WSOP 2006 Las Vegas, NV

Looks like Jack is going to survive the first day with an above average chip stack. With only one more 2 hour level to play tonight - it's about 1:30 am right now - Jack has about 38,000 chips and the average chip stack at the end of today's play should be about 30,000.

I am exhausted and have come up to the room to retire for the evening. Jack will let me know how he finished the first day's play sometime tomorrow and I'll report his first day results as soon as I can.

I was eliminated about 11:21 pm this evening almost eleven and a half hours after the event began. 1340 players were left out of over 2000 that started the day when I met my demise. I had gotten as low as 3000 chips and then built back up to around 8000, but by then the blinds were 150/300 with a 25 ante and so my "M" was about 11. My last all-in was with AQ diamonds against AK hearts. All black cards on the flop and no Q came to my rescue. I had a great time in the time I played and will blog more details for posterity tomorrow when I have rested.

I outlasted Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson who also played today, Doyle being eliminated about an hour and a half before me and Phil much earlier in the evening.

It's been 8 months and 7 days since I reserved my room at the Rio last November in anticipation of playing in this WSOP main event.

It's been a long time coming, but today is the day. I start on table 89 seat 6 and Jack is on a high numbered tables, too, so weI will probably be playing with the same players all day. (They break the tables from the low numbers.) I like that, unless I am on the same table with several pros.

The first day of play ended at 2:45 am this morning, so I expect to be playing about 13 hours today, bagging and signing off on my chip count for a hour or so and then seeking liquid refreshment to celebrate surviving the 1st day. Let's hope my expectations are met. I believe Jack and I can both celebrate surviving the first day. Some really big names were eliminated yesterday, so anything can happen.

Rod and Neal B. as well as 6 members of Jack's family and friends are here for the kickoff, although spectators are not allowed in the room until all the alternates (500 or so each day is the rumor) are seated.

I am ready for the cards to be in the air less than 2 hours from now.

Check cardplayer.com for updates as it will probably be at least tomorrow afternoon before I post again.

There was a request for more postings on this blog by one of our HHC members. Not much fun to post about losing. Stay tuned. I did win $1,898 in a cash game here at the Rio last night from 11:30 pm until 5:30 am this morning.

Jack got to 40th place in the Wynn noon $300 tournament yesterday out of 144 players. I ran into a guy who got 4 clubs on the board to bad beat me with a flush and was out early in that one yesterday. Jack and I both won our seats in an $85 satellite in that tournament. Plus you get $25 cash with the seat, so it cost us $60 to play the tournament. (Actually, it cost Jack $145 because he had to play two satellites. I played in the second one he played - got there later than he did- and we both won our seats in that one, since it qualifies the top two players.)

Jack is golfing this morning and I am just getting ready to go down to check out the scene in the WSOP poker room. The main event is kicking off about now. I'll blog later about what is going on down there.

We are both just getting warmed up. The best is yet to come.

Jack and I both busted out early in the first big tournament we entered - the $1500 Three day No Limit Hold'em WSOP Event #37. Jack was out in about half an hour losing with aces full of eights to quad eights. I lasted about an hour and a half.

Starting with only 1500 chips, I was down to about 1,000 after an hour and a half of nothing much to play and there had been 4 people eliminated on my table, so a couple of the players had much larger chip stacks than mine. I thought I needed to get some chips to have a chance of beginning to build a stack before the blinds increased to 50/100 thus giving me an "M" of 6 . There were 4 limpers when I had the button, so I raised with AJ and got three callers. When Q-10-x rainbow fell on the flop and it was checked around to me, I made a large bet of half my remaining chips trying to end it there but got a caller. The turn was a four and since I had put a lot of my chips in the pot already, I decided to go all-in to try to get the guy to fold. I had an overcard -the Ace- to the board and a gut-shot straight draw, so I figured if he had a pair, I would still have a chance to make the winning hand. True, but it was a slim chance, and he had the KQ for a pair of queens. I did not get a king for the straight or an ace for the pair of aces on the river either of which would have given me the winning hand. In retrospect, it was a weak play and I didn't get the suck-out when I needed it. I should have been more patient and waited for a better hand to push with, but after an hour and a half of mostly fold, fold, fold, the AJ looked pretty good to me. Since I had only played about 4 hands in the hour and a half, I had a very tight table image and had elicited folds from everyone in the few hands I had played by making small raises. I thought I could get away with it again, but got looked up at the wrong time.

