2008 WSOP, Day 42: Bubble Go Pop

Day 3 of the World Series of Poker Main Event was a unique one for me. I did work, though didn’t write a single post.

The remaining 1,307 players were all assigned seats in the Amazon Room, with the table breaking order predetermined to begin in the Red section, then proceed to Orange, then to Blue (though I don’t believe they got quite that far). I was assigned to cover the high numbers in the Red section, meaning my tables were going to be breaking first, and once they did, I’d be free to break on out of there myself.

Took just over an hour for my tables to empty, and indeed, all my field reporters and I did the entire time was to pass along to our colleagues the new seat assignments for our players. And just like that, we were done.

During the afternoon I ran over to the Palms for a brief session of limit hold’em, where I lost a little while watching the old guys all river their inside straights and diamond flushes. Was too tired, though, to really be into it, so I headed back to the home-away-from-home and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

I spent most of the night checking in from time to time to see the live reports, playing in a 6-max PLO tourney online as I did. This was a $5,00+0.50 rebuy tourney on Stars, with about 150 signing up. I’ve gone deep in a couple of these before, and was doing well again last night. I actually was able to avoid rebuying altogether, having built a modest stack early on. Got into the third hour of the thing with a slightly-above average stack when something particularly unfortunate happened.

I had about 25,000 chips. There were 42 players left. I was on the button where I was dealt . Not really a hand to get too excited about, but one player had limped and the blinds acting behind me hadn’t been too active. So I limped, too, and the four of us all paid the minimum to see the flop come . Pretty much the ideal flop for my hand, as I’d hit my straight and had redraws to a better one, too. Checked around to me and I bet 900 into the 1,200 pot. The blinds folded, and the remaining player called.

The turn was the . Nice. Now it was impossible for anyone to river a flush. It checked to me and this time I went ahead and bet 3,000, the size of the pot. I’m thinking he could have the straight as well, but a set is much more likely. When he just called, I figured he was hoping the board would pair.

So when the river brought the , I was pretty much done with the hand. My opponent quickly firing out a pot-sized bet of 9,000 confirmed my decision. Time to let it go.

Here is where that “something particularly unfortunate” took place. Although the laptop has one of those touchpads, I prefer to use a mouse. I also prefer to type in my bets rather than use the slider, so my left hand usually rests on or near the keyboard. As I reached for the mouse with my right hand, my left hand must’ve brushed over the touchpad on the laptop, and before I realized what happened I saw that instead of folding I had raised my opponent to 18,000! Somehow I’d dragged the cursor over the minimum raise button and had applied just enough pressure on the pad with my left hand to click it. My opponent (predictably) responded to my mistaken bet by shoving all in (he started the hand with just about the same number of chips as I’d had).

I stared with horror at what had happened for a moment. I had only 2,700 chips left. But I had to fold, so I did. I typed “lord a misclick” in the box as a way of explaining my absurd play. No one was offering any sympathetic responses.

I’d gone from 14th or so down to 42nd out of 42 with one friggin’ misclick. The cash bubble was still a short ways away (I think the tourney probably paid the top 18 or thereabouts), so I can’t technically claim that was my most expensive misclick ever. And really, I’d only paid the $5.50 for this one, so it wasn’t like I’d lost more money here. Even so, the top spots pay out several hundred in these things, and I genuinely felt like I was going to be there. (I lingered on a bit, doubling up once, but ended finishing 36th.)

Of course, my disappointment hardly rivals that of the many who played into the early evening of the Main Event yesterday only to miss out on the money. Sounded like an arduous stretch of hand for hand play, causing them all to stick around a little later than planned last night. They’ve actually moved up the start time today to 1 p.m., although that decision may be related both to their having gone late last night and WSOP officials’ desire to stretch the remainder of the tourney over for four more days.

Was very happy to see Iggy hang in there and make the money last night. And he’s still in! So I’ll get to see him when I head over today to help cover Day 4. Looks like 474 players remain, with the next 100 or so bustouts all landing in the $27,000-$28,000 range. Average stack size right now is around 288,000.

Should be an intense day. Am seeing a lot of familiar names in the list of remaining players, including Sean Sheikhan, Phil Hellmuth, Victor Ramdin, Mark Vos, Hoyt Corkins, Mike Matusow, Evelyn Ng, Allen Cunningham, Gus Hansen, Hevad Khan, Johnny Chan, PokerNews’ Tiffany Michelle, and the Two Plus Two Pokercast’s Adam Schwartz (among many others).

I imagine, though, we’re at the point where we will no longer be selecting players to follow, but will try to keep track of everyone. I hope that’s the case, anyhow.

Have no idea whether this will be my last day of reporting or I’ll be asked to help out anymore after today. (Even if I’m not, I’ll still keep reporting here on Hard-Boiled Poker from the last days of action.) Sort of like we’re all on the bubble here, taking it hand for hand. Waiting. Wondering. Hoping.

For now, though, do go over to PokerNews starting at 1 p.m. Vegas time (4 p.m. on the east coast) to follow along with today’s live reports.