These guys were all hyper-aggressive. Every hand was competed by multiple players, and it was very common for at least two streets of betting to be capped with all players still in the hand. For the first 30 minutes at this table I was watching this heavy action in horror while I was literally trembling with fear (my body was physically shaking). I repeatedly said to myself: “I’m going to get eaten alive at this table; I’m going to die here; this is where my WSOP is going to come to an end.” But that’s not what happened – not even close.

Table-3
Shaun Sheiky was much like myself – he likes to trap his players. I watched two hands where Shaun flopped a set or straight, only to slow play himself into losing the hand. This caused him to have loud swearing outbreaks where he cursed himself as an incredibly bad player. I also got the impression from Shaun that he was just as obnoxious in person as he is on TV. Every third word out of his mouth was some type of swear word, or condemnation for himself or another player. When one player complained about Shaun’s use of colorful language, the dealer said he wasn’t offended by it, and asked the other players if they wanted to call the floor to have Shaun penalized. One-by-one, they all said no. For some reason, the dealer and everybody else eventually looked at me for the final answer – as if they could tell I was the quiet and conservative person that I really am (LOL). I shrugged my shoulders and said “I’m not going to complain about it…” and that was the end of it. So while I don’t really see the need for Shaun to swear as much as he does, I certainly wasn’t going to lodge a complaint and bring tension to the table. Besides, I wasn’t even remotely offended by his foul language – as it wasn’t personally directed at me or anybody else.

Marcel Luske and I competed in a series of hands together. It would always seem that when Marcel bet, I would raise, then he would check-raise me on the turn. But the problem for Marcel was that I always had the better hand. Marcel and I played some very big hands together, and I always seemed to get the better of him. Strange that he never learned either; because he always tried to raise me on the turn in an attempt to push me off of my hand. I believe he was trying to use his advantage as a well known professional poker player to intimidate me. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work because I was confident in the strength of my hands against him, and I always seemed to come out ahead. (Read more about my hands with Marcel Luske at Table-4.) He even grimaced after one hand where he tried to move me off of top set with the nut flush re-draw. It was his standard PO of check-raising me. After the hand, he grimaced and said “I had no idea you were that strong.”

During the bread, I called home again. I told Wayne how petrified I was at the table with these huge stacks and their hyper-aggressive playing styles. Wayne gave me the best piece of advice I received during the entire WSOP. Wayne told me to look around the table at the chip stacks; take note of which denominations of chips they have. The players with all of the low denomination chips are the loose players and are stealing all the blinds; the players with all of the big denomination chips are the rocks, and should be considered very dangerous. When I got back to the table I looked around. My gosh, if Wayne wasn’t 100% correct. All of the loose players had the small denomination chips, and the tight, solid players (including myself) had almost exclusively big denomination chips. This advice helped me play back more confidently at these looser players.

Summary
I played at Table-3 for about 4 or 5 hours. When I entered the table, I had about 5000 chips; when I left the table I had about 14000 chips. All-in-all, this table wasn’t as bad for me as I had dreamed. I didn’t get eaten alive; my WSOP didn’t end there; and on the contrary, I even gained some momentum.

Continue reading 2006 WSOP Blog: Day-1, Table-4