Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Sunday, May 31, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
To my mind, the two most overlooked attributes of successful poker players are patience and endurance. Everyone swoons over the super-aggro maniac who four-bets with air and the borderline-telepaths who make hero calls for all their chips with Queen-high. Or course the space aliens walking among us who make those stupefying plays (and pull them off) deserve their props. But there’s also something to be said for those who plant their backside on the chair and grind it out deep into the night, without tilting, without giving in to boredom, exasperation, or exhaustion.
Annie Duke has had a long day. At noon today she was outside the Amazon Room having her lemonade-stand competition with Norman Chad. After that she had lunch and raced back to the tournament area to take her seat for Day 2 of the $1,500 Omaha/8 event. This after she played until just short of 2am last night. The money bubble burst about two hours ago, and there are currently 77 players left. The idea is to play down until the final table is set. Getting from 77 players to nine, in a split pot game, can be a long, drawn-out, frustrating process.
But that’s what you have to deal with if you want to go really deep and have a chance to win the tournament (and make the serious money). Sometimes you simply can’t make things happen on your own. You have to wait. You have to be more patient and more determined than your opponents. You have to grind it out, use time as a weapon to wear the other players out, give them the rope to hang themselves. This isn’t the glamorous side of poker, but it’s how the sausage is made. You don’t see a lot of poker tournaments ending 12 hours earlier than expected because one player ran rings ’round the rest of the field. To win, you gotta do the time. And if you can do it better than the others in the field, you have a far better chance for success.
It’s about a quarter after nine. Not late at all, and only six hours into today’s session. But when there’s the very real possibilty that you’ll be playing till dawn, the weight of those hours can be oppressive. Unless you know how to deal with the time, unless you’re in touch with your inner grinder. I should say that both chips and coffee can act as a potent stimulant. At times, anyway:
I get tired just looking at that picture. 74 players left in the field. Here’s hoping Annie has a long, long, long night.
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Tags: 2009 world series of poker, 2009 wsop, Annie Duke, annie duke world series of poker, annie duke wsop
May 31st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
[...] last night I wrote a post about how poker players have to grind and grit it out if they want the glory. How that blue-collar, [...]