A poker player must learn to deal with many kinds of frustration. At this point in my career, I find it easy to shake off bad beats. My job is to get my money in good. Whatever happens afterward is beyond my control. The element of luck is what makes the game so exciting and what gives amateur players a fighting chance against much more skilled opponents, so I’ve got no reason to get upset about it.

A somewhat more complicated case is when I make an extremely strong hand when someone else holds something even better. In last month’s article, I recounted a hand from Day 1 where I made a high flush but lost to a full house. Perhaps I could have cut my losses a bit more than I did, but I was guaranteed to lose something. Again, it’s just part of the game.

I still struggle with being “card dead”, especially in live poker, where the pace of play is so much slower than online. The early days of the WSOP main event actually give players a lot of room to wait out a cold run of cards, but psychologically it can be very frustrating to fold hand after hand.

Boredom can lead to big mistakes, so I understand why some players more or less shut down part of their brains by listening to music, watching moves on in IPad, or even smoking marijuana during breaks. I prefer to cultivate the mental discipline to push through the boredom, because there’s actually an awful lot to pay attention to even when you aren’t in a hand. Your opponents’ betting patterns, physical and verbal tics, and general demeanor can provide valuable information if you’re paying enough attention to take it all in.

The frustrations with which I still struggle the most are my own mistakes. When I play a hand badly, I feel responsible for the misfortune that befalls me. Of course in some sense I am, but I also wonder, aren’t mistakes, like bad beats, an inevitable part of the game? Who can play high-level poker perfectly for days and days on end? I aspire to accept that mistakes happen just like every other kind of bad luck and are in some sense beyond my control. I’d like to accept them with the same equanimity that I now shrug off bad beats and continue to play my best going forwards.

The trick is to maintain the drive to get better, to avoid repeating the same mistakes, without blaming yourself for those that have already happened. If you get mired in reprimanding yourself for a prior mistake while you’re still in the tournament, you only increase the chances that you’ll make another mistake soon.

I believe this last sort of frustration played a role in my departure from the 2012 WSOP Main Event on Day 2.

Table 1

I was happy enough with my starting table. As usual, I found the seating assignments in advance and researched my opponents. Only three seemed to be professionals. Two of those had extremely short stacks, and the third, a young Hungarian, was seated to my immediate right, where I could keep my thumb on him.

Sure enough, the first three hours went well. I didn’t win any big pots, but having begun play with more than twice the average stack, I didn’t need to. I quietly accumulated another 10,000 chips without any tough decisions or big confrontations.

I did play one hand very strangely and ended up showing it down, which probably influenced my table image. I raised A4s in first position, and only the button called. He was a young live pro from Chicago, and the sense I got was that he was a good level two thinker. In other words, I expected his play to rely heavily on what he thought I had, but I didn’t think he would give me credit for making a tricky play based on what I knew I was representing to him.

The flop came QJJ rainbow, giving me nothing but a backdoor flush draw. I checked, he made a small bet, and I called. Although there was a chance Ace-high was good, I wasn’t intending to show it down. I thought my opponent might well have a medium pocket pair, and that if I check-called the flop and then bet the river, he’d give me credit for a Q or a better pair than his.

The turn was a 4, a very small improvement that didn’t change my plan. We both checked the turn. So far, so good.

A second Q on the river changed everything. Now that I could beat a medium pair, I checked planning to call a bet. He checked behind, and I had to show my unconventional flop call to claim the pot.

On the last hand before our table broke, I had a minor confrontation with the other big stack. The Hungarian and I had mostly stayed out of each others’ way, him not opening too many pots and me “rewarding” him for that by not putting too much pressure on him when he did raise. It’s important to note that this isn’t collusion, – we never made an explicit agreement – merely mutual self-interest. There were easier spots at the table that could be attacked with less risk, so we both found it beneficial to avoid playing a big pot with each other.

With the floor man hovering over us with an armful of chip racks, the Hungarian min-raised to 1,200 from the button. I, sitting in the SB, looked down at AJ. It was simply too good not to raise. I made it 4,200, the BB folded, and the button called.

