How To Mix It With The Best At Omaha

Three days after arriving in Vegas this year for the World Series of Poker my jet lag had lifted enough for me to enjoy a fantastic experience in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha with rebuys. I readily admit that I made a bit of an error of judgement entering this tournament. I made the cardinal sin of not having enough cash with me to rebuy or add-on and also didn’t realise that the rebuy period was an incredible three hours.

So, as you can imagine there was plenty of loose play early on and I essentially only had one life. One bad beat and I would be heading to the rail. The first prospect of this happening came just 10 minutes into the event. Three people had already rebought when I looked at 7h-7s-6h-5s in the Big Blind. The pot was raised and received four callers by the time it got back to me so I felt obliged to call. The flop was a highly encouraging 7c-3h-2h. Now this is the kind of hand that looks a million dollars on first inspection but can quickly go wrong, so check raising all in seemed the best option. It never got that far! Following my rap of the table the other five got it all-in before me. I called now knowing I didn’t want a heart or an Ace and that a 3 would probably mean quads. Also if this hand didn’t stand up I was out. Turn 7! Chip leader table 59!

From that point on I was never out of the top 10 all day which meant that I could really enjoy what was to happen next. Our table broke and I received my new seat assignment. Table 73, Seat 4 will be indelibly ingrained in my memory. Seat 5 Joe Hachem, Seat 6 Chris Ferguson, Seat 7 Michael Mizrachi, Seat 8 Mike Matusow and Seat 2 Eli Elezra with the only stack bigger than mine. I played with these guys for about four hours during which time ‘Jesus’ went out overplaying pocket 2s again ('Touching Poker Greatness' by Warren discusses another time 'Jesus' overplays his dueces).

Mizrachi was by far the most aggressive, Hachem the tightest and Elezra the most fun. Along the way I doubled-up through the only player at the table I didn’t recognise holding the highly unpromising starting hand of Ac-As-Ad-7d. The board of A-4-6-4-2 helped considerably. Four hours of this would be experience enough for any semi-pro but it would get better just after the dinner break.

The table which was to be described the next day in the Card Player magazine daily bulletin as ‘Tough table of the day’ had already lost Andy Bloch and Erik Seidel by the time I arrived but still in attendance were Dewey Tomko, Hilbert Shirey and my two new neighbours David Williams and Robert Williamson III. Still miles from the money this was more ‘time at the crease’ to be savoured.

Robert I have played with each other before and after a quick reference to his astonishing 24 buy-ins he told me he planned on coming to London for the WSOP Europe. I may have seemed a little unfriendly when I preferred to talk about how he had managed 24 buy-ins rather than talk about my home town. David Williams is quite literally one of the coolest poker players around. My opinion of him didn’t change when I bluffed on a final board of 10h-7h-2s-4d-Kh and he called me down with two pair, 10s and 2s. I waited two hands before I asked him how he could call. ‘I HAVE A LITTLE SOMETHING ON YOU," he ventured. The guy is a machine!

With only the last hand of Day 1 to come I was sitting comfortably with over 100,000 and clear chip leader at the table. Despite vowing not to play the last hand of the night I somehow got in a tussle with Hilbert Shirey when I flopped top trips. He wouldn’t fold his two pair and his back hand hit a gutshot 3 on the river to decimate my stack. I would now return for Day 2 as one of the short-stacks with only 35,000. I did not sleep well!

Day 2 saw us back at the same table and an agonising period just short of the money. Devilfish joined the table and was the short-stack of the remaining players. He had 10,000 out of more than 3 million and whilst extremely lucky to survive on five separate occasions he made one of the best lay-downs of all time. Holding K-J-J-4 and with a flop of K-K-7, HE BET AND PASSED TO AN ALL-IN RAISE. His opponent showed K-Q-3-3. Devilfish would go on to make the money. We played for more than two hours with 29 players when 27 would make the money and receive a highly satisfactory $16,000. During this time I was all-in twice.

Mr Channing gave me a wry smile when my J-J-10-9 outran a pair of Kings with a look that said how the hell have you got this far. He did, however, miss the champagne moment of the entire tournament. I had called a preflop raise with 10-10-9-8 and managed to get it all-in on a flop of J-J-10. My opponent reluctantly called with pocket Aces. I was so busy funking for ‘no Ace’ that it was a full three seconds before I realised that the turn Jack had probably ended my tournament on the bubble. The case 10 on the river though is literally the only time in my poker career that I have hit a one-outer to survive. Nice time to do it too. Devilfish was spot on when he said: "I bet that got the heart pumping!"

A few hands later and Mike Sexton was the bubble boy when his Aces were cruelly rivered by an opponent holding Kings.

Now in the money I didn’t relax my concentration but tried desperately to make my second WSOP final table. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Eric Lindgren knocked me out in 23rd, one place higher than my neighbour for two days solid, David Williams. Even then I was a bit unlucky because Eric hit running 6s to outdraw my made hand. Still, I really couldn’t complain. The money has long since gone but that collection of playing partners over two days will be hard to better. That’s the reward that lasts long into the future.

Until next time,

Warren Wooldridge

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