My World Series of Poker Adventures

I thought that with the economy in a recession, attendance at the World Series of Poker would be down from last year. Well, I guess somebody forgot to tell that to the poker players, who have descended on the Rio in record numbers. I have played a number of events as of this writing, and came in 25th for a decent money finish in the $1,500 buy-in pot-limit hold'em event. I might have gone further, but my A-K got shot down by an A-J, and that was that. It was during this event that I witnessed one of the most incredible hands I have ever seen. We were down to four tables on day 2 of the tournament. The two chip leaders at my table were David Singer and Scott Seiver. Scott had a bit more than David.

The scene is set; now let's unfold it. The blinds were 1,000-2,000. Robert Fishman intended to raise the pot to the maximum, which would have been 7,000, but accidentally put in a lesser amount. The bet stood as a minimum-raise, which made it 4,000 to go. This is where it really got interesting. Seiver, on the button, flat-called. The small blind folded, and Singer, in the big blind, reraised to 18,000. Fishman, who had pocket queens, thought long and hard and finally made the call. Then, to everyone's surprise, Seiver made a pot-sized reraise. Singer did not hesitate very long, and announced that he was reraising all in. Fishman decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and folded. Seiver immediately made the call, and they turned their hands up. Don't forget that Seiver had Singer covered, and if he won, he would be the chip leader in the whole tournament and a very tough opponent would be sent to the rail.

So, what were the hands with which they went to war? Seiver turned over pocket jacks and Singer turned over pocket tens! Everybody was stunned, especially Fishman, who had folded his queens. Now, on to the flop, which came 6-4-3 rainbow. The dealer carefully burned, and turned a deuce. The river card was a 5, which made a straight. This magical river card saved Singer, because it was a split pot. Singer could not help but smile a little, as he had escaped a major disaster.

He actually gave his thought process for why he played the hand this way. It provides a good insight into how a world-class player like David thinks, even if he did misread the situation this time. He said that when Fishman sort of fumbled with his chips when he made his initial raise, he thought he wasn't that strong, and when Seiver only called, he thought his tens were the best hand, and he tried to win the pot right there. After Fishman called his raise and Seiver reraised, he thought that Seiver was making a play at the pot himself, probably thinking that David also was making a play. David then figured that his reraise would blast Fishman out of the pot, which it did, and he would take the pot down. He figured that Seiver was just making a move and would have a very tough call with anything but a large pair. Of course, making the wrong move at the right time is something we all do on occasion.

David made the most of his good fortune and went on to win the event and capture his first World Series of Poker bracelet. David has made many final tables at the World Series, including back-to-back sixth-place finishes in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, so his victory was well-earned. I don't know of anybody who has ever won a major tournament who did not get lucky at some point along the way.

Speaking of luck, I seemed to come out on the wrong end of it several times. As you may know, I am a member of Team PokerStars, and I got heads up in the $1,500 no-limit hold'em shootout with fellow team member Noah Boeken. We got almost all of the chips into the pot preflop when I had A-J against his pocket nines. The flop came with a queen and a 10 -- everything but what I needed to make a straight or a pair. Two rags came off on the turn and the river, and Noah advanced. I lost another race in the $2,500 no-limit hold'em event with about 20 players to go before we made the money. I held pocket queens and raised. The player in the big blind moved all in on me. I thought the situation over and decided that I had the best hand. It turned out that I was up against A-K. I made a set of queens, but my opponent made a straight, so again I lost a race that cost me a money spot. This was especially painful because there was more than 30,000 in the pot, and I had a chance to go very deep in the tournament. Well, no more bad-beat stories for now. In my next column, I will have more World Series adventures to discuss. If you win your races, I hope to see you in the winner's circle.

Tom McEvoy is a representative of PokerStars.com. He can be found playing under his own name on PokerStars, and is happy to chat when he can.