I posted a link to the Card Player Magazine site on this page. It had more up-to-the-minute coverage of the standings than the Harrah's World Series of Poker site. You could see Mark's name and stats before the Seniors Event was over. I guess Harrah's site waits until after the event is completed????? I see in an article in Card Player magazine's July 19th issue (pg 22) that ESPN will make the final table of the main event available to it's pay-for-view customers. Does this mean you can watch it live (probably a small time delay for security????) as it is played on ESPN?? Does anyone know?

To comment on something on this blog, just go to the bottom of the posted article you want to comment on and click the "Comments" link. You can then type your comment in a screen. You have to give a (made-up) user name (like your first name and initial so we will know who you are if you like) and password to comment, but I don't think you have to register on the site. Anyone can comment.... and comment on the comments.....etc.

I don't know much about all this new-fangled internet stuff, and it seems I don't have to. Setting this up hasn't been much trouble. And if you post comments to it, everyone can kind of use it like a delayed-reaction chat room. So, we can carry on conversations through the comments. To comment on any posted article on the blog, just go to the comments link at the bottom of the posted article. Click on it and you're in business. The other link is to other sites that have put a link to this blog on their page. I doubt it will be used much. Please feel free to comment. I've gotten one comment from an unknown "Texas friend" named Kodi on my "I'm In Pre-Registration" post on this blog. You can see that comment also by clicking the "Comments" link at the bottom of that post. Sonny made a comment on my "Who Is James A.D.?" post, and hit the nail on the head. I'd love to write a book. Actually, I'm trying to just loosen up my writing by doing this blog. I am going to write the more rambling stuff on my other blog, "The Stacks Report" and try to stick mostly to Hold'em and Poker on this blog. You can see a link to my other blog by clicking the link "View my Complete Profile" which is on this page under "About Me". I share the poet's love of metaphor and the stacks referred to are not only stacks of chips, but the stacks (of books) in libraries. Look on this blog for poker. I promise to keep it free of poetry. I am not making any promises about what I may post on "The Stacks Report".

Our own Mark S. finished 76th out of 1,270 players in the WSOP $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Seniors Event in Las Vegas July 12th taking home $2,155.

I can't wait to hear the stories!

Congratulations, Mark, on a job well done.

I read Chris Moneymaker's autobiography recently, and in it he tells of finishing a long day of playing poker exhausted in the wee hours of the morning. This was when he was nearing the final table of the WSOP championship event that he won. He said the event directors wanted a short autobiography from each player still in the tournament by early the next morning. A lot of the veteran players had their's written already and turned them in and went to bed. He had to stay up and try to come up with something. So, I wrote this article to get a little practice of telling about myself.

As a little boy, James A. D. liked going to the county fair for many reasons, but two of the top reasons were the carnival rides and the bingo games - the micro seconds of free fall and the gambling. The bingo games were 5 or 10 cents a game for prizes like stuffed animals or toys. Seed corn was used to mark the numbers on your card as they were called. I had an incredible desire to be lucky and win.

As a young man, I enjoyed studying science and mathematics in college. I was especially interested in probability theory and logic. But I was also interested in the languages and symbol systems that allow humans to pass meaning from one to another, for instance body language or gestures.

