Survival

There's a saying around here at the World Series of Poker Main Event: You can't win the bracelet on Day 1, but you can definitely lose it.

I didn't win the bracelet yesterday, and I didn't lose it. I just made it through Day 1A by surviving with 26,325 chips (we started with 20,000).

My stack never really got all that high (I may have been over 30,000 one time for a brief moment), and it never really got all that low (I may have been down to 17,000 early in the day).

After the first hour, in which there was no question I was nervous and not playing my game, I settled in and played the game I played to get here.

But, it didn't come without a massive test...and one that could've ended my tournament about 150 minutes into it.

The Hand

At one point yesterday, I was telling "insideSTL.com's Poker Reporters" Producer Joe and Big Grease that I really hadn't had that monster, thrilling showdown hand yet. It had just been a lot of grinding.

And, then I realized that I had forgotten a hand that, quite honestly, I will most likely remember the rest of my life. You can't say that about many poker hands...especially ones you just folded and didn't even lose all that many chips.

Here's the situation: In middle position, the player two seats to my right raised the 50-100 blinds to 200. Automatically, I'm suspicious.

Two reasons: 1. I'm prone to suspicion of so-called mini-raises (ie, just betting 2x the big blind), and 2. This guy was loose. Not insanely loose, but loose enough that I had noticed it within the first hour of play.

The gentleman to my right folds. I look down at my cards to see pocket Aces. I have the Ace of clubs and the Ace of spades.

At the cut-off position (one to the right of the button), I reraise it to 750.

Everyone left folds...except the mini-raiser. He calls me.

At this point, both me and my opponent have about 20,000 in chips. He probably had a few more than I did.

The flop comes off 6(hearts), 6(diamonds), and 4(hearts).

He checks to me. I bet 1,500, which was just about the size of the pot.

I expected him to fold.

Instead, he comes over the top of me with a reraise of 7,000 chips.

Holy fucking shit.

A few things here to discuss:

1. He just bet 7,000 into a pot of about 3,200. That's a hell of an overbet.

2. If I call, I could lose at least a third of my stack...just a couple hours in. And, if I go all-in, I could be knocked out a couple hours in...or, I could double up to 40,000 chips.

3. My mind is going through all the possibilities. Does he have a 6? If so, what the hell did he call pre-flop with? Does he have pocket 6's? If so, why bet so much on the flop? Why not just call and suck some more chips out of me with the nuts?

Does he have pocket 4's? That seems possible. He may have wanted to see a flop with a low pocket pair, and my 750 preflop reraise wasn't enough to chase him off...and then he flopped a full house. But, if he had a full house, why bet so much on the flop and possibly chase me off?

And, then there's the good possibility that he had pocket Kings, pocket Queens, or pocket Jacks, and he was betting his overpair like a motherfucker...because he's kind of a nitwit.

Finally, I thought about the possibility of him with Ace of hearts and King of hearts, and trying to bet me out with the flush draw and the overpair on a board featuring a pair of 6's and a 4...with 2 hearts out there.

But, the thing that kept running through my mind over and over again while I sat there in the tank for a couple of minutes deciding what the hell to do was Chris Moneymaker and Dan Nassif telling me within the last couple of days, "If you have pocket Kings and somebody is firing at the pot with a big raise or reraise, lay it down on Day 1A. You've got too many chips, and the blinds are too small to get beat on one big hand. And, at this point in the tournament, odds are if somebody is betting big, they've got you beat."

That ran through my head dozens of times.

It came down to this: Go all-in over the top of him...and risk getting knocked out...or, laying down pocket Aces to a board of 6h6d4h.

And, after thinking and thinking and thinking, I laid it down.

For the next couple of hours, we sat at the same table, and I wondered if I had made one of the most costly errors in my relatively brief poker career. I also figured I would never get the answer.

However, as will happen throughout any tournament, much less one with 1,299 playing in one day like we had at the WSOP Main Event yesterday in Day 1A, tables will get broken up as people get eliminated at other tables, and players are sent to fill those seats.

When that happened to our table, I approached the gentleman that came over the top of me with a 7,000 chip reraise and asked him what he had when he made that play.

His answer?

"I flopped the full house. I had pocket 4's."

Wow.

Now, you may say he has no incentive whatsoever to "admit" that he only had Kings or Queens...or even Ace4, but he kept talking to me to explain his reasoning so much so that one of the floor directors told us to hurry up and get to our new tables.

What was his reasoning for the immense reraise?

