Changing my license plate to 12poker12 in 2010?!?
Saturday, July 25, 2009 - Phil Hellmuth
Many years ago my license plate in California was 7poker7 and Phil Ivey had just won his third World Series of Poker (WSOP) poker tourney. My hats off to Phil, he always plays great poker and takes advantage of some really good luck. He is after all at the final table of the 2009 WSOP. Layne “Back to back” Flack was having a great tourney as well, he has won the first two no limit hold’em events that year (back to back!). Johnny Chan took the all-time money lead at the WSOP from me and TJ, and Johnny were having a great years as well. TJ was having a great year, and if his As-Ks would have beat Layne’s 9-9 (they were all-in before the flop for about $350,000 apiece), then he would have the all-time money list lead instead of Johnny (Johnny finished second to Layne, and TJ third in the last no limit event).
In 1993, I won the first two no limit hold’em events, and three WSOP titles that year. Then I went on and took the all-time money lead at the WSOP. Ah, the past…unfortunately the past isn’t all that it is cracked up to be in today’s “what have you done for me lately” society. The WSOP is a tough tournament to digest when you’re a little bit off of your game or the cards refuse to let you win (personally, I’ve been a little bit off of my game for the most part, and a little bad luck at the wrong time has cost me some final tables as well). Five weeks of WSOP futility is enough to drive you stark raving mad! Wait a minute though, I thought to myself, I still have a full week left at the WSOP, and the “Big One” to play in before my year is blown (not to mention the Bellagio’s $10,000 buy-in event). Believe me, I’m ready to turn things around soon I thought.
How do I make seven top fifteens back then in 24 events, and then only one top fifteen in the first twenty two events the next year? How does Chris Ferguson do roughly the same thing (six one year followed by 2 the next year)? How does Men “the Master” Nguyen fan (without even cashing once!) 80 tournaments in a row, and then explode at the Taj Mahal and finish first, second and first in three consecutive days (and make seven final tables)? I believe that there is some bio-rhythm like element in poker that is often over looked by us poker players. Some days I can sit down in a tourney after not playing poker for a month, and just play so well that I am shocked. When this happens, then I know that I will play great poker for the next 40 days or so (experience has shown me that this is the case for me). Other times, I can’t seem to execute my game plan very well. In both cases – stellar play and sub-par play – I keep roughly the same routine as far as exercise, sleep, diet etc…
If my theory is right (and I’m pretty sure it is based on the “streaks” that most great tournament players fall into), then I can only hope that this period of sub-par play is about to end I thought. I had been playing sub-par from April 9th till May 12th that year, isn’t one month enough to suffer from “bad bio-rhythms’?” All I wanted to read was “Phil Hellmuth is the 2002 WSOP match play Champion” and “Phil Hellmuth is the 2002 World Champion of Poker”. My California license plate 7poker7 (the “7” represents seven WSOP wins) at the time but I was hoping to change it to 9poker9 or 8poker8 real soon. I just hoped that my bio-rhythms changed soon enough for me to get the California license plate 9poker9 in 2002! Well now that the WSOP is over for another year, I’m hoping that in 2010 my license will read 12poker12!
Tags: Bellagio, Chris Ferguson, johnny chan, Layne Flack, phil ivey, Taj Mahal, WSOP
