The WPT Invitational - Part 3

Part 1 of this story is here, followed by Part 2...

The lobby outside the tournament room is quiet, if only for a short while. A couple people mill about, either grabbing food while everyone else plays or chats about how they've been busted out. Wil and I do both.

"I thought Amir was just trying to push me around."
"He was, he just happened to have cards. Odds were he was being a bully, you did the right thing going in. He could have had anything."
"I felt pretty good about my odds today..."
"...you should have, the way some of the celebs were playing. I'm telling you, you need to come to my buddy's home game."
"I told you, I'm not sitting at the same table as you." He laughs and I just shake my head.
"We'll see about that."

Wil might poison my Mountain Dew for talking about this, but Wil's a limit player through and through, and the biggest concern he had was preparing for a NL tournament, which is where I do the most damage. We had previously talked about changing gears during a tourney and switching from loose-weak to tight-weak, and then to tight-aggressive, etc. when the table situation called for it. From what I was watching, Wil was in a position to be aggressive at the other table, where his chipstack was one of the big ones and he could lead with hands like pocket pairs. Problem was when he was moved to Murderer's Row, that strategy didn't hold water anymore.

So, if I were Vince Van Patten with the hole card cam, I would say raising with 5's wasn't the greatest move in the world, but it was *far* from the worst. And once Amir re-raised him, Wil played it right. Just calling would have made him pot-committed, and he had a shot at Amir folding his bluff.

Andy Bloch is out. Wil and I chat and he apologizes for brushing me off earlier in the day. He was running really late and he actually didn't have a badge... he was lucky enough to have one from a previous WPT event and the guard let him in. We get to chat with Andy for a pretty decent amount of time, and the subjects range from the inaccuracy of Bringing Down the House to his 13th place finish in the LA Poker Classic.

"Yeah, that was tough," Andy said. "I was in the chip lead at the beginning of the day, and just lost a lot of pots. 100k here, 150k there...."
"Pretty soon it adds up to something, huh?" I add.
"Yeah, exactly."

Wil and I both petition Andy to get a screening of The Hot Shoe, a documentary he was in about card counting, to show in LA. Apparently it's already out on DVD, but it would still be cool to see it in a theater and watch Andy hold a Q&A. Card counting always held my interest, even before I played poker.

"I have the head for it, I think, but not the stomach," I tell Andy.
"After awhile, it becomes like anything else. You get good at it, you get comfortable, as long as you stay careful."
"Are you actually able to still play at some casinos?"
"Yeah, their facial recognition software isn't *that* good. Some places, they'll only remove you if you're really killing the table. Most places though, I don't go."

I shake my head in disbelief, since I had just finished reading Bringing Down the House the day before. Its tales of running from violent casino employee brutes and having their rooms broken into to have them removed... all still very fresh in my mind.

"Yeah, they didn't interview many people to write that book," Andy says. It's obvious he's not the happiest guy in the world with how it turned out. We encourage him to write a story of his own, maybe one in response.

"Yeah, I want to, I was starting to work on a screenplay but now they're making a movie out of the book too. What can you do?"

"Write it anyway," I said. "At least a book. I'd buy it." Andy laughs and Chris Ferguson walks over to take him away for a bit to speak to someone else. We shake hands and they depart. My efforts to speak to Jesus are 0 for 2, but I'm not too worried about it.

I keep looking at the clock. Wil's thinking about heading home so he can have dinner with his family. I'm not too eager to leave for a few thousand obvious reasons. The reason I keep giving, however, is traffic is still gonna be ugly, which is true at this hour. So, we mingle some more.

The next victim person we get to talk to is Greg Raymer, who's waiting around for his wife to join him. Amazingly nice guy. He wants Wil to come out to one of the next RGP gatherings.

"They'd love you, a lot of them are Star Trek guys."

Yeah, you might have been able to get him there before, but now I think you just killed your chances. Wil's face says it all.

"Yeah, I don't know if that kind of environment would be that fun," Wil says. He tells about a poker post he made awhile back about playing with his son and how it got linked on RPG.

"The letters I got from these people... telling me that I should never play poker and that I'm the worst player they've ever seen... just ruthless."

Greg's eyebrow does a scrunch like he's holding two black aces and 3 hearts just came on the board. "I don't know, I think overall it's a good group." You can tell he's being earnest, but I know extremely well how message boards work... all it takes is a few bad apples to ruin things online. When getting together in real life, it's a totally different story, however. Maybe going to the gathering would be fun, but it's not me that Greg's inviting. (Mental note: Sign up on the RPG boards after writing Part 3.)

We talk to Greg longer than anyone else that night, talking about blogs (he's read a few poker blogs including Iggy's), learning about a new poker game called "Chow-maha" (I'm sure I've mangled the spelling) and how Wil and Raymer both think Lee Jones is a swell guy. Greg asks why we both dont' play PokerStars online, and we both have our reasons, though one overlaps:

"Greg, the games are just too good," Wil says. "Lee went out of his way to make it compatible for Linux, but I tried it, and I just get killed."

I shake my head in support. "I'd rather pick on the fish," I say. Greg can't seem to argue that point.

Greg's wife shows up along with their friend, and they're both wonderful ladies. Greg's wife is really interested in chatting, and our writing comes up. We talk about writing and aspirations, I joke about trying to improve my writing skills.

"God, I've been writing a blog for how long, 4 years?" Wil nods. "Wil, how many words would you suppose that is?"

"I dunno, this many?" He holds his hands out like trying to describe a fish.
"Well, what, are you assuming about this high?" I put my hand out above the imaginary stack, trying to get a guage for this invisible stack of verbosity.
"Well, wait, are we talking single spaced or double spaced?"

If I could make my own Improv All-stars team, Wil Wheaton would be on it.

After saying our goodbyes to Greg and Co. (and exchanging business cards all around once again), we decide to take one last look in the tournament room before leaving.

The field has thinned to 90, and we're trying to see if who we're rooting for is still in. Ferguson is still in, as is Tom Everett Scott and Mena Suvari. Mark Seif is *screaming* at a turn card to help him out during an all-in, and I think he wins it.

Erick Lingren is out. I saw him last week during the LAPC and exhanged a few words, and he recognizes me. I've been wondering if he's going to defend his PPM title, and he's not sure. But right now, he is on the rails like everyone else.

Wil and I linger for an extra second, and he points out Shana Hiatt off on the side. She's looking amazingly beautiful. Like, your feet start getting impulses to walk in that direction. But I quickly bolt them to the floor.

Picture the scene in High Fidelity when John Cusack and co. are watching Lisa Bonet sing, the awed looks and hushed speaking tones. That's Wil and I at this moment. I have to shake my head like something needs to be removed.

"What?" Wil asks.
"As a gift for going on the cruise, one of my buddies sent me the Playboy video of her. You try looking at her with that not popping into your head."
Wil laughs hard and offers no sympathy.
"I guess mission accomplished," I add. I hate my friend right now. You know who you are.

The thoughts to leave are growing now, and I think we try at a couple points. Negreanu delays us for a minute, as he walks by again and I get to chat for a few more seconds, finding out he went out with 85o. Man, whoever this Negreanu guy is, he must suck at poker.

Then, a crew member walks over to Wil and talks for a bit, and then leans in quietly.

"Ray Romano and Jon Favreau want to get a cash NL game going downstairs, do you want in?"

Our eyes grow to the size of 100 dollar chips.

To be continued.... Part 4!