The Main Freakin' Event

I wanted to put this unfortunate incident behind me, as I'm tired of telling the story over and over. Therefore, I'm going to relive this nightmare one more time, in my next two columns.

You may have been able to tell by my tone thus far that I am less than pleased with the outcome of the 2008 World Series of Poker main event. It's not that I took any brutal beats or anything like that. I'm just mad at myself for not listening to that inner voice, or in this case, it's more of an inner alarm. We'll get to that later, but let's start with the events leading up to my demise.
The day started OK, without anything too dramatic happening. I didn't know any of the players at my table, but none were rank amateurs or blindfolded idiots like Eli Elezra or Gavin Smith, or anything. Every time I tried to show any kind of speed at all, I seemed to run into a hand, so I sat back and waited for something to unfold.

I wasn't disappointed, as this amazing hand came down sometime after dinner. It was all the more spectacular, as the two combatants were the two chip leaders of our table, both having a little more than 40,000 in chips. There was no raise preflop, as one player limped from up front and three people came along for the ride.

The flop came Q 8 5. The first player, who was in the big blind, bet 900, which was about three-quarters of the pot. This was a pretty normal bet. But there was nothing normal about the raise that the player on the button made - 6,500 straight! After a short deliberation, the call was made.

The turn brought the 2, a complete blank. Obviously not wanting to give a free card, the original bettor fired out a bet of around 7,000. The raiser didn't even hesitate, and moved all in for over 30,000 more.

The original bettor now went into the tank for over five minutes. Nobody said anything, because, after all, this was the main event, and this call was for his tournament life. At about this time, he flashed me his hand; I'm not sure if it was intentional or not. If it was, it was probably a good (although illegal, I think) move.

If my reaction was anything like my thoughts, he would have read, "What the hell are you waiting for? Call! Call! Call!" He held the A Q! True, with this amount of action, there was a fairly good chance that this hand was beat, but it had to have a lot of outs, if so.

I most likely would have thrown this hand away were this the '93 and not the '08 WSOP. But with the advent of online poker and the hyperaggressive players it has produced - no way! And the all-in guy looked like an Internet player: young, calluses on his index finger, white skin that hadn't seen the sun in ages, and that wild look in his eyes. It's that look that players get who have had one too many runner-runner beats laid on them.

He finally called, and lo and behold, his opponent (the Internet kid) had a smaller flush draw! Actually, he had an open-end straight draw to go with his flush draw with the 7 6. That's a damn fine hand that matches up well against any hand except the one it ran into.

So, here he was with one card to come and only eight outs, about a 4-to-1 underdog. I know that someone reading this is saying that two of the straight cards were no good, and he had only six outs, but look again. The two diamonds that were also his straight cards could make him a straight flush.

I didn't know it at the time, but my fate was also hanging in the balance here. You'll see why in my next column. The 4 fell on the river, and the poor guy was eliminated - kind of.

You see, he jumped up and ran away, and the dealer started to push his stack to the other player. I stopped the dealer, and told him that he had to count both stacks. He said, "No, this guy has more, and the other guy is gone, anyway." I explained that it didn't matter if he was gone or not, and that it was very close as to who had more chips. Sure enough, the guy who lost had 700 or 800 left, and got blinded off, as we couldn't find him. I'm sure that he was already at the bar pouring tequila down his throat and telling anyone who would listen about his bad beat.