Survive And Thrive

If you want to win WSOP poker events, you need to know when to make big laydowns. “Survive and thrive” is an excellent theory. In fact, I tried to use this philosophy every day at the 2001 WSOP. I simply hung around and hung around until finally I picked up a couple of strong hands and won a couple of pots. Late on the second day of the main event at wsop the 2001 WSOP, the following hand came up coty award.

With the antes at $50 per play poker card games and the blinds at $200-$400, Mike Magee, and excellent player from Ireland, raised the pot limit holdem to $1,200 to go in early position. I had A-6 off suit in the small blind, and decided to reraise the pot $3,000.

(By the way, I was definitely on tilt at this point in the tournament! I had just moved from $56,000 down to $36,000 in the prior 20 minutes.) Mike decided to call the $3,000 raise, and the flop came down As-10h-6h. What a flop for me! I bet out only $3,500 to see what Mike would do. Much to my surprise, he raised me my last $28,000! What the heck was going no limit holdem poker game?

Wow! I went into “the tank” (I thought poker for a long time). After a minute or so, I started to believe that Mike had the Ah-Qh, which would give him a pair of aces with a flush draw. If he did have Ah-Qh or Ah-Kh, then I would still be about poker a 3-to-2 favorite. But what if he had 10-10 in the hole, which would give him trip tens, or A-10 in the hole, for aces and tens? If he had trip tens, or aces and tens (A-10 in the hole), then I would be drawing to just the game of cards in the deck to win, and I’d be roughly a 10-to-1 underdog. Can I imagine being a 10-to-1 underdog for all of my remaining chips at the World Championship of Poker? Yuck, now that’s ugly!

After a while, I decided that Mike had me beat. I showed my hand to the table and folded it, provoking a lot of gasps from the players around the table. I am very proud of this laydown. I then said to Mike, “Nice hand.”

Mike then told me, “Phil, I didn’t know you had two giant-size ones. Because you’ve handled yourself so well, I’m going to tell you what I had first wpt 2003. I had the ace-ten of clubs.” Mike was so genuine that I believed him! I had made a great laydown, and I would have almost certainly gone broke had I called Mike Magee here. Instead, a great laydown had kept me alive in the WSOP. What a great feeling! Mike then proceeded to tell me, “Phil, believe it or not, I actually had you on A-6 in this hand, and that’s why I moved all-in. I knew that you had to call me.”

After I folded this hand, I went on to run my chips up to about $60,000 or so by the end of day two limit stud. By the end of day four. I had over a million dollars in chips, and had taken the lead at the WSOP. Eventually I settled for a bitterly disappointing fifth place, but drew $300,000 in prize money. All because I had made a great laydown against Mike Magee “Survive and thrive !”