$1500 H.O.R.S.E. Part One

Event 51 was hands down the one I was looking to most this WSOP. There were 3 H.O.R.S.E. events this year, but this was the only one that I could reasonably afford to play, as the other two had buy ins of $3k and $50K respectively. For all you non-poker nerds, H.O.R.S.E. is an acronym for Hold Em, Omaha eight or better, Razz, Seven card stud, and Stud Eight or better. In this particular tournament, you play eight hands of each game, and then switch to the next, and so on. What is great about these games is that you have to proficient in many different forms of poker, and they tend to be a better gauge of true poker skill, as opposed to NL Hold Em tourneys where you can basically run well for a while and take one down. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I used to play a ton of mixed games, and really felt like I would have an edge against the field in this tournament.

The night before the event, I decided to play in some single table satellites that the RIO runs throughout the WSOP. Basically, the way they work is that as soon as a table fills up (in the case of HORSE 8 players) a tourney starts, and you play down until there is one player remaining, who wins a seat into the next day's event. In this case, each player bought in for $215, and the winner gets a $1500 seat and $90 cash (the remaining cash is the casino's take). Although these are supposed to be winner-take-all, it is extremely common for players to make a deal, and split up the prize pool when it is down to 2 or 3 players. Anyway, out of the 3 that I played, I chopped one heads up, chopped one 3 ways, and took 4th in the final one, only after a pretty ridiculous Razz hand (although some may contend that all Razz hands are ridiculous). Although I whiffed on the final one, it was probably the most enjoyable poker I've played all series, as Steve Dannenmann and some other characters were at my table, so we had a blast.

Anyway, after playing so well and having made most of my buy in for the event, I was extremely confident. In fact, I really felt that there was no reason to not final table this event - I was just playing that well. When we started playing at about 5pm the next day, my confidence was bolstered even more, as most of the players at my table were pretty clueless. There were a few that were competent at some games at awful at others, a few that were awful at all of the games, and maybe one or two who seemed proficient in all of the games. The first few levels went pretty smoothly, and it wasn't until the Stud round in level 3 or 4 that I ran into trouble...