I became fascinated by the human condition and as I realized how little we know I wondered how we could be sure of what we did know. I had become a philosopher long before I realized it. I thought I was a scientific thinker, logical, etc. Then I learned that Logic is a branch of philosophy. I wanted to know the Truth about the world and being human. How can we know? Egad! I was an epistemologist (Epistemology is another of the 5 branches of philosophy - it is the study of knowledge and knowing.) But there seemed to be so much to know. How could I learn the most of all that can be known in the short time of my life? This became a personal challenge. How fast could I learn something; something difficult and complex? Organization and efficiency were my bywords.

As a not so young man, I wanted ways to test and measure the success of my "quick study" methods. I had a fascination with computers and computer languages. A friend I reported to at work, Tom, gave me the opportunity to write a database program with software I was not familiar with. What a challenge that was, and what a personal growth experience. My prior knowledge of logic and symbol systems helped me learn the software and structure the database in a short time. I seemed to be on to something. My "quick study" methods worked!

I have played card games, including poker, since I was a young boy. After I moved to Houston as a young adult, I played in a regular "nickle, dime, quarter" Saturday night poker game with a group of friends for years. We played mostly 5-card and 7-card stud, chicago, draw, sweat, etc. Oh, how I enjoyed the competiveness in the games. I got to where I could win regularly. I had never heard of hold'em in that period. I saw hold'em being played in poker rooms in casinos when I began to gamble and play poker in casinos, but I was never interested. I played 7-card stud.

Then came Texas Hold'em on TV. You couldn't miss it on TV. It was a little less than two years ago, September of 2004. I thought, OK, that seems interesting. I can learn to play that game. I watched it on TV. I got a book. I got a computer game on disk and played against the computer. I learned it was simple. And then I learned it wasn't so simple after all. I ultimately began playing hold'em live. I got some more books. I began to play online. All told, I have less than 2 years experience playing hold'em. Not much experience compared to the decades of experience some of the players in the WSOP main event will have. There is just so much you need to know. And then there is this thrill-seeking self I have to control.

See where all this is leading? I am now 55 years old. I have realized many of my dreams. I have experienced freefall. I have been skydiving several times. I have been swimming with sharks (real ones). I like to test the limits of what I can do. I have the ability to focus until I know what I need to know to do what I need to do to accomplish what I have to accomplish. That's my claim and it's about to be severely tested in the arena of no-limit hold'em poker. I am making more and more final tables in (small) tournaments I play in lately. My recent results are measureably better - I am making a little money playing hold'em. I think I know a little about hold'em now. I know I have a big imagination. I imagine I can win.

There is a convergence of a lot of my interests in hold'em. That's who James A. D. is right now: a thrill-seeking gambler, a mathematician, a people studier, a philosopher, an epistomologist and just a regular competitive guy who has been playing hold'em for a little less than 2 years and who is lucky enough to be playing in the WSOP main event in Las Vegas this year. There is still much I can learn, but I am ready for this. I have no delusions about being the best no-limit Texas hold'em player in the world, but I just might not have to be to win this championship. This is going to take a LOT of LUCK for anyone to win and I AM A LUCKY GUY. So, I am ready for this huge event. I have been preparing for this opportunity for a lifetime. Fate has brought James A. D. to this point in history. I am going to play to win. I am James A. D. I've got a really good feeling about this.

To all my family and friends, whether or not you are a poker player:

You are welcome to send the link to this blog to anyone you know who is interested in it. Comments on my blog are welcome, but be aware it is an unsecured and public site. It could be found and opened by anyone who searches or googles the WSOP. You should not post last names (use initials for last names to specify people with the same first name), phone numbers, email addresses, etc. or anything you would not want the world to see.

You should also NOT ASSUME that it is someone I know who makes a comment on my blog. It could be a stranger who has stumbled onto the site through a search engine.

If you are not a poker player, you will probably find a lot of it to be boring descriptions of hands played, etc. but some of my posts will be general stuff (good restaurants I eat in, a show I see, etc.)

I expect the comments (if any) will mostly be from people I have sent the link to like my family and friends, especially my poker-playing friends, but I just wanted to remind everyone of the public nature of the internet.

