WSOP wrap-up and response to Jarred Solomon

The 2012 WSOP has come and gone. I almost wrote, "all too quickly", but of course this is with the hindsight that comes a week after busting the main event. When the WSOP is going on, it's a tough grind that you're always looking towards the end of; when it isn't, it's fun and you miss it. This year even more so for me, as I surely logged more hours than I had in any other WSOP to date.

Although frustrating at times, I went deep enough in enough events to make this year more fun than tilting. I built some stacks and had legitimate shots at a number of events, especially the $1500 NL where I finished 20th and the $2500 6-max LHE where I finished 7th. My enjoyment of the game was definitely renewed by this year's WSOP, the pursuit (as it were) of the cashes record kept me motivated and playing, and of course the camaraderie is always the best.

On that last note, I am saddened by the thought that it may be the last year together for our house. Matt announced his retirement as a pro via Twitter and will be focusing on grad school, Jerrod is already in grad school, Gavin played a very light schedule and wasn't in Vegas much, and another of our anonymous housemates has told us he doesn't plan on coming out for 2013. Jimmy quit, Jody got married. As for me, I definitely plan to play the 2013 WSOP, but it won't be the same with our big happy house, BBQ parties, late night In-N-Out runs, speed chess/Chinese poker mixed games, jiujitsu challenges, pelting Bill with water balloons, watermelon violence, and Apples-to-Apples hi/low behind us.

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With that covered, I get to the business on which I'm a week overdue. In the blog world that might as well be a year, but as covered before, I had a good excuse. I guess the easiest way to respond to Jarred Solomon's post is to take it one statement at a time. I admit I was pretty surprised when I woke up in the morning to see this post. While I do appreciate that Jarred was critical in a very respectful way, I thought he was pretty off with respect to his analysis of my mindset, but it did make me question the perception that I may have given my blog/Twitter-following public.

Jarred's criticism begins accordingly:

You build something up so that if it comes to fruition you get to experienced an almost enhanced glory,but if things dont work out you simply play it down.In the early/middle stages of the series,you made it clear that the 'cash record' was a big goal for you,and something you were actively pursuing.

I am very confused as to where I ever would have suggested that the cash record was a big goal. It was never even a goal. I'd be very surprised if there was a single tweet that even implied that it was a big goal. Certainly I can't see anything in my original blog post that even suggests this at all. The cashes record was never something I was ever in pursuit of, and I would like to know where this idea comes from.

Continuing:

All of a sudden it's somewhat out of reach and now it's a nit record,and not one that anyone good respects.You even go as far as to say "it's not a record i'd be particularly proud to have". 

It should be noted that at the time of the post that Jarred is referencing, the record was not out of reach. At the time, Puchkov had 10 cashes and I had 9, and both of us were still in the last 1k event. He could have missed and I could have cashed that and the main event to overtake him, so I was still very much in reach of the record at the time of writing.

Whether this is true or not,it clearly wasn't your view when you were leading the cashes tally,or when you folded to three quarters of a blind in the PLO 8 tourney.

For the first part of this statement, see above. For the second part, folding to 3/4 of a BB in the PLO8, that was simply correct, and I knew it. I lost an all-in at the end of Day 1 of that event and left myself with just 8500 in chips to end the day. Since we were 30 off the money, I went home and asked my housemate Jerrod Ankenman what hands I should be playing at this point. Jerrod might more knowledgeable than anyone on the planet when it comes to the intersection of PLO8 hot-and-cold equities and ICM. He felt that while there was a chance I might need to double up, if it looked like people were busting quickly then I should probably only play AA with a wheel card and A2Kx and that arguably even these would not be playable hands (from an ICM, not cEV perspective of course) if there were already multiple people in the pot. I wasn't happy to have to play this way, but if the person you respect the most about this topic tells you that's what you have to do, then it seems foolish not to listen, bruised ego or not.

You doing the same thing with this 1k tourney and your grappling competition.You're going to try your heart out in the tourney,if you bust,you and everyone forgets about it and focuses on the grappling comp.And vice versa if you make day 3.With regards to the grappling,if you do well you're a hero for doing so without much training,but if you don't do well I'm sure you'll highlight the condition you're in and your lack of training(like you have already).