I bet 4,800 on a 442 flop, more or less for value. Although I would’ve been glad to see him fold, I actually thought he would float often enough that I could profitably bet and then either bet again or check and call a bet unimproved on the turn, depending on what came. He called.

The turn was the 7, and we both checked. I didn’t see much point in betting the T river, so I checked again. Now the Hungarian bet 10K, which was about one-third of the pot. Believe it or not, I was tempted to call. I really wasn’t sure how wide he would value bet, and although I expected his bluff to come on the turn, he may have been tricky enough to check air on the turn planning to bluff the river if I checked again. I didn’t know enough about him to say, but I was getting awfully good odds and my spidey sense was tingling.

Then again, some of his floats could have paired the Ten or even the 7. I reminded myself of one of my rules for the early levels of the WSOP: err or the side of conserving chips. I folded and went to meet my new tablemates.

Table 2

My second table proved similar to the first. The non-professionals were perhaps a bit more skilled, and the pros had more chips, but the player of greatest concern – a young Frenchman – was again sitting to my right. Unfortunately we played together for less than an hour before this table, too, was broken up. I did nothing of significance and left with about as many chips as I brought.

Table 3

My third and final table was not so welcoming as the first two. There were a few soft-looking spots, but also a very capable young Russian on my immediate left and a kid in his early 20′s raising often and playing well a few seats to my right.

The real threat arrived a few minutes after me: a young northern European with a mountain of chips. He lived up to the stereotypes and was soon caught raising 62s under the gun. He wasn’t a true maniac, though. Despite some unconventional plays, he had a good feel for what he could get away with and when people simply weren’t in the mood to fold to him. In short, he was exactly what I did not want on my left.

In some ways, he did make it easier for me to stay disciplined about not playing any of the string of bad hands I was dealt. The only problem was that I never felt comfortable at the table. At my first table, although I never won any big pots, I felt like the potential was there. I knew who the weaker players were and I knew what kinds of situations I was looking for. I also believed that no one was likely to give me a tough decision, so I felt comfortable just waiting it out.

At this table, though, I didn’t have that same assurance that chips would come if I waited. On Day 2, that’s actually not the end of the world. I could afford to go into a bubble, waiting only for the best of spots, and perhaps get blinded down a bit, ultimately finishing the day with a very playable stack even if I never won a big pot. Arguably, this is what I should have done.

Instead, I decided to pick a mark and try to take some chips off of him. My chosen victim was a Hispanic man in his early 30s who was sitting two seats to my right and seemed a little intimidated and amateurish.

I guessed that this was probably his first main event, my biggest hint being the way he sized his raises. At the 400/800/100 level, when most people were raising anywhere from 1,600 to 2,000, I observed him open to 2,500. Overly large raises often indicate a somewhat unsophisticated understanding of poker. Rather than fighting for pots and looking to win as much as possible with both value bets and bluffs, these players believe in waiting for good cards and then doing everything they can to increase their odds of winning the pot, even if that means losing out on the opportunity to win more chips.

I later saw this same player raise to 2,000. Knowing that there were some circumstances where he would raise to 2,500, I guessed that he had what he considered a weak hand with which he did not want to commit too many chips. The player to my right called the raise, and I re-raised to 8,000 with whatever cards I held. They both folded, and I succeeded in my biggest bluff of the day, which isn’t saying much given how tight I’d been.

A similar spot arose shortly thereafter. This time the first player to act limped in for 800. My mark raised to 2,000 again, which with an extra 800 chips in the pot I interpreted to be even weaker than before. I raised to 6,000 with A7o, the first player folded, and my guy quickly called. Not what I was hoping for, but in all likelihood I’d still have opportunities to push him out after the flop.

The flop came KQ7, he checked, and I bet 7,500. Although I had a pair, this bet more or less turned my hand into a bluff, because if he called it, my pair would probably be no good. My 7s were simply too vulnerable to check, though.

My opponent quickly grabbed four orange chips, worth 20,000 altogether, and threw them into the pot.
For whatever reason, my gut told me that he was bluffing.