"If a 6 comes off on the turn or the river, my 4's full of 6's are no longer any good, and you'd have 6's full of whatever you had (as he had put me on a large pocket pair). So, I bet big to get you off your hand."

I have to say that the way in which he explained his thought process on the reraise (keep in mind that it was a check raise) makes me believe he did indeed have the full house.

I wouldn't have played it the way he did considering I only had (at the most) 4 outs to beat him (two 6's and two A's), but he played it in an incredibly aggressive way to make sure he got the pot...and possibly more should I call...and I laid it down, which, once I talked to him about the hand, gave me an insane amount of confidence for the rest of the day.

I carried that hand---that losing hand---with me the rest of the day in a good way, and I really believe it's what allowed me to survive Day 1A.

Talking It Over With Ray Romano

Ray Romano was one of a number of celebrities participating in the WSOP Main Event yesterday at the Rio.

He was walking out of the VIP room during the final break last night, and me, being a creep, asked him to take a picture for insideSTL.com.

He obliged, and then we walked back to our respective tables talking it over. He had what he called an "average" stack of 40,000 chips. I would dispute that that stack was "average" at that time...as it may not even be "average" going into Day 2. It's a pretty good-size stack.

Ray had just sat down at a table when perhaps one of the most insane hands of the day took place.

A gentleman lost an all-in pot with 4 Ace's...to a Royal Flush.

Can you imagine that?

You may get quad Ace's a handful of times in your life---depending on how often you play poker---and I'm quite certain that quad Ace's will have a 99.9% winning percentage. But, right when Ray Romano sat down at his table, a gentleman got knocked out with quad Ace's to a Royal Flush.

I asked Ray how the guy that lost took it, and he said he just kind of laughed in disbelief with a tinge of anger...and got up and left.

Final Thoughts

It's 3:30 a.m. in Las Vegas, and I just got done playing 12 hours of poker. I'm fucking exhausted, but there's been so much interest and support from people regarding my trip out here for the WSOP Main Event that I wanted to give as thorough an update as possible.

I want to say once again how cool it is to get so many emails and read so many comments from people who are supporting me in this thing. Many people are taking it at as a St. Louis pride thing, and that's cool with me. I would love to do the city proud by making a run deep in this thing.

I honestly kind of have two schools of thought on where things will be for me mentally going into Day 2A Tuesday:

1. I don't have a huge amount of chips, and my stack is probably about 10 to 15,000 less than the average. However, I have 50 big blinds in my 26,325 chip stack when things kick up again Tuesday at 250/500 (with 50 antes). That leaves some room to play. And, keep in mind, the blinds remain the same for 120 minutes. Having said all of that, I will have some work to do to get in position to a) survive Tuesday and b) be able to make a run Thursday...which would be the next day I would play...and the day players get "in the money" at some point in that session. I will not have the luxury of being as selective on what to play Tuesday, but...

2. I feel like just getting through Day 1 was a victory. I didn't come out here to "just get through Day 1," but I played with some damn good players at my second table. The gentleman to my left won a bracelet last year in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha Re-buy, and 3 seats down from him was Full Tilt Poker Pro Joey Beevers, who had a monster stack...meaning I had to be well aware of his presence both before and after the flop. He was just shredding people.

But, the point is...I survived, and for whatever reason, it feels like a victory, even though "surviving" Day 1A wasn't a goal originally.

The reason I keep bringing this up is that now I feel like I can loosen up a little bit and just go balls to the wall. I'm not in a giant chip stack position, and I'm not in a shortstack position either. But, mentally, I feel like I accomplished something already, and if I want to get into the money, I'm going to have to make some aggressive moves and go for broke. It may work out. It may not. But, the goal is to go deep in this tournament and take home a nice-sized check...and I'm going to have to get after it Tuesday in order to get back on that track.

Nonetheless, the name of the game today was survival...and I did that. It was a battle, and it was exhausting, but it's now over. I was able to play the game that got me here, and now I need to play that same psychotic game that took me from 13th out of 13 in the PokerStars WSOP Qualifier a couple of weeks ago to winning one of the four WSOP prize packs. I had a nothing to lose mentality once I got in the money...and in doing so, I was able to make a huge move and win a huge prize.

That same approach will be the gameplan for Tuesday.

I don't think I'll have the luxury...or even the opportunity...to lay down pocket Ace's again.

But, I'll always remember that hand as being the hand that could've ended my day...and instead extended my WSOP by dodging a huge bullet...and providing me with confidence to play with some of the best players in the world.

Log-in and post your comments below, or please feel free to email me at tmckernan@insidestl.com.