Maybe this happened in this grappling tournament, but I think I was just really telling the truth. If you've followed my MMA career at all (and I don't really expect people to, but if you're going to be critical about my comments on one match then you should at least check the previous ones) then you'll know I usually say pretty much how I'm feeling before the match. When I made my MMA debut last September, I was recovering from the most debilitating injury of my career, a rib injury that two weeks before the fight meant I couldn't even sneeze without pain. This is what I wrote in the blog entry a week before the fight:

On Saturday, September 17, I'm going to win violently and decisively. End of story.

That doesn't sound like something I'd write if I were trying to make myself to be "a hero". I wrote it because that's how I felt about that fight. Maybe I'm not honest with myself or my audience 100% of the time, and I don't know if anyone truly is, but I try to let the words on this blog be reflective of how I'm feeling about the topic. I'm not trying to be disingenuous or make myself out to be a hero.

What I suppose I could take out of this not that I shouldn't try to temper the expectations of my audience, but rather myself. Perhaps if there is a lesson to be gained, it's that I should go into anything I compete in with the mentality that I will win it. But having played poker -- a game where one can be perfect and still lose with regularity -- for as long as I have, it is hard to bring that sort of mentality to the forefront in other arenas. But maybe if there is something to take from this line of criticism, it is that.

Moving forward again:

I probably wouldn't have gone on this rant if you'd simply acknowledged Konstantin Puchkov in a bigger way.Not only did the guy tie the record,but he got a couple big results,unlike you and Joe who's resume was comprised mainly of min cashes.

I'm surprised you would feel it is important for me to acknowledge Puchkov's results in my blog. I've never played with the guy, and have spoken to very few people who have, so I really can't have any intelligent comment on how well he plays. That is why I neither disparage nor acknowledge him. I am not putting down "his" accomplishment when I say the cashes record is "sort of a nit record"; I'm simply saying that's how most poker pros will feel about it. And yes, it is true that Puchkov cashed for either me or Tehan, but again, I don't see why this is important with respect to the discussion at hand.

What makes it even more admirable is that he got it idone quietly,while you and Tehan were boasting about your tally at every opportunity you got.The guy may not look like a shark,but he's a great white,and has earned my respect in a big way.

"Boasting" is a word that I am, again, very surprised to see with regards to my referencing of the record. Again, please find a tweet or blog comment where I boast. The only thing I can think of that might be construed as a brag was this (obvious joke) tweet after Jesse Martin briefly tied me for the cashes lead (a fact that I wouldn't have known had it not been for Nolan Dalla telling me in the Amazon Room) and I re-took the lead. (For what it's worth, Jesse thought it was funny.)

I'm glad you think Konstantin Puchkov is a great player. I wouldn't know, but I'm happy to hear it if it is the case. I'm happy that the record is held by someone who other poker pros can hold in high esteem. (It is generally not the classiest thing to speak ill of the deceased, but from what I heard of people who played with Nikolai Evdakov, he was unpleasant to play against specifically because he was constantly playing very slowly in order to cash.) And even if I don't feel the cashes record is something to be pursued or necessarily held in high esteem, I congratulate Puchkov on his eleven cashes, as many have congratulated me on my ten.

Hopefully that puts that particular issue to bed; in any case, it is all I have to say on the topic for now. Further comments welcome as always.

Jarred Solomon responds to my post

I woke up this morning to see that poker pro Jarred Solomon (who himself has eight WSOP cashes in 2012) had responded in the comments section of my post last Monday, in which I discussed my pursuit of the single-season WSOP cashes record. I don't have time to respond immediately, but the comment is clearly thoughtful and and I don't want to simply ignore it or have it buried in the comments, so I am promoting it to its own post here.

Hey Terrence

I want to start off by saying what a big fan I am of you.Both the way you play the game and the way you are with social media.Your tweets are always witty and entertaining.Most of all,I love how you have such good balance in your life(the martial arts,nutrition,active blogging).I feel it's something that's fundamental and extremely rare in the lifestyle of the modern day poker professional.