There are professionals who call themselves “feel players”, meaning that they don’t necessarily think explicitly in terms of odds, probabilities, and ranges. Rather, years of experience have given them a highly developed intuition for what will work, even if they can’t always articulate exactly why.

Some people will tell you, especially if they’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, that you should always listen to your first instinct. I don’t believe that. There are a lot of reasons, frustration chief among them, why your gut might mislead you. And if your opponent bets 2,000 into a pot of 8,000, your gut might tell you you’re beat, but is it really so finely tuned to know that you are beat more than 80% of the time?

Personally, I believe in taking intuition as a starting point and then submitting it to some back-of-the-envelope analysis. Although everything it tells you is in theory quantifiable, it isn’t always practical to perform such analysis in real time.

So when my gut told me he was bluffing, I ought to have asked questions like, “Is it better to call or re-raise? If you call, how will you proceed on a blank turn? On a club? If you re-raise, what’s the best non-bluff hand you can expect him to fold? Is there any risk of him re-bluffing you if you re-raise?”

I ought to have asked those questions, but instead I simply ruled out his strongest possible hands. If he had KK or QQ pre-flop, he would have made a larger re-raise, and there were only two 7s left in the deck, so he was quite unlikely to have a set. Thus, I concluded, I could re-raise and represent a set myself.

The problem – well, one of the problems – with this analysis is that even if he doesn’t have a set, he isn’t guaranteed to fold. KQ for top two pair is a very possible holding for him that he wouldn’t fold. He might also re-re-raise all-in with some sort of big draw such as AJ or AT.

Anyway, I reraised to 36,000, he very quickly moved all-in, and I had to fold. Quick as that, I’d lost more than half my stack and now had only 31,000, barely what I’d had at the start of Day 1 before playing poker for 16 hours. I felt pretty stupid.

As I said before, I’d ideally accept any loss, even one of my own creation, as simply a thing that’s happened and move on from there. In reality, though, it’s nearly impossible to resist the temptation for immediate analysis. Now I started asking all those questions I should have asked before pulling the trigger on the bluff. Part of me wanted to forget about it and move on, but another part insisted on playing it over and over again in my head to try to determine whether it was actually a good spot to bluff, not that it mattered now.

Perhaps because I grew up in the age of video games, I feel like I ought to just be able to hit the “undo” button when something like this happens. Can one moment’s indiscretion really have cost me so many chips in this tournament that I’d waited all year to play? It didn’t seem right. I wanted to go back and load a previously saved game from the time when I had an above average stack.

This is understandable but dangerous thinking. The desire to undo the past and win back chips very quickly can only result in reckless gambling. Try as I might to silence the doubts in my head, they weren’t going away. At this point I probably should have turned to my crutch, the IPod I keep with me for situations like these when I need to distract myself. It’s best if you can keep your full attention on the table, but when your mind is wandering anyway, better to listen to music than self-criticism.

Perhaps 20 minutes later, six players folded and it was on me holding KTo on the button. I raised to 2,000.

The small blind folded, and then the big blind, the semi-maniacal northern European, re-raised to 5,200. It was easy to say, “That guy’s crazy, he could have anything, just go all-in and hope for the best.” I still don’t think it’s the worst play in the world. But the difference between a good loose-aggressive player and a true maniac is that the good player knows how to use his image to his advantage. He probably expects me to be steaming from my recent loss and eager to try to win a pot, and he knows that I think of him as extremely aggressive. Given those facts, I actually have my doubts about how often he’d re-raise here without a hand good enough to call a shove.

At the time, though, the part of my brain that wanted to get back to where I was before silenced the part that was trying to sound an alarm. I moved all-in for 29,000, and my opponent quickly called with AQ.

He was ahead, though not a massive favorite. The thing is that when you’re in that frustrated, just-want-to-get-back-to-even mentality, you care less about the downside of losing – in your mind you’re already a loser – and more about the possible upside. If I’d won this pot, I’d have nearly as many chips as I did before that expensive bluff.

