Different attitudes

In my first World Series of Poker (WSOP) diary for this year, I was honest that the first half of my trip was totally unsuccessful at the table, without a single cash. I’m seasoned enough to know that these periods of run bad are part of the deal, and to keep my head when they come, and just keep plugging away. Luckily for me, my wife is similarly understanding: when I relayed my results to date, she responded with one word:

“Happens.”

My view has always been that we are pattern-seeking monkeys, living in a random universe governed by the laws of probability and statistics. We hate this reality.? In an attempt to understand and cope with the world in which they found themselves, our ancestors looked for patterns and narratives to impose on the random data that presented, and our brains still work that way. Sometimes the patterns are meaningful and add to our understanding of the world (day and night, seasons, symptoms pointing to illness), but sometimes they don’t (superstition, gamblers fallacy, all manner of cognitive biases, and magical thinking in all its forms). We look for explanations as to why we are running bad, and we pick out patterns like “my Kings keep getting cracked” or “that’s my unlucky dealer or shirt.” There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this beyond it maybe being a waste of brain power, and if it soothes us in the face of uncaring randomness and keeps us going it may even be helpful for some, but if it causes us to start playing differently, and worse, then it’s unhelpful. You don’t want to be afraid to make the correct play with Kings the next time you are dealt them just because you remember all the times they got cracked, or to fold Aces preflop because your unlucky dealer dealt them to you and you’re convinced they’ll get cracked again.

my attitude is that I’m still exactly the same odds to win the next one as if I’d won the last ten

In the same way that believers often wonder how atheists can be at peace with the idea that there’s no God and no after life, the pattern-seekers often wonder how the likes of me can make peace with the idea that cards have no memory, that it’s all random, and there’s nothing we can do to change or control that randomness. In truth, I find it oddly comforting. The way I see it, there’s no such thing as running bad, except when looking back at what just happened (so much analysis and commentary on sports is fitting narratives to random data after the event), and knowing that what just happened has no bearing on what will happen unless you allow it to. You can look back on a bad series of outcomes and characterise it as running bad, but you should always be looking forward in poker. To someone who thinks past results may affect or continue into the future, losing ten flips in a row is all the more distressing because they think it may continue to 15, or 20, or beyond. Not knowing what the final tally of misfortune will be just adds to their distress, whereas if I have even noticed that it’s ten in a row, my attitude is that I’m still exactly the same odds to win the next one as if I’d won the last ten.

Another reason I’m glad I’m not in the other camp on this is that if I were, I’d probably now believe David Lappin was my own personal lucky mascot. And trust me, nobody wants Lappin in that role. The fact remains though that, looking back, my luck seemed to change the moment Lappin touched down in Las Vegas. I went from not being able to win an all in or cash a tournament to racking up six cashes in the second half of the trip, rooming with Lappin.

Tackling the Main

I did not, however, manage to break the most frustrating duck of my career, the WSOP Main Event. I’ve had many tilting bust-outs from that down the years, and this one was right up there, but it is what it is and I took comfort from the fact that I doubt there’s a player in the world who could have got closer to cashing than I did given the prolonged period of card death, running way below EV in all ins, and being on the wrong side of nearly all the coolers.

My Day 1 table was, to put it succinctly, horrendous: the worst I’ve ever been at. It was also by far the toughest of the 12 different tables I found myself at in this year’s Main Event. I actually made a very good start, racing from 60k starting to 72k in the first twenty minutes, and the pattern seeking monkey that lurks even in my most rational of brains was whispering: “This is the year you bag up big.” The table featured former Main Event final tableist and commentator Jesse Sylvia, Aussie online beast Random Chu, top English pro Rob Sherwood, a very good Canadian kid, and a solid Frenchman. Even the recreationals were way above average, to the point I started to wonder if the Main Event was really as soft as I and everyone else seems to think. A quick glance around at the nearby tables reassured me it still was.

When I met Jesse Sylvia (who did bag up big but ended up busting before me, again making me wonder if playing an entire long day one is the best use of my time when you can just come in with 60 big blinds four hours into Day 2) a couple of days later, he commented on how bad I seemed to run on Day 1 and commended me for keeping my composure and discipline to stage a rally in the last level from 20k back to almost starting stack.

I spent an hour folding absolute junk, interspersed with the occasional light open, which rarely worked out

Day 2 was equally swingy and frustrating but at least I managed to edge past starting stack by the end of the day. Day 3 was one of the most frustrating days of my career. After doubling my stack in instalments early, I was moved to a table that initially looked amazing (I recognised nobody, and they were mostly talking about slots), with the bubble only a couple of hours away. Unfortunately, as good as the table was, it was not one you could prosper at by making people fold. Had I picked up a rush over cards or made a lot of hands I feel I could have kicked on, but instead I spent an hour folding absolute junk, interspersed with the occasional light open, which rarely worked out. That means I dwindled back to just over starting stack, 100 from the money, good for eleven big blinds at that point. With the table talk moving from slots to my perceived tightness (when the lady at the table remarked “I’d hate to pick up Kings when you have shoved”), it seemed like a good time to widen my range, but in the end I never got the chance. Very next hand I picked up Queens in the hijack, and wagered all my chips. When I got snap called by the button I thought I was probably not ahead given the recent table talk, but was instead surprised to see my opponent table Ace-Queen like it was the nuts. I probably shouldn’t have been too surprised as he was the one guy at the table far more interested in keeping the beers he was double-fisting flowing than game flow or table talk. Even after seeing my hand my opponent remained confident, predicting an Ace would appear, and wishing me “good game.” He wasn’t wrong: an Ace was the first card to appear, flipping me from strong favourite to one out, which didn’t come, and that was the end of my latest WSOP Main Event.

I’m not going to lie, it stung, as I walked away, but somehow it stung far less than in previous years, for a couple of reasons. First, a phrase I heard a lot from my fellow pros this year and repeated a lot myself: it’s just another tournament. It might be the biggest and most prestigious live tournament in the world (actually there’s no might about it: it clearly is), but… it’s still just another tournament. As such, the fate of everyone in it, both winners and losers, will still boil down primarily to their luck in the event. More good players will cash than should, and certainly more will go deep and onto the final table (it was noteworthy that four elite online regs made the final table), but the best player in the field is still odds against to even cash, and the worst player in the field isn’t drawing dead to get into the money (and may not even be drawing dead to win the whole thing).

The second reason I didn’t feel too bad was I genuinely felt I’d given it my very best shot. I’d done my job as a professional, and I doubt anyone else could have done better with the cards and situations I was faced with. I gave myself every chance to run good, but ultimately didn’t.

In my next blog, I’ll conclude my look back at this year’s WSOP, and look forward, because as I said earlier, in poker you should always look forward.