2010 WSOP

I predicted I was going to have a big World Series this year, and I came through for myself. I had the best World Series of my life. I had six cashes in only 16 events, and one final table. I cashed for over $75,000 total, which, in a year when so many players went 0-fer, I am incredibly grateful for. Of course, I would like to bring home my first bracelet, but the second best thing is having a winning series.

I did want to take a second to talk about a mistake I made, and is commonly made by a lot of players. Sometimes you’ll be deep in a tournament, and with decent chips, and the following situation occurs: someone min. raises your big blind.

In this particular case, it was in a $1500 event at this year’s WSOP, and we were down to the last 35 players. I had 900k in chips, when blinds were at 10k/20k. I had 8c-2c – a hand I would never play. But because this guy was min. raising, and I had plenty of chips, I decided I should see a flop.

Well, the flop came 10-8-2 and we managed to get it all in on the flop. He had A-10, and he binked an Ace on the turn. I had 900k in chips before starting that hand, and I lost 600k. That hand kept me from making my second final table at the WSOP this year.

Just because you have pot odds, it’s not always right to call a raise out of position with a stupid hand. You can’t let the odds get into your head all the time. With the blinds and antes, I thought I had the right odds. Even though I was ahead on the flop, I knew I was way behind pre-flop. I got myself into a situation where I was playing for the majority of my stack with only 35 players to go. Even though I got my money in good, I regret playing that hand, and definitely consider it to be a mistake on my part.

My charity, Guyana Watch, ended up a winner this year as well. After the world series, Dan Goldman, of the Poker Player’s alliance, myself, and several others all set course for Guyana almost immediately after this year’s WSOP. We saw 3,456 patients over the course of eight days, and through the efforts of Guyana Watch, we were able set up 15-20 heart surgeries that will later be performed at the Westchester Medical Center in New York.

As always, for more information about Guyana Watch, please go to my website http://www.guyanawatch.org/ – we can always use the help.

Up next for me: WCOOP. In addition to my World Series prediction, I also predicted that I would have the best online year of my life. I would say that I’ve already exceeded these expectations this year, but you can’t talk about a year in online poker without talking about the World Championship of Online Poker.

Every year with the WCOOP, PokerStars puts on the biggest online event of the year. Last year it broke all kinds of records for prize pools, payouts, and entries. I’m sure it’ll do the same this year. I’ll be playing as many of these events as I can, and just because I like a good deal – I’ll probably try to satellite my way in as practice. You can win your way into just about any event for just a couple of bucks. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Until next time, look for me on PokerStars getting ready for the WCOOP. See you there!