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So You Wanna Be a Poker Star?

 

Each issue we follow the exploits of young Dan Gordon, as he embarks on his quest to find fame and fortune on the professional poker circuit. In this excerpt from his dairies, Dan continues to battle bad luck at the Five Diamond Classic and the World Poker Open.

 

Anyone who keeps track of the Tournament Circuit already knows that I did not win the Five Diamond $15,000 main event at Bellagio. For those of you who were not aware of this, I apologize for the shocking update. However, the bright side is I can tell about every single hand I played in perfect detail because…well…there were only two.

 

Sharing my starting table were Sammy Farha and Hasan Habib. It was the first time I’d had either of them at my table for a tournament, and I was excited to get to see how they play the early rounds. Early on Sammy managed to get a player, who had mentioned that he’d won in through a charity event, to call his all-in bet with pocket aces, with A-Q on an A-K-rag-rag board. While this was mildly humorous to watch, the best part was when the gentlemen with A-Q stood up and shouted, “Queen! Queen, dealer!” when he was already drawing dead. Seems he was expecting a six-card flop. The look on Farha’s face was comical; it seemed to me that he just couldn’t believe his good fortune to double up in the first 15 minutes against one measly pair.

 

I, however, did not play a hand for the first 40 minutes. First thing I look down at that is even semi-playable is a pair of sixes in the hole. I’m in middle position, and the guy on my right accidentally raises one unit to 200 with his pocket jacks (apparently he meant to throw out a black 100 and an orange 500, but grabbed 2 blacks). I call, hoping he has aces or kings, so that when I flop my set I can get mega action.
Typically, I won’t play little pairs from this position early on in tournaments, but when every hand I look at is a big card (K, Q, J) paired up with a little card (2, 3, 5), I am willing to take a chance. Plus, in this main event, the players all started with 30,000 in tournament chips (by far the most I have ever started with).

 

Anyway, it gets folded back around to the blinds, each of who call the little tax on the money they already have out, and we are off to see a flop. The flop that came out was absolute eye candy for me: 6 5 2 . Both blinds check, and the original raiser bets out 600. I want to see exactly how big his pair is so that I can determine the size of my turn and river bets and maximize profits; so I decide to make a little teaser raise. I come to the conclusion that 1,500 is small enough for any over pair to at least call, and is big enough to get most inside straight draws and low flush draws to fold, since I have no clue what the players in the blinds have. The small blind folds, and then big blind makes a curious play. Not only does he decide to call, but he also feels a giant 5,000 chip raise to 6,500 is the right play. After the rush of seeing a blue chip bet at me, just like the ones I have seen on each of the Bellagio final tables on TV, I go into the think-tank and try to decide what kind of
hand he would play this way.

 

My first thought is a straight, which I immediately rule out, believing he would have made a small raise, or just a smooth call on this raggedy flop. This gentleman’s aggressive when weak and passive when strong style leads me to figure that he either has a pair and a straight draw, two pair, an over pair, or my eventual best guess, a set of fives.

 

The original raiser folds, disgusted with himself for not raising more pre-flop, and I am left with the decision of what to do. If I just call, and a three or four comes on the turn, it’s going to kill any action I would get from an inferior set, and also make it really difficult for me to get my money in. If he has an over pair, then any card higher than a six that comes out puts me in a tough spot to call all my chips. If he has two pair, then he will want to get all his money in now in case an ace or a counterfeiting board pair comes on the turn. Finally, if it’s a pair and a straight draw he is going to be less likely to call a big bet on the turn, with only one more card to come. In any of these situations, I am happy to get my chips in here where I can’t be drawing dead. I make another reasonable sized raise of 9,000 more, which is huge based on blinds, but fair compared to pot size. He almost immediately pushes all in for about 12,000 more and I instantly call, which turned some heads at the table since I didn’t have the nuts and hadn’t played a pot in 40 minutes. Right now the pot size is approximately 55,000-57,000.

 

When he flips over his cards, I almost throw up on the table. He had no pair, no set, no straight, no straight draw, and no nut flush draw.

 

“A king high flush draw?!?” I exclaim to the gentleman on my right. For those of you with short memories, this was all taking place during the worst run of cards I had ever encountered, which at this point had lasted for five months and even to this day hasn’t completely passed. Needless to say, I immediately had that sinking feeling and I didn’t have to see the 8 on the turn to realize I wasn’t going to win this hand. Once he turned over the flush draw, I treated it like he already had the flush, and was just praying for a board pair, which never came. Down to 3,000 after one hand played.

 

If you notice the picture, you will see that I am sporting a massive 3,000 chip stack right next to the neighboring player’s cranberry juice. A few hands later I am stupid enough to get all in with top pair nut flush draw against the same guy, who called preflop from middle position with Q-2 and turned two pair against me. Better luck next time.

 

My next trip was to Tunica for the World Poker Open. It was fairly uneventful for me. I lost every time I sat at any table — even a free dinner cost me $20. On the bright side though, it was neat to finally be recognized. I had people coming up to me the entire four days I was there, asking if I was that kid from Bluff Magazine.

 

As far as success stories, the only things I have managed to win since last time, aside from some smaller cashes, were two $100 multi-table tournaments online. The money I took in from those two wins is certainly not enough to call my career a success story, but it should be enough to keep me afloat for at least two more issues. If it isn't, it will probably be tons of fun to read all about the bitter end to my poker career.

 

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