is the worst
ever!"
"Tell Mike hello," my wife shouted from the other room.
Not knowing Mike to be subject to much hyperbole, I knew that day three was going to be a real challenge. I listened as he filled out the roster: Mike, John Juanda, Allen Cunningham, Robert Mizrachi, David Sklansky, Stu Ungar, Johnny Moss …
My first major pot of the day occurred in seven card stud against John Juanda. John had completed the bring-in from lateish position with a queen, and I reraised behind him with pocket nines and a small card up. John raised again, and I called. John maintained the lead in the hand and bet fourth and fifth streets, which I called. On sixth street, I caught a king for the high card on board, and was now showing 4-10-Q-K with three clubs. I had two black nines in the hole, so I definitely had a ton of outs with my hand. John's board was fairly ragged at this point, but it appeared that his two queens (if he had them) were still in the lead. I decided to bet out at this point, hoping that the 4
Q
K
on my board might induce him to fold if he had only one pair. No such luck, though, as John called fairly quickly. I caught a red 8 on the river for no help whatsoever, and checked. I didn't think John would fold the best hand on the river for one bet after calling me on sixth street, so it looked like a spot to cut my losses. This is a big difference from no-limit poker, in which I may be able to have bet enough to get John to lay down the best hand at some point. But, with John getting a price in the neighborhood of 11-1 on his call, he wouldn't be laying down too many hands on the river.
John checked behind me. I reluctantly called out, "One pair."
"Me too," John replied, but didn't turn his hand over. I showed my two nines, and they were good. John gave a quick "I wish I would've bet" look, and tossed in his hand.
Shortly after this hand, our table broke and I was relocated to the
ESPN table, where Eli Elezra seemed to be controlling the game. He had won a monster pot on day one, and still was riding the wave that it had created. Unfortunately for me, I went completely card dead at this point, and due to the aggressive nature of this new table, there wasn't much I could do without a hand. So, I went into a very patient mode, hoping that things would change.
Later on, our table broke, as we were now down to the final three tables. Things still had not turned around for me, and after losing a big Omaha eight-or-better pot, I was all but eliminated. With $10,000-$20,000 blinds, my stack had been reduced to my last $19,000. I survived the Omaha round after fading three or four all ins, a couple of times needing help on the river just to split the pot. The split-pot nature of the game definitely makes it easier to survive as a short stack, versus limit hold'em, for example, in which you sometimes have to play any two cards from the blind and hope to get lucky with them.
I survived to the razz round still critically short, with maybe $50,000 in chips. We now were playing $30,000-$60,000 limit, so any hand I played would be do or die. After winning a pot to get up to about $100,000, I managed to dodge fate once again. This time, my opponent was Pat Pezzin, an excellent player from Toronto. I raised with 5-6-7 and Pat reraised me. Now, I know from all of the poker we have played together that he clearly had me buried here. But, with a third of my chips already committed, it was time to gamble and hope for the best. I reraised all in, and we got to see the rest of the hand. On fourth street, Pat was drawing to A-2-3-6, versus my stellar 5-6-7-K holding. When the smoke cleared, I won with a 10, and was suddenly off life support.
When the game changed to stud, I won a nice pot against Rob Hollink, eliminating him in 22nd place, which reduced the field to 21, at which point we were done for the night. So, I had turned $19,000 into nearly $400,000, good enough for about 14th position heading into day four.
On day four, things continued as they had left off on day three, and soon my stack approached $800,000. Along the way, I busted Pat in a stud eight-or-better pot in which he once again got extremely unlucky. We both had good hands, but I needed some serious help going to the river. His hand was a made flush with a 7-low draw, versus my two aces, a low draw, and a bigger flush draw. He bricked and I made a flush, scooping the pot.
A short time later, we were in the money. It was a miracle that I had survived day three to get to this point, and now I had a legitimate shot to win. But, the buzz saw at the other end of the table named Freddy Deeb had other ideas. Freddy was playing aggressively and winning a lot of pots, and had one of the biggest stacks in the tournament at this point. My key hand against him happened in stud eight-or-better. I was dealt pocket aces with a baby up (more or less
the hand in this game), and Freddy called my raise with a small card showing. The pot easily could have been over on fourth street when Freddy caught a jack and I caught another small card, but he called my bet. My aces never improved, and Freddy made jacks up to win a big pot. With the limits as high as they were, this pot was very damaging to my chances. I think I lost about half of my chips on the hand. The round stayed bad for me, as I lost three or four more small pots, suddenly finding myself short-stacked again.
I hung around for a couple more hours, but never recovered from the stud eight-or-better round, and finally was eliminated in 11th place, good enough for $117,000, but a long way from the victory that I was hoping for. I was happy with my decision-making over the long course of the tournament, and was lucky to have cashed at all after being crippled on day three, but mostly I was disappointed to be out.
I was happy to see that Freddy went on to win the tournament. He has had a great poker career, and I would imagine that of all his titles, this one will have a special meaning to him. Congrats, Freddy!
Mark Gregorich has played poker professionally in Las Vegas since 1995. He is regarded as one of the top Omaha eight-or-better players in the world, and contributed to that section in Doyle Brunson's Super System II. Mark is primarily a cash-game player, but occasionally tosses some dead money into the prize pools of major tournaments.
