This is the second half of the patri-l email I sent about my first poker tournament:

To: patri-l
From: patri@izzy.com (Patri Friedman)
Subject: poker adventures
Date: November, 1998

I think thats all the background you need.

So I've been playing 3 weeks, a total of 50 hours, of 2$-4$ and 3$-6$
limit holdem. I've just ordered a bunch of books on tournament play, but
they haven't arrived yet. I've finished my midterms, and decide to drive
down to LA to visit my girlfriend wednesday evening, and stay for the
weekend. She has a lot of work to do, and tells me she'll be busy most of
thursday evening. I happen to be paging through a poker magazine on
tuesday or wednesday, and notice that there is going to be a big weeklong
series of poker tournaments in LA from thursday through next friday.
Hmm. That could be fun. I've never played no-limit or a tournament
before, and its where a lot of the prestige and big money is. I don't
have a chance, of course, but what the hell, I'm sure I'll learn a lot.

So I drive to LA, and on thursday afternoon I head to the Radisson
Crystal Park Hotel & Casino ("LA's only hotel and casino!"). It is in
Compton, but just of the freeway. As I'm driving along at dusk, just as I
see the "Welcome to Compton" sign, the sun does its last dive over the
horizon and the world darkens noticeably - the kind of perfect artistic
moment I live for. Shortly thereafter I arrive at the casino, and
register for the tournament. The entrance fee is $120, with two $100
rebuys. What a rebuy is, is that during the first hour and a half of the
tournament, if you go bust, you can buy back in. Sort of dumb, but at
least you don't have to pay $120 to play for 20 minutes (instead you can
pay $320 to play for 2 hours...thats a little better, i guess). And even
if you are still in the game, you can re-buy just to get more chips.
Basically, most people got the re-buys, because you started with 500 in
chips, and the re-buys got you 800 more each. So really, you were paying
320$ for 2100 in chips, except that you could go all-in and lose twice in
the first hour and not have to leave yet. The prize pool is a guaranteed
$40,000, and with the number of entries ends up being a little over 50K.

Anyway, the tournament doesn't start for an hour, so I get a seat in a 3-6
game. The guy to the dealers left is obnoxious, tipsy, and a complete
jerk. Happy (but still a jerk) when winning, unhappy and a total asshole
when losing. Not only is he hitting on the dealers, but he starts
squeezing the arm of a female dealer, saying that maybe he can squeeze
some good cards out of her. I dunno why she didn't call security on this
fuckhead, but she tolerated it well (too well, in my opinion), and he
eventually backed off. Jesus, I wanted to take all of this fuckers money,
or beat the shit out of him, but i'm not good enough for the first and he
didn't go outside so I couldn't accomplish the second. Oh well. I played
for 45 minutes without winning a pot and lost 53.50, and then it was time
for the tournament, so I proudly cashed out the $6.50 in chips I had left,
and headed to my tournament seat.

The tournament was in a side room, so they could keep some of the
riff-raff out. I took my seat, and other players began to join the table.
The woman with sunglasses across the table looked frighteningly familiar.
Haven't I seen her somewhere? Maybe that discovery channel show on high
stakes gambling and poker? That isn't...

"Hey Barbara!" says a player, sitting down.

Yep, it is. Barbara Enright, who has won an event at the World Series.
Great. She turns out to be nice, and we strike a minor deal, as you'll
hear.

So we start playing, and I carefully watch everyone else, trying to figure
out how to play this strange new game. I mean, I haven't even read a
summary chapter on no-limit, I don't know what starting hands i'm supposed
to play, I dunno nothin. I listen to every scrap of conversation
discussing the hands, and start to figure it out. High pairs are good,
and ace+king, ace+queen are good. king+queen and ace+jack and medium
pairs are ok but risky to go all-in with. thats about it. Wow. There is
no such thing as just "calling" bets, unless you are the last to act (that
is, if you call, noone has a chance to raise you). Either you fold, or
you got something good, so you make it serious money (that way you win if
they fold and give you the pot uncontested, and if they call, you have a
good chance at winning anyway). You also don't raise a small amount (say,
doubling a small bet). You either raise enough to force everyone who
isn't serious out, or you fold.

Listening to the chatter also reveals the presence of the minor criminal element.
The guy sitting next to me spots a woman coming in, gets up, walks over to her,
and says "Hey, do you need any leather jackets". "Yeah, sure, what
colors?" "Brown and black". "Great, you got them here?". "Yeah, not all
of them, but I have a bunch, out in my car." "Great, we'll talk later."

Business as usual for LA, I guess. Jesus, some of these people were
seedy. Fortunately no-limit is a cruel and unforgiving game, and their
presence dwindled away as the night went on.