I did not win the pot, though, which meant that the World Series of Poker was over for me. I couldn’t tell you what place I got, because it doesn’t matter. When there’s no cash prize to be paid out, the tournament officials don’t keep track of such things. There were no tax forms to fill out, and no one to congratulate me for a job well done. The only acknowledgments of my departure were a “good game,” from the guy stacking what had been my chips and the dealer’s cry of, “Seat open! Table 42!”

August 24 2011, Donnie Peters, Rich Ryan

In July, the World Series of Poker announced the schedule for the 2011-2012 WSOP Circuit’s, its eighth season. Beginning next month with a brand new stop in Bossier City, the Circuit will be displaying some new “enhancements” to the tour.

The two big changes are as follows. First, the $1,600 Main Event at each stop will be played as re-entry. Players will be allowed to enter both a morning flight and an evening flight on the starting day of the tournament if they choose to do so. Second, there will be no $10,000 Regional Championships offered. With these being two of the biggest and most interesting changes, the question is, are they actually better for the Circuit? PokerNews’ Donnie Peters and Rich Ryan debate.

Donnie Peters believes playing the Main Events as re-entry is a bad idea

The old saying goes, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” and that should apply here. Last year, the WSOP revamped the Circuit completely. It slashed the Main Event buy-ins, introduced a points-ranking system and a $1 million National Championship Freeroll, incorporated four $10,000 Regional Championships and added some new stops. All of those proved to be great for the Circuit as numbers increased everywhere. Players thoroughly enjoyed the stops they attended from a poker-playing standpoint and the Circuit was put right back on the map as one of the premier tours in the world. Why go and change things?

A couple of years ago, the WSOP did away with rebuy tournaments at the WSOP in Vegas. A lot of players didn’t like rebuys and felt that the pros with deeper pockets would be able to “buy” a bracelet by gambling early. Because of this line of thinking, a lot of amateur players stayed away from the rebuy events and stuck to the events with a single buy-in. Now the WSOP is going the opposite direction with the new season of the WSOP Circuit — a tour that’s majority is comprised of amateur players. With the idea that players with deeper pockets can get two shots in an event instead of just one in the amateurs’ minds, some of them may be deterred from playing.

This seems more like an attempt to get the numbers to climb once again after having such a successful increase last time around. Yes, the number of total entrants per Main Event may rise and the prize pools will increase because of that, but the number of unique individuals who actually play shouldn’t increase that much. In fact, it may actually drop if players feel at a disadvantage. Just think, if a player knows his shot in one event is up against many players with two shots, he’s already at a disadvantage and will more than likely not play. With the WSOP Circuit being made up of so many amateur players, this is very much a reality.

If you take a look back to what the Bellagio did with some of its tournament series a couple years ago, it converted almost every prelim to $1,000 no-limit hold’em events and made them all rebuys. The field sizes took a massive hit and at one point, the players were trying to petition the Bellagio to change it back. Something similar seems to be happening here and it doesn’t need to be happening. Like the saying says, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Rich Ryan welcomes the re-entry tournaments

With the poker economy in disarray, tournament circuits have to do everything they can to maintain desirable prize pools. So the WSOP is making every main event a re-entry tournament, allowing players to register for a second Day 1 heat if they are eliminated from the first. However, unlike most re-entry tournaments, both heats will take place on Day 1 so that the WSOP won’t have to add an extra day to each main event.

This is a great way to increase field sizes, increase prize pools, and entice more professionals to participate. Very few players will skip events because of the re-entry format, while most players are happy knowing they have a slightly larger margin of error and an inflated prize pool. The re-entry format is especially attractive to pros who are usually unwilling to play lower buy-in events, because they have the opportunity to fire off two bullets. Now, if they’re coolered (or just decided to donk off their stack in the first level), they can just re-enter and play in the second flight.

The argument that players can “buy” wins in re-buy tournaments is silly, but it has merits. The argument that players can “buy” wins in re-entry tournaments is farcical. In re-buys you can create an advantage by continuously bombing your stack until eventually you have a ton of chips or, at the very least, there are a lot of chips on your table to extract once the re-buy period is over. With re-entry, you begin the second flight with the starting stack against other players with starting stacks. Sure, if you know you’re going to re-enter no matter what, you can gamble a little bit with your first bullet. If you’re lucky, you’ll build a stack, but you don’t have the liberty to shove an infinite amount of times like you do in a re-buy.