I do however have a small grievance with you.You have this knack of 'covering yourself' for lack of a better term.You build something up so that if it comes to fruition you get to experienced an almost enhanced glory,but if things dont work out you simply play it down.In the early/middle stages of the series,you made it clear that the 'cash record' was a big goal for you,and something you were actively pursuing.All of a sudden it's somewhat out of reach and now it's a nit record,and not one that anyone good respects.You even go as far as to say "it's not a record i'd be particularly proud to have". Whether this is true or not,it clearly wasn't your view when you were leading the cashes tally,or when you folded to three quarters of a blind in the PLO 8 tourney.

You doing the same thing with this 1k tourney and your grappling competition.You're going to try your heart out in the tourney,if you bust,you and everyone forgets about it and focuses on the grappling comp.And vice versa if you make day 3.With regards to the grappling,if you do well you're a hero for doing so without much training,but if you don't do well I'm sure you'll highlight the condition you're in and your lack of training(like you have already).I know I'm somewhat clutching at straws,I'm just trying to emphasize my point from the above paragraph.

I probably wouldn't have gone on this rant if you'd simply acknowledged Konstantin Puchkov in a bigger way.Not only did the guy tie the record,but he got a couple big results,unlike you and Joe who's resume was comprised mainly of min cashes.What makes it even more admirable is that he got it idone quietly,while you and Tehan were boasting about your tally at every opportunity you got.The guy may not look like a shark,but he's a great white,and has earned my respect in a big way.

Good luck for the main event and the grappling comp,will be rooting for you...

Regards

Jarred Solomon

I plan to respond to this post this weekend, but curious what others think. Does Jarred have a valid point?

a fast fast - 60 hours without food

Since the WSOP began, I've trained jiujitsu five times, and taken three Muay Thai lessons. Eight sessions of training is usually a week for me, but instead it's constituted my last five weeks here in Las Vegas. Last Friday, after frustratingly busting out from Day 2 of the 5k NL tournament, I went over to Cobra Kai Jiujitsu here in Las Vegas for a pair of classes. I got whooped on, as one would expect. I had been planning to attend the Grapplers Quest tournament here in Las Vegas, but given my performance I was starting to reconsider. Then J.C. Alvarado, another poker pro who has taken up grappling and MMA, tweeted at me and said that despite his inexperience, he would be willing to compete. Well, I figured if J.C. was willing to sack up and compete, then I could too.

The problem, of course, is that I haven't been training. Not only that, I've been playing poker, sitting for hours on end, eating poorly, sleeping worse, and just generally getting fat and out of shape. On Monday the 2nd, I bought a new battery for the scale and checked in at 138 lbs, needing to get down to 129.9 lbs on what would be today, Thursday the 5th. So starting on Monday, I went zero-carb, and had my last real meal on Tuesday morning: a big, greasy mess of bacon, eggs, and avocado. I basically haven't eaten since that Tuesday breakfast. I'm a voracious eater, so I had assumed that going 60 hours without eating would be pretty miserable and questioned whether I should even do it.

Fasting is something that I have always meant to do but never gotten around to doing. I've adopted a paleo-type lifestyle for a while now, and (mostly) adopted protocols with respect to nutrition, sleep, activity levels and so forth, but one thing I have never really felt strong enough to do was fast. I've always been scared to do it because I know that in the past I have been, quite frankly, a short-tempered asshole when I'm hungry. And I'm frequently hungry. Like 99% of the first-world population, I have grown accustomed to food-on-demand. I have often raided the fridge out of boredom, or simply eaten because the clock -- not my stomach -- has dictated that it is mealtime. I'm a very physically active person 11 months out of the year and so despite my size, I burn and consume a lot of calories. The thought of even going 24 hours without food had always terrified me.

But I'm now past the 48-hour mark, and it's not so bad. Yes, I'm hungry right now. But it's merely "hungry", not "starving" or "famished" or "dying".  My body has accepted that it's not going to get some convenient external source of glucose but that instead it will have to use up this body fat to fuel the systems. I played an entire day of poker (well, 8.5 levels anyway) yesterday and for the most part felt very mentally sharp. I thought about food only occasionally, whereas if you would have told me I would play a poker tournament after having not eaten for a day I would have guessed that the thought of food would be all-consuming. I was in a good mood most of the day and am in a perfectly good mood now, although I imagine as tonight's 6 PM weigh-in approaches I'll start to anticipate breaking the fast in a very big way.

