WSOP Event #34 No-Limit Hold'Em with Rebuys: The Usual Suspects

After the second break in the rebuy event, Barry Greenstein and Victor Ramdin came into the suite in pretty high spirits. I waved to them while I finished editing Swimming with Sharks, and Barry walked over.

"Hi Wil," he said, "how are you today?"

"I'm great," I said. "How are you doing in there?"

"I have about seven thousand in chips," he said.

"How much are you in for?"

"Five rebuys, plus the double add-on, so I'm in for about eight thousand."

"That's much more reasonable than the 48,000," I said. I didn't have to say who was responsible for the huge investment; everyone knows who I'm talking about.

He nodded, but didn't comment, and grabbed a soda on his way out.

Victor Ramdin, who is almost always smiling, I've noticed, came over with a bigger than usual smile on his face.

"Hi Victor," I said, "How's it going?"

"I'm off to a good start, man," he said. "I have eleven rebuys, but I have thirty thousand and I'm currently chip leader!"

I've noticed that my emotions rise and fall with the chip counts of the people I've come to know and like, just like they do with Otis, and I involuntarily jumped to my feet.

"That's great!" I said. I held up my fist and he hit it with his own.

"Well, it's a long walk," he said, "but I have a good start."

The same silent alarm that rang in their heads earlier went off again, and they headed out, followed by several other players.

A guy on the couch next to me said, "Did you hear that Negreanu put 48K into this event?"

"Yeah," I said.

"That's just nuts," he said.

"I am so glad someone else feels that way," I said.

I checked my watch, and saw that it was time for me to go to BLUFF Radio, to provide color commentary and what I hoped would pass for good insight and analysis on the final table of event 31, $2000 no-limit hold'em.

On my way down the hallway to the Amazon room, an older man, probably mid-sixties, walked toward me, and stopped me.

"You and I played together on Friday," he said.

"Right," I said, "in the two thousand no-limit."

He took an incredibly horrible beat from the guy who eventually busted me when he open-raised with pocket kings, and the big blind put him all in with ace king off. Of course he called, and the big blind spiked an ace on the river to bust him.

He was wearing a green cap with gold cursive lettering embroidered across the top that said Dad's Lucky Cap. I really, really, really miss my kids, and it touched me when I noticed it as he sat into our table, because it looked like something that one of his kids made for him at one of those stations in the mall. (In fact, when I recounted his bad beat to Otis over beers last night, I told him that I'd given him a name and a back story, and everything, and I was devastated when he was gone. Just like Stewie Griffin and the camel.)

When that ace came on the end, he stood up and said, "Goddammit!" and threw his hat onto the felt. He picked it up, wished us all good luck, and walked away. At the time, I felt that it was a perfectly reasonable reaction.

"I wanted to apologize to you," he said, "for my outburst when I was eliminated."

"Oh, man," I said, "you took a terrible bad beat! He hit a three-outer to beat you, and then he was a jerk about it when he won."

He was. He sneered at this guy with the same contempt he threw at me, but at least I'd earned it.

"No," he said, "it was inappropriate and uncalled for, and I shouldn't have lost control of myself."

I wanted so badly to tell him my history with pocket kings, and how John Vorhaus calls me Cowboy Wil as a result, but instead I said, "Well, your apology isn't needed or expected, but I accept it."

I extended my hand, and he took it in a firm grasp. While I shook it I said, "You are a gentleman, sir, in a place where there are few."

He thanked me, and we continued down the hall to our respective destinations.

Once I got to the radio, I watched a rather . . . interesting . . . final table. Two players were eliminated when I got there, so I spent two hours watching seven players who have no bracelets and relatively little collective experience (two of them are under 23), make some really great moves, and some really, really horrible ones that just baffled me. I won't give anything away, but you'll want to catch this one when it's on ESPN, where you'll learn that KJs is a monster hand.

When the final table went on dinner break, I came back to the suite, where I found out that Greg Raymer is currently the chip leader in the rebuy event after taking a monster pot. He has around 47000, while Victor is still in the top five with 27000.

Barry Greenstein came in and told me a great story while he was on his break, which is entirely worth its own entry.

Stay Tuned for more . . .

Today's reading:

Event #34: $1,000 NL Hold'em rebuy: Swimming with the sharks

Event #34: The Usual Suspects

Event #33: Nam Le and Emad Tahtouh nearing final table