Barbara doesn't have enough money on her for the rebuys, and none of her
friends have extra either, so I conceive of an idea. I offer to lend her
the money if she will exchange 5% shares with m. So if one of us places
in the money, the other gets 5%. This seems a good trade to make with a
world champion. She agrees.

Fairly early in the game, I have a pair of threes, and get to see the flop
(first three community cards) cheaply (i was close to last to act). A 3
comes, and now I have three of a kind, a very strong hand. THe flop is
ace-three-four. Hmm, a possible straight in low-limit, but noone in
no-limit is going to do anything but fold a two and a five...I hope. The
world champion across from me goes all in. I hesitate, and call. The
turn is a 5 and the river a 2. The 5 cards in the middle are a straight.
We flip over our cards, and she just had an ace in her hand to make a

pair of aces, while I had three
of a kind. I had her beat the whole time, but it doesn't matter, the best
5 cards out of my 7 and the best 5 cards out of her 7 are the same 5 cards
- the A-2-3-4-5 straight. Oh well. We split the antes and small bets
that other players made before the big action, and pull our stacks back.

A while later, we go all in again against each other again. We both flip
over ace-queen. The only way one of us will win is if a flush comes. 4
of the 5 cards are clubs, but neither of us has a club to complete the
flush, and we split the pot again, ("chop-chop", in poker terminology)

So the game continues without any big moves on my part. I make the two
re-buys without busting out, just to get more chips, and we finish the
first three half-hour rounds and get a break. I get some advil, because I
am really tired and have a pounding headache, and I buy Barbara some Gummi
Sour Worms, because the line at the gift shop is long.

After fifteen minutes, the tournament continues. Play goes steadily on.
I make a couple big moves and have a lot of chips for a little while, but
don't manage to take advantage of that. When you have a lot of chips, you
can really pressure people, because you can make a bet that is medium for
you but big for them, and they either have to concede the pot or put
everything on the line. But I didn't have the experience to do that.

We play for another hour and half, and I have a small to medium stack of
chips. Players are starting to bust out steadily, and tables get
split up occasionally to fill the empty seats at other tables. We have
another break. The antes have been increasing steadily. I am delighted
to have lasted this long. We play for another hour and a half. I don't
ever make any big scores, but I win just often enough to keep steady and
ahead of the antes. At least half of the players have busted out now, and
many of the remaining players have lots more chips than me, like 3-5 times
as many. Still, big stacks bust out just as fast as medium stacks when
they dare to go all in, and the number of players continuous to decrease
steadily.

I am playing carefully, wanting to get as far as possible. I don't have
enough chips to be a serious power, but my goal is just to somehow make
it to the final 2 tables and be in the money, so I play as carefully as I
can, which in no-limit isn't saying much - a small stack basically HAS to
go all in when it wants to win any money, and although the opponents often
fold, conceding you the pot, they sometimes don't, and even if they do,
you are sticking it all out there.

Another break comes, and when we get back and sit down, they announce that
only 50 players are left. Wow! Top quarter! I am pretty happy. The
playing area is contracting towards the center of the room, and observers
are beginning to appear around the perimeter of the now-shrunken arena.

I continue to play carefully. Other players continue to bust. I continue
to survive. We are down to 4 tables. 28 players. Half of them will be
in the money. They shuffle the tables around. I am now sitting at a
table with two notable people.

Let me take a brief moment to explain what chic is in poker. Fashion
consists of the following accessories:

1) Sunglasses. That way they can't see your eyes, or read your thoughts.
Plus, you look really cool.

2) Hat. That way you pull the brim down so they can't even see your
shades, which might let them read your thoughts or sense the vibration of
your pulse. Plus, you look really cool.

3) walkman and headphones. Preferably with music loud enough that other
people can hear it, and sometimes (I suspect), with no music turned on at
all. It keeps you calm during the intense moments, and un-bored during
the long stretches when you fold every hand cuz none are good enough.
Plus, you look really cool.

With these key accessories, you appear isolated from the turbulant ebbs
and flows of the intense game, hiding behind your wall of sound and
vision. You look controlled, poised, and, to use the simplest and most
effective language, like a total bad-ass. This is poker fashion.

I had a hat, but I left my sunglasses in the car because I figured it
would be pretentious for someone who has never played no-limit before.
And I certainly didn't have a walkman, since for the first few hours I was
listening intently to the conversation so I could figure out how the hell
this game was played.

