My 2014 Main Event

After skipping the entire run of preliminary events at the 2014 World Series of Poker, I decided to come out of semi-retirement to take on just one tournament — the $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event. But having not played competitive poker in five-and-a-half months, I was afraid I might not be sharp. To combat any potential rustiness, I decided to do something I’d never done before — log every hand I played where I voluntarily put money in the pot. The idea was to force myself to focus on the details, and to bring my brain back up to poker speed as fast as possible.
Here are some stats from the experience:

- I played approximately 12.5 levels, busting with an hour to go in level 13 (1,200-2,400 blinds with a 400 ante).
- In those 12.5 levels, I voluntarily put money in the pot with 141 hands — an average of 11.3 per level, or 5.6 per hour. Not very many!
- 80 times I raised after no one had opened in front of me.
- 41 times I called after someone had opened in front of me.
- 18 times I reraised (three-bet) after someone had opened in front of me.
- Twice my first action was a limp (and on both occasions I was the small blind (SB)).

From the above data I see at least one clear strategy implication: you don’t have to be a wild gambler to accumulate chips. I played fewer than six hands per hour, and I still ended days one and two with above-average stacks, and still had an average stack at the time of my bustout on day three.

After seeing how few hands I played, I decided to dig further into my notes to see exactly what was working and what wasn’t.

First, I noticed a time-tested poker truth: aggression matters. I won 12 of the 18 pots that I entered with a three-bet, and I won 49.5 of the 80 pots (29 without even seeing a flop) where I was the first raiser. But I lost a whopping 26 of the 41 pots I entered by flat-calling! Even removing my small and big blind (BB) hands didn’t help, as I won only four out of 14 pots when flatting in position. There are a couple of caveats here, though. Obviously the sample size is small, and obviously you can never win uncontested preflop when flatting. Also, hands where I flat-called were more likely to be multiway, and therefore harder to win. Finally, my range of hands will simply be weaker when I flat than when I take a more aggressive action. Having said all that, it’s clear that holding the preflop initiative is valuable — maybe more so than I’d previously thought. Perhaps I would’ve been better served to fold a few of these more borderline flatting hands, rather than allow my opponents to win the pot on a later street.

OK, enough with the data. The real fun of having a record of all these hands is that I can analyze any of them after the fact knowing I have all the details correct. Here’s one situation I found especially interesting.

It was the last level of day two — 600-1,200 with a 200 ante — and I had two talented players on my immediate left. I opened for 3,000 from the cutoff with A-Q offsuit, only to see the button three-bet behind me to 9,600. A three-bet in position of more than triple my original number was downright enormous for the table (and for modern tournament play in general), and I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it. My stack size was 117,000 and the button had me well covered, so upon seeing my opponent’s chips go in, my plan was to flat the three-bet and reevaluate after the flop. I quickly had to make a new plan. After pondering for a few seconds, the SB moved in for 46,400 total. This was a player who had shown throughout the day that he knew what he was doing — patiently waiting for the right spots to move his chips, and gradually building from a short stack toward an average one.

The BB folded and the action was back on me. I liked my A-Q against the SB. He knew that the button was an aggressive player, and so he was probably willing to jam in his 39 blinds in this spot with a reasonably wide range of hands. The problem was, I had no way to call the SB by himself. To play, not only would I have to risk the additional 43,400 against the SB, but I’d have to bet my entire stack (an additional 114,000) that the button didn’t also have a hand, as there would’ve been no way to fold after committing 40 percent of my stack to a hand as big as A-Q. I had to decide then and there whether to gamble.

While I still agreed with my initial assessment of the SB’s range, I also realized that it was pretty much impossible for him to have a complete airball. He would’ve known that because he was somewhat short, and because the button had three-bet big, the button would be getting 1.7-to-1 on his money to call his all-in. The SB couldn’t have been relying on fold equity alone. So reluctantly I folded, and then I watched in frustration as the button immediately followed with a fold of his own. Credit the small blind with an excellent play — he was, in effect, able to use my larger stack size against me, knowing that I had more to lose in the hand than he did. If I’d started the hand with 46,000 myself, I certainly would’ve gotten my chips in. (The SB later claimed he had a big hand after all. Believe him if you want.)

I missed out on the opportunity to play that particular A-Q, but in a strange coincidence I ended up busting with another A-Q a day later. Maybe this year I was just destined to get in trouble with that hand one way or the other. ‘Til next year then! The main event always brings me back to the game, no matter how long I’ve been away. ♠

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, and a three-time WSOP bracelet winner. He is also a featured coach for cardrunners.com.