Paddy's CornerThe 2006 World Series of Pokerby Padraig Parkinson | Published: Oct 01, 2006 |
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There's nothing quite like that feeling of anticipation you feel when you wake up on the morning of the first day of the main event of the World Series of Poker. In the not too distant past, you knew you were facing an exciting day's poker against a table that would typically be made up of three world-class players, three tough pros, and a couple of chancers like yourself; and that was the way it was going to be for days on end. It's not quite like that anymore, because you're much more likely to be faced with one guy you have seen before, although you're not sure if it was in the buffet or at a poker table, and seven guys you've never seen before and probably won't see again.
It might not be as much fun or as exciting a test, but if there's going to be close to a hundred million dollars in the prize pool, that's just fine by me.
I'm fed up with listening to guys who say they'd much rather be playing against a table full of very good players. What a load of nonsense. Give me the Muppets any day! The funny thing is that the guys who want to play against the good players, generally speaking, aren't all that good themselves, or too bright, for that matter.
When you walk into the room, it looks like you've either accidentally arrived at a Star Trek convention or stumbled into a bunch of people on their way to the beach. The sooner they ban sunglasses, the better – and hiding under your jacket, while they're at it.
Card Player reported that I got a tough draw. It didn't look too tough to me. In the middle of the announcements at the start, they came up with a new one: "Let's have a big round of applause for Team Brunson." I thought they were having a laugh, but they were dead serious. I'd be the first guy to stand up and applaud Doyle Brunson, but I didn't really see why we should have to clap for a bunch of guys who had been paid to wear a shirt walk solemnly down the aisle in the middle of the tournament room like pallbearers at a funeral. So the guy beside me said that if I'd qualified for $14 on the Net, I'd be quite happy to clap for whatever they told me was good all day long.
Some real champions from other games and sports were in the field: multiple world snooker champions Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry went completely unnoticed by the guy with the mic, although 888's Lennox Lewis got a warm welcome from the field of players.
Everything went very smoothly from my point of view, which is completely out of character for me, and I finished the day with an above-average stack. Phil Hellmuth provided most of the entertainment by skipping the first level at the feature table and proceeding to get knocked out before level three. I thought the cheers when his elimination was announced were a little out of order for a man who'd had a marvelous World Series, but what do I know?
I bumped into Dan Harrington and told him his book had gotten me into a lot of trouble, and should come with a warning that it should be packed in a suitcase when travelling, and not carried as hand luggage. I had innocently been carrying Dan's book in my laptop bag as I passed through Beauvais Airport in France, when I was called aside for a security check. A routine check almost turned into an international incident when the girl decided to flick through the pages of Harrington on Hold'em. The book contains a lot of diagrams of a poker table that take the form of numbered circles all nicely connected. The security girl jumped about a foot in the air when she saw these diagrams and shouted some instructions in French. I'm not sure what she said, but within seconds, a guy with a machine gun who looked like he was just itching to use it was at my side, and a supervisor arrived who split his time pretty evenly between looking malevolently at me and glaring at Dan's diagrams. A heated discussion that seemed to take minutes ensued, after which more instructions were barked at my friend with the gun. While again I didn't understand what was said, I gathered that they had decided that the diagrams weren't a make-your-own-bomb recipe, and that he wasn't allowed to shoot me just yet – which suited me just fine. Instead of sympathizing and apologizing for the hassle, Dan just burst out laughing in my face, which probably confirms his Irish heritage. I don't know if he'd have laughed that much if I had told him I still hadn't read his damn book.
Well, that was day one – except for the announcement on the ESPN website that pre-tournament favourite Phil Gordon was out. I go to Vegas a lot, and for the last couple of years, there's been a lot of talk about an inevitable water shortage crisis. USA Today had stated that Mr. Gordon's regimen for the WSOP included drinking a bottle of water every hour during the main event, whether he was thirsty or not, so his untimely early demise must have come as a relief to at least some of Nevada's more concerned citizens.
Read Padraig's WSOP blog at: www.888.com/poker/wsop.
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