About 18 hours before I started and 21 hours before I finished my 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event, there was a knock at my door.
“Bellman,” a deep voice said.
I put down the pizza I would later regret eating, and looked through the peep hole. A bored face looked back at me in fabulous peephole-o-vision. It was, in fact, the bellman. He had a cart with him, and there were several identical large red bags on it.
I opened the door.
“Yes?”
“I have this for you, Mister Wheaton,” he said. In his hand, just outside the peephole’s field of view, was a large red bag he’d presumably separated from its brothers before he knocked.
“Thank you,” I said, as I took it from him. I reached into my pocket and slipped the bellhop a fin, mostly so I could later write, I reached into my pocket and slipped the bellhop a fin.
I let the door close behind me, and put the large red bag on my bed. On one side it said PokerStars.com. On the other, 2005 World Series of Poker. W. WHEATON was embroidered on the back in large black letters. Even though I had been an “official” member of Team PokerStars for weeks, when I saw my name on that bag, I felt it for the first time.
I carefully unzipped it, and pulled out all sorts of cool schwag: T-shirts, Custom shirts (designed just for me because I like the long sleeves!), polo shirts, baseball caps, even a CD wallet. I stood there, my stomach already beginning to rebel against the invading pizza, and smiled. This was very, very cool.
When I got home and unpacked, Anne had to endure a familiar post-trip ritual we call The Displaying of the Schwag. I held up golf shirts in three different colors, showed off my caps, my custom long sleeves, and my ultra-tight baseball jacket. (I checked with Ryan, and “ultra-tight” is the correct term.)
“Hey,” I said, “you want me to wear this like the Mister Plow jacket?”
“Uhh . . . no.” She said.
I put on my best Homer-Simpson-as-Barry-White voice: “I’m Mister Plow, that’s my name . . .”
She put on her best Stewie Griffin voice: “Yes, yes, Mister Plow. Everybody knows that song. You’re sooo clever.”
“Woah,” I said. “Nice Stewie.”
I casually put the jacket on a hanger, and moved it to my closet. “I’ll see you again, Mr. Jacket,” I hoped thought.
I continued my display, and eventually got to the CD wallet.
“Hey, that’s cool,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I hardly ever use CDs anymore. Do you think one of the kids would like it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Ask them.”
I turned to holler down the hall, and felt something heavy shift around inside.
“Hey,” I said, “there’s something heavy in here.”
“Maybe it’s a dead body,” she said.
“Or a greased-up deaf guy,” I said, as I unzipped it, and watched a shiny piece of silver tumble out, bounce off the corner of my bed, and land on the floor near my feet.
“What the hell —” I said, as crouched down.
It gleamed in the soft bedroom light, and I knew exactly what it was: a solid silver card protector.
“Holy shit!” I yelled. “Anne! I got a PokerStars card protector!”
I picked it up. I was very heavy for its size, and so beautifully, wonderfully, shiny. It was encased in thick plastic, and said PokerStars.com on one side. I flipped it over with my fingers, and saw that it said 2005 WSOP on the other.
“That is very cool,” she said.
“I know!” I said. I felt like it was 1983, and I’d just opened a birthday gift that revealed an unexpected Optimus Prime.
“I want to go use it in a sit and go right now to celebrate!” I said.
“Wait.” She said. “How, exactly, are you going to use that in online play?”
“Well . . . uh . . .” I said, “I’m gonna . . . um . . . I could . . because it’s cool?”
She smiled and shook her head. “You are such a nerd.”
It could mean I love you, the way she says it.
“Well,” I said, “maybe I could just play tomorrow, and come to bed early instead . . . ” I eyed the Mister PlowPokerStars jacket, its bright red satin clearly visible through the half-open closet door.
“I’m exhausted,” she said. “Go play, and just be quiet when you get into bed.” She picked up her eye mask and ear plugs — we call it her sleep cocoon — and blew me a kiss.
I pointed to the small pile of clothes on my corner of the bed. “What about all this stuff? I need to finish putting all this stuff away.”