Overall, I am completely surprised at how well I am handling my first 48 hours without food, and I think it's been a great learning experience. The old me would have freaked out at the thought of 48 hours without food, that my body would wither away and die. But really, the most difficult part of this is leaping that psychological hurdle. I've had to force myself to recognize that a fast of this length is not that big a deal and that humans are in fact designed and have evolved to deal with food scarcity. Sometimes the caveman threw the spear at the buffalo and missed.

As for the grappling itself, unfortunately I survived Day 1A of yesterday's 1k NL with a measly 8500 in chips, so I end up with the worst of both worlds: I have no chips, and barring an absolute snap-bust, won't get to compete in Friday's no-gi tournament. But since I have gotten this far, I will still cut the remainder of the weight (down to 133.6 this morning without cutting water) and register for Saturday's gi tournament, with the intent to compete in it unless I manage to somehow luckbox my way to a day 3. If, as expected, I bust out efficiently on Day 2, I'll jet it over to the Mandalay and coach J.C. in his no-gi grappling debut.

I guess I would wrap this entry up by saying that if you're a person who, like me, has considered himself a slave to food, you might benefit from attempting some sort of fast. Numerous studies have shown the tremendous health benefits of intermittent fasting, and not only has this been not nearly as hard as I thought it would be, it's been educational. Give it a try!

one for the record books...or not

While there have been a lot of really interesting stories in the 2012 WSOP -- Ivey's five final tables in 12 days, Hellmuth's 12th bracelet, Grinder's second 50k victory, the OneDrop event -- one of the minor (very minor) subplots that has been talked about is whether or not I would break the WSOP single-season cash record of ten, held by the late Nikolai Evdakov. As of now, the lead belongs to another Russian named Konstantin Puchkov, who overtook me when he cashed the $5000 NL and I didn't. Puchkov is now tied for the record with 10 cashes, with me and Joe Tehan behind him at nine.

But most people were following my ascent, in part because they know me and don't know Puchkov, but mostly because from the conclusion of the first event and up until a week ago, I started every day either leading or tied for the lead. "So what'd you cash in today," became a common half-joke, half-inquiry among the WSOP regulars. It was frustrating because none of the cashes were significant: zero final tables, and no cashes over $20000. I would trade happily trade all nine cashes for a third place finish in some random $1500 event.

And besides, "most cashes" is certainly a nit record. Serious poker players don't play for cashes. Players have been regularly ribbing me, calling me "Chainsaw", or "Cousineau", referencing a pair of notorious min-cashers. In most of the cashes, I've amassed a lot of chips, but there was also the $1500 PLO8 where I cashed with 3/4 of a big blind. In any case, I'm pretty sure that my run at the record hasn't affected my play in any way; I've still played to maximize my equity (which usually means maximizing my chance of winning the tournament).

The more interesting question is whether it has affected the number and types of tournaments that I've entered. I feel that I have probably entered more $1000 and $1500 NL "donkaments" than I traditionally have, but this is probably a good thing: these are among the highest value events in the series. I have however skipped a number of tournaments either because I felt I wasn't a favourite, or simply because I just wasn't feeling up to playing.

It feels silly to me to care about this record. It's not a record that anyone good actually respects. It's not a record I'd be particularly proud to have. But I suppose it'd be something. I imagine it'd fall under the category of, "sorta neat, I suppose."

If I needed 11+ cashes to hold the all-time record as something to show that I made my mark on the WSOP, then that says something about me, and something I'm not a big fan of. Poker pros aren't supposed to care about such things. We're supposed to care about money, not legacies or stats. We make fun of Phil Hellmuth because he can't stop reminding the world that he is a 10-, 11- and now 12-time "World Champion".  Records and the narratives that surround them are stuff for the media, not the players.  
I certainly wasn't planning this for the 2012 WSOP. As I've written before, most of the fun of the WSOP for me is actually hanging out with friends, but due to playing a monstrous number of hours (for me) in the tournaments, I haven't done all that much of that. In spite of the gentle ribbing, a lot of people have encouraged me to really go for the record. The series is starting to wrap up, and I'll play all the NL tournaments the rest of the way, including the 10k 6-max, but I'm not confident enough to think that I'm a significant favourite in the 3k PLO8 or the 10k NL deuce. If I really, desperately wanted the cashes title, I suppose I would put those events on my schedule. But thankfully my ego isn't that fragile.