Persevere
2007-06-14 13:07:58
By:
Gene Bromberg
One last note about Phil winning his 11th bracelet on Monday. If you think that winning a
poker tournament is all smooth sailing, that everything goes according to plan, you win every race, pick off every bluff...nah. There are ups and downs along the way, and sometimes there are so many downs early on you can't imagine making it to the next break, let alone to the final table.
Phil won the tournament on Monday--let me post something from the live updates of that tournament...that was written on Saturday:
Phil Hellmuth Dodges...Pocket Nines and Sevens
After two players limped into the pot Phil Hellmuth made it 1,600 to go. The player in the small blind moved all-in for his last 1,800 and one of the original limpers raised it up to 4,200. "I would normally lay this down," Hellmuth said, "but my wife and kids are in town." It looked like he was going to make the call...but then he said, "Nah, I'm too good a player to be playing this hand," and he mucked his A-Q.
The small blind turned over pocket Sevens and the re-raiser had pocket Nines. Phil wasn't too pleased to see those two hands because he was getting a good price with his A-Q, but the flop came 6-9-8 to give one player a set and the other an open-ended straight draw. A seven on the turn meant both poker players had sets and the possibility of a chop if the board made a straight, but the river was a deuce and the player with the pocket Nines won a big pot.
Phil currently has 1,300 chips.
If Phil had played that hand, if he'd gotten lazy or impatient or just plain bored, he wouldn't have won that 11th bracelet. He would've busted just a few hours in. He made the fold and lived to fight on.
And his situation actually got worse before it got better:
Phil Hellmuth Triples Up
Just before the break when, down to his last 475, he moved in with Qs-9s. He was called in two places but Hellmuth flopped a queen and the other players never caught up. Phil's still short, but he's also still alive.
Down to his last 475 chips, moving them all in with Queen-high, getting called in two places...not a good situation. But once he tripled up, once he survived that rough early patch, he began his inexhorable march to the final table...and that 11th bracelet.
"Once I got back to 3,000 chips I still wasn't safe," Phil said after he won, "but I was just gonna try to play the best I could play anyway. And the next thing you know I won a big pot and the very next pot I picked up two Tens. I doubled up again and I had (about) 14,000, and I know what to do once I get 14,000. And I steadily built it the rest of the day to 76,000.
"I came back on Day Two...boom boom, I doubled up. I picked up two big hands. I wasn't all-in since maybe four hours into Day One, so when you win them like that, it feels great."
The maxim "A chip and a chair" is more than a bit of folksy, down-home wisdom. It's how you have to approach the
poker game if you want to win a bracelet. Or, 11 bracelets.
Permalink:
http://www.ultimatebet.com/poker-blog-post/Persevere/1919