Well, when we were down to 28 people and 4 tables, there were two
"bad-asses" at my table. A guy named Johnny had lots and lots of chips.
He was young (~23) and asian (both also very fashionable in poker,
although more difficult to purchase at the mall than the other accessories
I mentioned), and had sunglasses and a baseball hat but no walkman. He
was poised, he was calm, he was controlled.

The other was young (~25), hispanic, and female. She had sunglasses and a
loud walkman but no hat. She had a low cut shirt, hinting at a
fine body underneath. And even more attractive at a poker table than
irrelevant physical attributes like breasts, she had a huge mountain of
chips in front of her. Not just lots of the higher denomination chips,
but towering stacks of smaller chips as well.

We played for a while. I am running out of chips and getting desperate,
and I get a small pair and get to see the flop relatively cheaply, and a
third came, giving me three of a kind. I go all-in. Johnny, thank god,
calls, and I more than double my stack (thanks to the antes). A while
later, with some big bets in, the cute girl, who has been folding and
folding, waiting for a big hand, goes all in. Johnny calls. The two big
stacks are colliding, and the tension level goes up sharply. She has two
kings (the second best hand, probabilistically, I believe). He has an ace
and a king. If an ace comes, he wins. It does. She is busted out, and
he now has a colossal number of chips. Everyone releases their held
breaths, and the game goes on.

A young, timid looking woman to my left is almost out of chips and goes
all-in several times. She has good but not great hands each time, and
wins (approximately doubling her stack) each time. Suddenly, in the space
of half an hour, she has amassed a sizeable stack, second only to johnny.
She has a funny bracelet on her right wrist that I don't recognize. The
guy to my right points it out. Its a WSOP winner bracelet. She notices
us looking at it, and says in a sort of deprecating voice "women's 7-card
stud". While that is not as impressive as doing well in the championship
event (there are many more male than female poker players, so the pool of
people for female tournaments is much smaller, so one would expect to not
have to be quite as good), it is still way, way, way above my level, and I
am quite impressed.

Barbara, by the way, busted out somewhere around 40-60 people, I think.
Guess that 5% didn't do me any good. Still, it was fun.

We continue to play, and people play very carefully, wanting to make it to
the money. Still, this is a game that calls for calculated agression, and
people bust out occasionally. The number of remaining players drops
towards the money. 22. "We need to lose 4 more players" is announced.
21 "We need to lose 3 more players." 20. 19. "Alright everyone, take a
break and we'll come back for the final two tables. Everyone left is in
the money."

YES!!!! I am grinning ear to ear. I admit to the players i've been
chatting with that this is my first time playing no-limit (which I hadn't
admitted before, but they may have guessed :) ). Wow. I am happy. I
take a look at the stacks left. I have the second fewest chips. Copies of
the money breakdown chart start to circulate. I am gauranteed at least
$515 now, which is $200 more than my entrance fee. Places 12-18 get $515,
10-11 get $645, then the final table of 9 gets at least a grand each.
The top 4 or so will get the big money (5K or more).

So we take a break, and then get back to the game. The two tables play
"hand for hand", each waiting until both have finished a hand to start
the next, so that the same number of hands are played at both tables. I
am playing cautiously, but I have a small stack, and the antes start to
hurt. I go all in against the woman with the WSOP bracelet with a pair
of 7's, and flop a set and turn a full house (flop comes like 6-7-x, turn
is another 6), which is overkill in no-limit and more than enough to
double me back to a safe size. Other players start to take risks as well,
although it is desirable to be careful and let other people go out, you
have to make your move sometime, or you'll get ante'd away, and if the
good cards come, you gotta go with it.

Other people slowly bust out, and we get down to 11 players and an extra
hundred bucks now. Just two more people need to leave for the prestigious
and lucrative final table to form. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

I am getting desperate again, I have about 8000 in chips and the forced
bets, which are about to hit me, are 2500/1500, so if I don't play any of
the next three hands I will be down to 3000, and not able to double back
up very far. I have a king and a jack. Not a great hand, but better than
I figure any of the next two will be, so I go all in. I'm called by
a big stack with an ace and a low card. The flop has an ace, and while
the turn brings a jack, two aces beat two jacks, and I am out, in 11th
place.

I stand up happy, and go over to the cashier to get my prize. I am
completely exhausted, its 3am, i hadn't slept much the night before, but I
am ecstatic. I get a huge cup of coffee, and suck it down while watching
a little more of the tournament. Nothing exciting happens, and i finish
my coffee and head back, $325 richer for the experience, and with the sure
knowledge that I am going to be playing lots, lots, more no-limit holdem.

What a game. How can people play limit? It seems so dull in comparison.
No-limit is where its at. Pure adrenaline, calculated agression, the big
guy and the underdog, and putting everything on the line. I'm addicted
already.

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