Busto the Main

Having played the World Series of Poker main event nine times in the last nine years, I’m starting to think “Busto the Main” would make a good title for a biopic, or at least a band name. Am I crazy? Probably. But consider this: the WSOP main is the only tournament I’m always guaranteed to play, it constitutes my biggest buy-in, and it is by far, my biggest annual investment in terms of hours. Some years I spend almost a week longer in the Main than in any other event. Additionally, the Main is the recurring tournament that I’m least likely to win (because it has the biggest field). Put it all together, and you can see why it sometimes feels as though the story of my poker career is busting over and over from the WSOP main event. But busting comes with the tournament territory, and retelling my main event narrative in these pages has become something of a tradition (and something of a catharsis). So here it is.

The 2012 version of the Main didn’t start out very promising – I bluffed off 3,000 on the very first hand. I picked up a big draw on the turn, missed, and then fired again on the river. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I then caught a few bad river cards and was down to about 24,000 from my 30,000 starting stack when the following hand went down.

A straightforward-seeming early position player opened the pot for 300 (this was the first level, so still 50-100 blinds). Two seats to his left, I three-bet to 750 with 9-8s. It folded around to the opener, who called. The flop came down K-7-3 rainbow. My opponent checked, I bet 800, and my opponent called. It seemed very likely he had a king, or possibly a medium pocket pair, and that I’d probably be done with the hand. The turn brought a ten, obviously a good card for my hand as it gave me a well disguised open-ended straight draw. Additionally, the ten was a bad card for my opponent if he had K-Q, K-J, two queens, or two jacks, as he was now losing to two tens in addition to A-K, pocket aces, and pocket kings (other likely hands for my range).

My opponent checked and I fired the second barrel, betting 1,600. He called again. I still had him on basically the same range as on the flop, except that now he seemed likely to call down with it, and now I had just bluffed off another few thousand in level one.

This negative thinking changed entirely when the river brought an offsuit jack. No way did I think my opponent would’ve check-called twice wth A-Q, so I figured I had the nuts. How much to bet into the 6,450 chip pot after my opponent checked for the third time? If my analysis was correct, there was a decent chance my opponent had a pretty big hand himself at this point – namely king-jack or pocket jacks – so I gave some consideration to making a very big bet. There was, of course, some chance he had K-Q or pocket queens and that a big bet would cause him to fold. In the end, I thought he either had a big hand and would call a big bet, or he had a medium hand and might still call a big bet anyway. The reward of a big payoff seemed worth the risk of getting no value for my hand. I bet 7,500 chips. My opponent called immediately, which leads me to believe that he did indeed have K-J and I’d just hit the world’s most perfect river card. He probably would’ve called twelve thousand! After that pot, and after getting two streets of value with pocket queens on the last hand before break, I somehow escaped the level with 38,000 chips.

As good as it felt to survive those early pitfalls, things immediately turned sour again in level two. I caught a few more bad river cards, missed another huge draw, and once more found myself back below my starting stack. I then made a questionable play where, after a limp and a small raise, I called on the button with J-10 offsuit. I thought the raiser would put in too much money with bad hands after the flop (he was clearly the weakest player at the table), and I was getting a decent price. The plan seemed to be going fine when he bet the jack-high flop and I called. But when he fired a small bet on the turn after a king hit, I started to lose heart. It was too small a bet for me to fold second pair, but I was no longer sure where I stood. The river brought a queen and my opponent made another small bet. I found this strange, as the queen was a fairly scary card for a lot of the hands my opponent might’ve been betting for value on the turn (I could’ve had Q-J or K-Q just as easily as I had J-10). Because I was confused, and because my opponent was the player at the table most likely to have a weaker hand than expected, I called. He had A-K and I was down to 14,000.

On the very next hand, the same opponent raised to 600 (we were at 100-200 blinds) in early position. I three-bet to 1,500 with A-K (now the shoe was on the other foot!). It folded back to him and he four-bet to 3,600. I moved all-in and he called like a shot with A-Q offsuit, proving that he would indeed overplay his hands. (Not that I needed proof – I’d already seen him get in 100 blinds preflop with two eights.) The flop came queen-high, I failed to improve, and that was the end of my brief main event in 2012.

I cannot complain. As detailed in earlier issues, I had a fantastic summer at the WSOP, and taking a bad beat on Day One of the Main does nothing to change that. Even lasting only two levels this year, I’ll say what I always say – the main event is a unique poker experience that every player should have at least once in his career. If you’ve never played the Main, do whatever you can to make it happen. Maybe you’ll even be the one lucky man or woman who doesn’t go busto. ♠

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player. He is also a featured coach for cardrunners.com. He can be reached at [email protected].