I went to Foxwoods casino in Connecticut July 8th and 9th and played two tournaments. In the $500 tournament on Saturday there were 50 players and I finished approximately 30th out of the money.

There were 110 players in the $300 tournament on Sunday. It started at 2:00 pm and I finished 6th for $1,156 at 9:10 pm. It was a lot of good experience.

I never got much of a hand in the one on Saturday. Even in the one on Sunday, I didn't get much for a long time. Finally, I got wired tens. A guy raised several times the big blind and I smooth called. After the flop, I had an overpair (all small flop cards, nothing scary) and when the original raiser bet the pot (about half my chips), I went all-in and he called with a pocket pair of fives. My tens held up. When we got down to two tables, I was on a table with a guy in a giant stack. I lost about 5,000 of my 20,000 chips playing wired 4's. But I let them go when I had to, and stayed calm. Next hand or so, I had big cards and a draw after the flop and when the big stack (35,000) or so bet big, I went all-in (semi-bluff), and he granted my wish and folded. I had counted on him not wanting to decimate his stack if he lost.

It was a fun final table. I was much ridiculed about my drawling Texas accent (in fun) and I was loving the attention. They seemed to get a kick out of the way I would say "I'm aawwwlll-ein". My demise came when I played KJ of clubs and an A clubs, another small club and a blank came on the flop. With the blinds and antes, the pot was about 5,000 before any betting and I had about 50,000 chips. I firmly believed I could push the only other guy out of the pot by representing an Ace with an all-in bet as it would have left him with only a few chips if he called because he had an Ace. And, I had two big cards and a nut flush draw (1.9 to 1 odds against) and even a backdoor straight draw. But, alas, he had an AQ offsuit and I didn't get my flush or straight.

Still, I won $1,156 minus my two entry fees totalling $800, for a net win of $356at hold'em. (I played some cash games and broke even on those.)

May all your cards be live.

I got email notification yesterday that my pre-registration form and $10,000 deposit had been received. My beginning day for the main event will be day1B on Saturday, July 29, 2006. You can see the schedule for the WSOP under a link on this page.

There won't be much posting on this blog until I arrive in Las Vegas on July 24, 2006. I'll try to post at least once a day after I get to Las Vegas, but I'm not making any promises. My postings will probably be sporadic as my main focus will be playing 12-14 hours of poker a day and not losing all my chips, but I'll try to post mine and Jack's standings in the main event daily. Just remember, no news is good news, because if I'm too busy to post, then I'm still playing or sleeping because I only have four hours to sleep before I continue playing!

I want to thank all the Houston Hold'em Club members for helping make this amazing opportunity possible for me. I promise I will do my very best to win this thing. I seem to be a very lucky fellow. I've got a good feeling about this. And what a player Jack is. He knows how to make it to a final table and what to do when he gets there. I've got a really good feeling about what Jack can do.

I want to thank everyone who has played hold'em with me over the almost two years I have been playing. Today, I probably should be most grateful to the ones of you who took the most of my chips for teaching me the lessons I needed to learn, but grateful sure wasn't what I was feeling at the time.

Thanks to Dalton for inviting me into the Houston Hold'em Club and all the members for accepting me as a member. Thanks to the club officers, Ralph, Bobby and John for all the hard work they do to make the club so outstanding!

Thanks to Sonny for all the opportunities to play and practice with another great group of people. Thanks to Rod who is always helping make a game happen somewhere, somehow. And because the list has to end somewhere, a final thanks to Mark who is always willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to help.

I plan to play in some of the smaller WSOP tournaments as well while I am in Vegas, and will also write about them and anything else that happens while I am there.

In the meantime, since it's still three more weeks until Vegas, I plan to go to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut the weekend of July 7th and play some tournaments there. I'll post to this blog about that trip, too.

Also, Mark, Lee & Neil are going to Vegas to play in the No-Limit Seniors Event on July12th and 13th. I'll post any news I get about their trip on this blog, too.