Page 10 - August 2006 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Jim Mercurio: Poker
Jim’s World Series of Poker® Adventure
Part 1 of 2
Winning Big Pots
Iremove the rubber band from around the wad of c-notes and place the bills back into my wallet. I guess I really am leaving the World Series of Poker® to head back to the real world.
Because of a reservation nightmare, I had to spend the rst night at Harrah’s. But to make
up for it, the Rio put us up for ve nights in a 600-square foot suite for about $60 a night. So my friend Michael and I made it over to the Rio by 11:00 to allow time to get ready for my rst-ever
WSOP event, which was at noon.
e Amazon Room at the Rio has over 200 tables and is like two football elds sitting next to each other. Event #2, the rst public event has a $1500 buy-in and was, at the time, the second largest live tournament ever.
A few minutes before the tournament started, I didn’t recognize anyone at my table. But then, Kathy Liebert sat down two seats to my left. A seasoned pro, she is the rst woman to ever win a million dollars in a poker tournament. And she had position on me. Great! Little did she know that she was going to have to worry about me.
“Although I feel like my experience puts me somewhere in between the amateur who is dead-money and a pro, I am not pitching this in any way as a sound investment. It’s more a chance to be in action by helping me to be in
the action.” —From an excerpt from my e-mail to my backers.
A few hands in, I picked up pocket 8s in the cut-o . I decided to limp in. With $1500 in chips, I wanted to play a small pot. If I raise to $100, a reraise will be in the neighborhood of $300 or $350 and I might have to throw my 8s away. Kathy Liebert raised to $125 from the blind.
As the last one to act and with position, I was happy to call the raise and see what transpired. I didn’t even look at the op. I just watched Kathy. She bet out a $500 chip. is was going to make my life easy. I turned to see the op—knowing what I was looking for. And lo and behold, I see 458 with two spades. Sometimes, in poker the big decisions are made for
you. I moved all in, afraid of AK of spades more so than Aces or Kings.
Kathy thought about it and called. She turned up pocket aces. No bad beat story. I doubled up and sent her to the rail. e players at the table questioned her play. Maybe she could have tested the waters with a $300 bet and then folded to my re-raise and still had over $1000 to play with. I think the relatively low
...Continued on page 28
Page 10
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
August 2006
Poker: Wired Aces and River Rats