WSOP happenings - part 3

Above: The Rio at night.

Nine states, 11 days, 3800 miles and one road trip. I had fun, but it's nice to be home.

I've been to Las Vegas five times and flew the other four. This time, I decided to drive. I saw rice farms in Arkansas. I saw wind farms in Oklahoma. Our country is diverse and huge.

Besides playing poker, I took a trip to Bryce Canyon National Park. There are photos, natch, and I'll post when I've had a chance to catch my breath and look them over.

Lessons learned
One more deal from the first day of WSOP Event No. 30. It folded to me in the cutoff seat and I raised to 600. An older lady on the button, an ABC player, called. The flop was low cards and I made a continuation bet of 700 and she moved all in. I don't remember the numbers exactly, but it would cost me another ~700 to call a ~3200 pot.

This is an automatic call from a pot-odds perspective. Even though you know you're behind, you might get lucky. The problem was I had raised with crap (I don't even remember what my two cards were). My image was good and I didn't want to show my hand and ruin future chances to steal. Do you see the dilemma?

To stall for time to think, I asked the dealer to count her stack.

"Oh, it's not that much more," she blurted out.

That settled it. "I believe you," I said and folded.

Lesson for lady: Be careful how you act, how you handle your chips and, particularly, what you say. Better yet, don't say anything.

Lesson for me: It's a cardinal rule of tournament poker to pay attention to the stack size of your opponent. Also, I didn't have to make a CB. I could check and she would tell me if she had anything or not. I could always take the pot away on a later street.


Above: Workers giving massages were everywhere. Playing poker makes one tense -- getting a massage is relaxing.


Above: An old guy stacks his chips in the WSOP Event No. 30.

The last image courtesy of Wolynski, the premier photographer of all things Las Vegas. The others were taken by me with my Canon.