She shoved her feet underneath it, and launched it onto the floor.
“What stuff?” she said.
I laughed. “I love you.”
“I love you too. I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Good luck.”
I walked over and kissed her goodnight, shut off her light, and headed down the hallway to my office. I set my card protector on my desk, next to my mouse, and logged on.
Three minutes later, I was in a 10 +1 SNG. I drew the button, which is great, because it gives me a chance to get some information on my opponents before I have to put money into the pot.
It’s also great when I get a AdTs on the first hand.
shawnster77, under the gun, opened for a raise, and made it 60 to go. nickyt folded, champ14 called, then it was folded to me. In online play, there are lots of players who will take a big risk on the first hand, and go to another game if they get busted or crippled. It seems like such a -EV move, but I see it all the time. Though I am usually a tight player (especially in SNGs, where it’s easy to fold your way through half the field) I’ll loosen up a bit if I see one of these moves, so when I saw that I had the ATo, I raised it to 100. LibrarianAA, in the Small Blind, called. The Big Blind folded, and everyone else called.
The flop was Tc-Th-As.
“Did I just flop the stone-cold, mortal, I-can’t-lose-this-hand-nuts?” I thought. While I double-checked to be sure, the Small Blind checked, and the original raiser bet 200.
“Unless one of these guys has aces . . . yeah, I’m pretty sure I did.” I considered talking to the poker gods . . . then wisely clammed up. I looked down at my cool new card protector instead.
“Because it’s so cool!” I said to the empty room.
It was folded around to me, so I called. The Big Blind also called.
The turn was the 5s. Now I hoped someone had picked up a flush draw.
The Big Blind checked, and the original raiser bet 260. I called, the Big Blind called. There was now 1900 in the pot — 400 more than my starting stack, and I’d only seen five total cards
The Kh came off, so the board was [Th Tc As 5s Kh]. It was checked to me, and I was left with the poker player’s dream dilemma: “How do I get the most money from these guys?” They each had just over 900 left. Could I push and get a call from one of them? Maybe . . . “but if I bet a smaller amount that gives them odds to call, maybe I can win another bet from both of them, or even induce a push from a set.”
I thought for a moment, and bet 500, giving them just over 3:1. The Big Blind quickly called, and the original raiser just as quickly folded.
I showed my AT, and raked 2900, 100 short of a first-hand double up.
“Nice”
(I later found out, when reviewing the hand history, that the Big Blind was playing Ah-9d. Wow.)
My victory prompted the following exchange
shawnster77 said, “nh”
Wil Wheaton said, “ty”
drscorp said, “space nerd wil wheaton just owned you”
If I’d been drinking Corona, it would have been my very first Men the Master spit-take moment, but it wasn’t my favorite exchange of the game, which is awarded thusly:
dweezil220 [observer] said, “anyway. how do you go from a 10K buyin WSOP to a $10 buyin SNG at pokerstars?”
dweezil220 [observer] said, “hehe”
Wil Wheaton said, “about 225 miles on the 15 south”
I used my chip advantage to play a more aggressive game than usual. It cost me dearly when I picked up 6-9c in the SB (a hand I will almost always throw away — but with several limpers, I was getting huge odds so it was almost a mandatory call) and saw the all-club flop for cheap. I stupidly bet it all the way, and lost about 1200 to the BB, who held K4c. What is it with me and the goddamn K4? Well, at least this time it was sooooooted.
At one point, I got crushed down to something horrible like 220 in chips, but I eventually battled my way back, and got heads-up against nickyt. We went back and forth, but whenever one of us would take a significant chip lead, the other would suckout and get right back in it. It was sick.
After a long (by SNG standards) heads-up battle, we found ourselves just about even in chips:
Seat 1: Wil Wheaton (6072 in chips)
Seat 5: nicky t (7428 in chips)
The blinds were 300 and 600, with 50 antes. In the Big Blind, I had Ad4h, and he raised it to 2400 — I was really pushing him around, and five or six hands earlier, while having entirely too much fun, I’d stupidly shown The Hammer . . . suddenly he didn’t fear my raises so much . . . so I popped him back for another 3600. He pushed, I called.
