two men enter, one man leaves

Every Sunday, 1983 World Series of Poker champion and respected author Tom McEvoy plays a heads up poker match with the weekly tournament leader at PokerStars.
From time to time, Tom isn’t able to play, so someone else from Team PokerStars is called up off the bench to play, and this week, it’s me!
So if you’ve ever wanted to “watch” me play poker, you’ll have a chance Sunday the 24th at 2pm EDT. Just login to PokerStars, and search for player “Wil Wheaton” to find the table.
I’m playing against the Dutch sensation Noah Boeken, who goes by “Exclusive” on PokerStars. He’s got impressive credentials, and the scouting reports all include the word notorious(!) . . . so it should be a great match (or a quick and bloody evisceration of yours truly. 😉
Update: Going into this match, all I wanted to do was play good poker, not make any huge donkey moves, represent Team PokerStars honorably, and feel proud of myself when I was done, win or lose. There were a couple of hands where I think I messed up, but luckily they didn’t cost me too much, and I’m very happy with the way I played. I didn’t feel like I was playing scared, I got lucky when I needed it — which was a nice change of pace.
We played for 190 hands . . . and somehow, I won the match. Holy. Shit. I was seriously on the ropes for a bit, and I managed to battle my way back against a very good, solid opponent who played a fantastic game.
Thank you to everyone who watched and cheered me on. That was really fun 🙂

Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

91 thoughts on “two men enter, one man leaves”

  1. Wil,
    By posting this, you may end up crashing their servers 😉
    My main purpose for posting this comment is not to reply to your post, but to congratulate you on being such a stunning author.
    A week ago I walked into my local Northern Virginia library and saw, sitting on the new hardcover shelf, “Just a Geek”. I read your site regularly, and I had been meaning to pick up both of your books, but I hadn’t yet gotten around to it – so I snatched up your book and went home.
    Wil, your book was the first book in a LONG time that I have read cover-to-cover in one sitting. This is not a statement on the length of the book, but on the quality of it.
    I congratulate you on such an outstanding work, and look forward to reading “Dancing Barefoot” very soon.

  3. Awesome, Wil.
    Say, do you have to be a paying member of pokerstars to see it, for I am not. Also, how can you search for a player with pokerstars? I have been wanting this feature and haven’t been able to find it.
    Thanks and good luck, mate.

  4. The PokerStars client runs in wine, straight out of the box — you just download it and use the wine-roller to open it. I’ve tried all the other clients, and none of them (other than the java ones) work on Linux.

  5. As far as I know, anyone who downloads the client can watch any tournament that’s not specifically maked as “private.”
    The Find A Player thing is in the Requests menu . . . or you can go directly to tournament number 10190111

  6. Yeah, it must only be for paying members, it’s grayed out for me. Shame.
    On the other note, how fucking cool is it that Wil responded to me? I feel special. heh.
    Goodluck agian, wil.

  7. 2pm, eh? Dang, I’ll be working then. Guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow night to hear about your [victory|defeat].
    Kick some ass!

  8. I’d love to watch you, but it’s at 5am my time. I’ll be content with hearing all about how you kicked ass (or got your ass kicked).

  11. Yeah, I figured it out, stupid me. I was using PokerStars.net and not PokerStars. I’m such a n00b. Thanks for the help guys.

  12. Hey! I just signed up so I could say, good luck with the tourney tomorrow & hopefully I can be there to watch! 2:00pm eastern, so 11:00 am pacific, right???
    Good luck again!!

  14. Noah Boeken is a former Magic: The Gathering player. He is friends with David Williams (also a former Magic player). Noah was considered one of the best players in the world, and will be considered for the Magic Pro Tour Hall of Fame next year.
    Just throw out bad references to Magic cards during the match to see if it throws him off his game.
    Good luck Wil!

  16. for some reason every time i read pokerstars my brain says pornstars… must be something wired wrong in there.
    in any event it looks like a blast.

  20. Hey Wil,
    Just wanted to say good luck.
    It looks like there’s going to be a lot of observers for the game this week.
    Chris

  22. Good Luck Wil. You were the straw that broke the back of my reserve and led me to sign up with Pokerstars…when I’m in rehab for my gambling addiction I’ll be thinking about that…Play patient, but you know that…

  23. The Hendon Mob don’t have anything to do with Exclusive, he’s just listed on their database (as most players who’ve cashed in a tournament somewhere are).
    Good luck against Exclusive, I think you may need it, he’s very good…

  27. one-on-one poker. I’d forgotten how much folding there is pre-flop. Yikes.
    Early on, Wil, you had him down to 500$ or so, I was so surprised that it was over so quickly — but of course, things change…
    Now it’s flipped, at the 25/50 mark, and just when it’s really getting interesting, i’ve got to take off. Sigh.
    I almost wish there was a ‘full-hand/learning’ spectator mode, where you could see both hands. Of course, in order to make that work, it’d have to be a full play behind, but that’d be worth it, just to see why hand.
    Ooh.. nice play with the pair of nines! That was a good hand for me to leave on. Keep playing like that, and you’re sure to win!

  28. Until I watched the observer commentary on this game I hadn’t realized just how much flak you took from idiots on the internet. You deserve a lot of credit for putting up with all that garbage and sticking around.

  37. Well played, wil. I couldn’t get in the chat (no current bankroll in PS), but I really appreciated when you dropped the HAMMER. That’s poker blogger pride!
    You beat a good player. Well done!

  38. Wil wins at 68 minutes in at 75/150, with A/2o vs 7/8suited… flop came with a gutshot and flush draw for Exclusive, but he didn’t hit it and Wil takes it home!

  39. Congrats on beating Exclusive, that sure ended quickly after the break. I was worried there with two diamonds on the flop but it turned out ok.

  43. Good Job Wil,
    A very impressive match! Nice come back from being the short stack.
    Wish you all the best as you continue with PokerStars.
    Cheers,
    Paul

  44. Congratulations, Wil!
    It seems most poker sites allow you to deposit money via a few services: firepay, neteller, etc. paypal (which i use) is never in that list. i’m not terribly keen on just giving more folks my bank acct info, so does anyone have anything good/bad to share about, say, firepay and neteller?

  45. PayPal decided a while back not to support transactions with online casino gaming sites, including poker. Neteller and Firepay both seem to be pretty reputable, I’ve used Neteller in the past and had no problems. However if you’re at all serious about poker, I’d recommend setting up a separate bank account for your poker money anyway. Keeping poker money segregated from your general funds is pretty important IMHO.

  46. I personally use NETeller, they are indeed reputable – they’re a publically traded company. We have literally thousands of transactions every week through them.
    That was a good match, well played. Here’s my MSN log:
    20:03 Andrew: that was a pretty good match
    20:03 Lee: That was a *great* match.
    There you go, it’s official, Lee Jones was impressed.

  47. Can anyone tell me why I couldn’t find the game? I used locate player and searched for both Wil Wheaton and Exclusive, but couldn’t find them. Where was I supposed to search? Maybe I can catch it next time.

  48. Awesome job, Wil. It was really a back and forth match and you pulled it out in the end. That was a great call with the pocked 9’s, I wouldn’t have been able to make it myself.
    Congrats again.

Comments are closed.

Related Posts

Recent Posts