Ultimately, Caesars is looking to increase its profitability – and who can blame them. They’re in the business of making money, and as long as they’re not compromising the integrity of the game, then so be it.

Donnie Peters believes the removal of the $10,000 Regional Championships is also a bad idea

To entirely remove the $10,000 Regional Championships is a bad idea. In fact, they were a bad idea to ever incorporate to begin with. The idea behind them is great, but the price tag is simply too high, especially with the way the economy is and the state of poker right now. These four events were what drew the big names back to the WSOP Circuit. The problem was, at $10,000 a pop in less-than-ideal locations, the pros didn’t want to travel to them. Still, the WSOP didn’t need to remove them altogether.

When something doesn’t work out, you don’t need to just toss it by the wayside, as seems to be the case here. How about lowering the buy-in to these Regional Championships and keeping them on the schedule? Now, of course, one could argue that lowering the buy-in wouldn’t attract the big names that a $10,000 price tag does, but it would in turn add some players who can’t afford to play a $10,000 event, but will play something in the $3,500 to $5,000 range. With the state of poker right now and the way the economy is, $10,000 buy-ins just don’t get the same numbers they used to. There’s no online qualifiers, we’re well past the poker boom and the money just isn’t there anymore. If you cut the buy-ins to $4,000 for example, you’d still get a nice turnout of players and keep the event a bit more prestigious than the $1,600 Main Event. This could especially be done if the Main Events weren’t changed to re-entry events. After giving it a shot at lowering the buy-ins to these, another evaluation can and should be made where the decision to keep them on the docket is determined. If they fail to reach expectations once again, then you can cut them.

Another idea for the Regional Championships would be to simply make four of the stops on the Circuit have a larger buy-in Main Event, say $5,000. The WSOP could call these “Regional Championships” and have the increased buy-in Main Events take place at the stops with the largest turnouts in the past, like Hammond, Atlantic City and Las Vegas. The points could be weighted a bit more for these events and even adding a little bit of money to the prize pool like $50,000 to $100,000 could help attract more players. This is another option that could be better than simply cutting them out altogether.

Rich Ryan disagrees, believing that the WSOP-C should stay in its lane

Over the past two years, the WSOP-C has completely rebranded itself as a tournament circuit for the everyday player. By lowering buy-ins and expanding the tour stops, the WSOP brand now reaches more of its fans, giving them an opportunity to compete for a circuit ring and possibly the National Championship. The majority of the WSOP-C participants will not miss the four $10,000 Regional Championship events because they can’t afford to play in them, making this a good decision by Caesars.

There are two things (among many) that businesses can do to succeed: stay in their lane, and act before the rest of the market does. Staying in your lane is paramount. If you exhaust resources trying to be something you’re not, then you end up compromising whatever it is you’re actually good at. This past year the WSOP-C saw growth across the board, and it’s because it shifted its focus from professional players to amateurs. From Durant, Oklahoma, to San Diego, California, there are plenty of small pockets in America that can sustain a series of smaller buy-in events. Only a few places (Las Vegas, Atlantic City) are capable of hosting bigger buy-in events. The Heartland Poker Tour pioneered this trend, hitting middle-America, and now the WSOP-C is looking to replicate this formula with a more recognizable brand.

Acting before the rest of the market can be dangerous, but if you’re right then you can jump ahead of the pack. Right now, the market for high buy-in events is shrinking because there are too many tournaments on the schedule. This oversaturation has stretched the market thin, leading some tours to lower their buy-ins. The WSOP-C jumped on this early, initially reducing the entry to its main events, and now it is taking it a step further by removing the Regional Championship events. The WSOP recognizes that it doesn’t need professional players to play in their events (there are no cameras), and are content with raking in John Doe’s money.

Will the Regional Championships be missed from a reporting standpoint? Absolutely, it’s always nice to cover a field filled with familiar faces. Ultimately, however, the WSOP-C is a business, and they are making sure that they stay in the black. I can’t blame them for that.

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