I turn up my A4o, and he shows . . . 9c-Tc. The way this tournament has gone, I know I’m dead. I typed, “Here come the clubs,” as the flop came down [Jc 2h 8c].
Well, I was still ahead . . . but just barely. (in comments, tshak pointed out that I was actually a 2.5:1 dog. That is how I got to the 10 +1 from the WSOP, dweezil220 ;), When the turn was another 8, I stupidly thought I was ahead (actually a coin-flip, barely) and I wondered if he’d catch one of his six 23 (?) remaining outs (Math is hard. This is why I don’t dare post at 2+2) . . . and had my answer when the Th spiked on the river, giving him two pair against my pair of eights. Serves me right for getting in there with a loose call, I guess.
MaybeIt’s probably just variance, but I took second place, and won $27.00 for my efforts. More importantly, though, I had a lot of fun (the chat transcript is hilarious) and I shook off some of the doubts that had built up during the WSOP. I found that, by playing with much more (intelligent and selective) aggression, and using my chip advantage (when I had it) I was happy with all my decisions but one. Next time I see Greg Raymer, I’m going to thank him for his advice.
This entry is much longer than I intended when I started it, and I’m out of gas. My Vegas story will be continued tomorrow . . .
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Nice card protector.
I like my new $0.89 one better, though: link 🙂
I really need to get myself a cc so i can play in the real money SNG’s instead of play money. Great entry Wil and kick ass on the card guard. I’ve been looking for one myself ever since I watched the WSOP2004 yesterday and saw Greg’s fossil he uses. Nice scoring the swag too mate.
Cheers Space Nerd. \m/
I like reading these mini stories, even if I don’t understand some of the poker stuff, although I have to admit I’m learning faster than I thought. It was great. Some parts made me laugh aloud, and then I’d have to read it to my roommate. Thanks Wil.
HAhahahahaha!!! Using Stewie versus Mr Plow in sexual banter. You guys are so cute.
If villian had Tc9c and you held A4o (no Ac) you were actually a 2.5:1 dog on the flop. The turn helped quite a bit and you were a coin flop with a slight edge. He had 21 outs to improve, 15 of which left you drawing dead (9 clubs, 3 Q’s, 3 7’s, 3 T’s, 3 9’s.
On another note, please let us know if you’re going to host any sort of “geek tourney” on PokerStars. I don’t have an account there but it seems like a stand up company with really cool promoters :-).
That is SO COOL!
In the unveiling of the schwag sequence, I picture it played as a young Westly Crusher.
My apologies, but using a card protector is akin to using a pocket protector. Kudos, a true geek!
Hey Wil, what proportion of your wardrobe would you consider schwag?
And he scores the schwag! Right on… at least you got some lovely parting gifts from your trip to Vegas.
Thanks for sharing your experience with that. I’m actually inspired to rejoin PokerStars in the hopes of someday knowing what the hell I’m doing at a poker table, just so I get the chance to face off with you for the fun of it.
I was in that $10 SNG, and it was a blast. That was a really wild table, there must have been like 10 crazy suckouts in a row on all-ins. I thought you played really well, so don’t fret about the WSOP for long. You have the game to play at a high level, and the results will be there eventually. I hope I get to play with you again on Stars, I had an awesome time.
(Eegah from PS)
That’s fucking weird. My wife sleeps in a mask and earplugs too. We thought she was the only one.
Oh, and that card protector does sound pretty damn cool.
Wil, you’re tempting me to sign up for PokerStars…especially since you’ve said the client runs on Debian sarge (my OS/distro of choice) under Wine. But putting real money in would probably be unwise in my current state of affairs. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to stick to World Championship Poker on Xbox Live, and get Stacked with Daniel Negreanu when it comes out this fall.
“She smiled and shook her head. “You are such a nerd.”
It could mean I love you, the way she says it.”
My fiance does the same thing. Only it’s usually, “You’re such a geek.” 😀
It’s great to be a loved and accepted geek.
Snort! Too funny. Well, at least all that stuff about the displaying o’ the schwag. The poker lingo, well…I’m just not that hip, sad to say.
As far as the schwag though – it’s like reading about my hubby and me after he gets back from a business trip. He’s in the wine business, so all the wineries give him wine, shirts, wine openers, baseball caps, etc. every trip. Sometimes he gets something different like cookware or knives, and that’s the best schwag. The scary thing is, we also joke about “Mister Plow” jackets and Stewie, so…stop imitating us, will ya?!?
Little trick to help calculate odds post-flop: count your outs, double them, then multiply by the number of cards still to come. The result is an approximation of the percentage chance you’ll hit one of them, usually close enough for betting purposes.
Long time reader, first time poster. Love the blog!
I was watching WSOP on TV and one of the announcers was actually playing. He went all-in on a hand with no chance and lost. It’s one of those things that even happens to people that know the game. Like when the guys at the Home Run Derby struck out.
I was watching WSOP on TV and one of the announcers was actually playing. He went all-in on a hand with no chance and lost. It’s one of those things that even happens to people that know the game. Like when the guys at the Home Run Derby strike out.
1) I see Wil corrected the “I was still ahead” part, but not the “six remaining outs” part. What’s up with that?
b) Some people think that pokerstars stacks the deck. (Or rather, every online poker room has people that think it stacks the deck, but pokerstars seems to have more of them.) It has been suggested that playing like an idiot for a while after one’s intial pokerstars deposit will yield dividends as you suck out more often than you should. I haven’t seen an actual statistical analysis, though. Comments?
iii) Are poker clients that run on debian or other unix-based operating systems rare? Hollywoodpoker (which is the only online poker room i have tried, so I can neither recommend nor remonstrate it) has a decent java client that runs on almost anything. How does the pokerstars client do on osx?
“It has been suggested that playing like an idiot for a while after one’s intial pokerstars deposit will yield dividends as you suck out more often than you should. I haven’t seen an actual statistical analysis, though. Comments?”
That suggestion is – to use a technical term – hooey. Lots of people have collectively logged millions of hands on PokerStars (and every other reasonably popular site), and lots of people comb through those logs looking for all sorts of stats. Nobody’s found anything wacky in terms of card probabilities, when any anomalies should be fairly easy to detect.
Well 9c Tc with [Jc 2h 8c 8x] on the board almost has 23 outs:
9 any club for flush
4 any Q for straight
4 any 7 for straight
3 any other T for tens over
3 any other 9 for nines over
—————————–
23 total
Thing is, that counts Qc and 7c twice each, so there’s actually only 21 outs.
You can pull a Teen Talk Barbie and say “math is hard,” but you seem to do ok with pot odds and the like.
Had you been the one holding the open-ended straight-flush draw, I bet you would have known you had way more than six outs. In this tourney you didn’t see your opponent’s hole cards until after all your checks were in the pot, so who cares if you misunderestimated his odds after that.
Tomorrow?! Noooooooo… I was looking forward to that finale. Guess I’ll have to keep looking forward. 🙂
It was a beauty nonetheless, Wil – thanks.
For those of you thinking about getting on Pokerstars, there will be a charity tournament on Sunday in honor of a poker blogger who recently took a horrible suck-out bad beat in the tournament of life, Charlie. You can read his story, and more about the tournament, on Iggy (http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com) and/or Pauly’s (http://taopoker.blogspot.com) blogs.
There’s a rumour there may be “celebrities” playing…
“That suggestion is – to use a technical term – hooey. Lots of people have collectively logged millions of hands on PokerStars (and every other reasonably popular site), and lots of people comb through those logs looking for all sorts of stats. Nobody’s found anything wacky in terms of card probabilities, when any anomalies should be fairly easy to detect.”
I agree. I play on pokerstars almost every day and have played on just about every other poker site there is. Pokerstars is by far my favorite. No complaints at all.
BTW, my sn at Pokerstars is Jesse Draven, hope to see some of you at the tables. I’d love to play a few hands with some other wwdn geeks.
lol! I thought my husband and I were the only ones who quote The Simpsons. I still get the Mr Plow song in my head. The sad part is I know all the words! And who doesn’t love Stewie? My husband loves the scene where she puts him in the snuggly. Anyway, cool card protector!
Chaz wrote:
My fiance does the same thing. Only it’s usually, “You’re such a geek.” 😀
It’s great to be a loved and accepted geek.
My sister says the same, but I reply, ‘The Geek shall inherit the Earth’ or ‘Blessed are the Geek’, (sure I read those here).
Nice card protector Wil. I would sooooo love to play for real dough, too much of a scaredy-cat though. Untouchable playing for tokens on pogo.com however. lol
Chaz wrote:
My fiance does the same thing. Only it’s usually, “You’re such a geek.” 😀
It’s great to be a loved and accepted geek.
My sister says the same, but I reply, ‘The Geek shall inherit the Earth’ or ‘Blessed are the Geek’, (sure I read those here).
Nice card protector Wil. I would sooooo love to play for real dough, too much of a scaredy-cat though. Untouchable playing for tokens on pogo.com however. lol
that card protector is totally sweet.
(Math is hard. This is why I don’t dare post at 2+2)
just ask math questions there, instead!
more seriously, post hand histories (but use the converter so it’s readable) and get feedback. it’s a heck of a learning tool.
“She smiled and shook her head. “You are such a nerd.”
It could mean I love you, the way she says it.”
Wil, I speak from experience.
That’s exactly what it means.
“mostly so I could later write, I reached into my pocket and slipped the bellhop a fin” OMG, did that ever crack me up….. I was still laughing long after reading the entire entry. lol (Of course the Mister Plow reference didn’t help…. lol) :-p You’re the bomb, Wil!!!
Oops. Not sure why it posted my comment twice… Must have accidentally pressed “post” twice. Must be that darn nervous twitch (kidding)
Wil – Just wanted to say I have been reading your Poker exploits with great interest. Your passion for the game is only rivalled by your writing about it.
Win or lose… have fun!
Don’t beat yourself up about that call with A4o. You were a favorite when the money went into the pot. Sometimes, that’s all you can ask.
Pre-flop odds
Post flop odds (he’s 70%)
Post turn odds (you’re 52%)
This is a great site to check the odds.
Yo, Uncle Willy, I’m going to nerd out for just a moment and ask a question regarding minutae in this post. Where does Anne get her eye mask and earplugs? Are they amazingly effective? My wife and I run different sleep cycles it seems and I’d like to turn the world off every so often. Thanks!
I’m guessing you’ll dig this.
Steven Levitt, he of Freakonomics fame, is starting a study on poker – specifically what separates a good poker player from a bad.
http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/07/freakonomics-of-poker.html
He’s asking for players who’ve tracked their hand histories via Poker Tracker to submit them to http://www.pokernomics.com/
Poker + Science = Awesometastic. Figured this might be right up your alley.
Wil-
A suggestion to consider and discuss:
You speak fondly of your wife and home, which is nice – some would choose not to share that but you’re kind enough to do so.
Reading your WSOP entries led me to wonder what her thoughts were at the time. So:
What’s your thoughts on having your LSW (long suffering wife) make a semi-regular posting – maybe when you’re out for a while, or a once a week “anne’s Perspective” kind of thing?
Imagine! “Sure, guys, Wil says ‘I got a cool Mr Plow jacket’ (you sob, now that song is in my heaad for a week) and all I got was less closet space!” Or “That silver WSP card holder is mine mine ALL MINE (/daffy) because it makes a damn fine ATM sleeve for my purse.”
Whatcha think?
-rkr