My daughter Rossana and I were planning a weekend at the BestBet poker room in Jacksonville, FL. to celebrate her birthday. At the last moment she decided not to go. She apologized, but said she had some business she had to take care of. She wished me luck.
"Drive safely, Dad," she said. "That's more important than the money."
And so:
I left at 7 a.m. on the four and a half hour drive to Jacksonville. I arrived at the casino at 11:45 a.m., just in time to enter the noon tournament. It was a $150 deep stack tournament. I had confidence and played well...
...but got knocked out with just 20 players remaining out of the 90 who had started.
I entered a cash game, pot limit Omaha high-low. The cards failed to come and I lost. So I switched to no limit Texas Holdem. The bad beat jackpot was nearly $320,000 and I was hoping for a piece of it.
To collect the bad beat at BestBet, you need to have quad 10s cracked. It didn't happen.
By 11 p.m., I was down around $700. A little stunned by my losses, I drove to the Hampton Inn to get a good night's sleep.
Doyle Brunson is one of the world's best poker players and teachers. In his best selling book SUPER SYSTEM, he tells players to never give up. He also urges them to play aggressive poker, win or lose, and that your chances of winning increase with the aggression.
In the morning I awoke refreshed and had breakfast at the Hampton Inn. My finances were low and I almost decided to drive back to Jacksonville and accept the $700 loss.
I was too stubborn to do that!
I am not only Italian and Serbian, I am a Taurus. I decided to give the poker room one more try. I would take another $100 out of the ATM and if that didn't pay off, I would get on I-95 and head back to Charleston, S.C. where I lived.
After buying in for $50, I went all in with pocket queens and won the pot. Then I won another hand. And still another. My chips began piling up.
I raised with an ace of hearts and jack of clubs. The flop came king jack of hearts and a 10. I bet and got two callers. A queen of hearts came on fourth street. One player bet and another raised the pot by $100. I had four cards to a royal flush. The $100 bet would nearly deplete my chips. I thought of Doyle Brunson and knew what he would do. I called.
The river card was a 10 of hearts, completing my royal. I won the pot of more than $450 and picked up a $100 bonus. By 6 p.m., I had regained my previous day's losses and was over $700 ahead!
A 7 p.m. tournament, pot limit Omaha high-low was scheduled. It was a bounty tournament and cost $125 to enter. I bought into the tournament.
All the players were given $10,000 in chips. About 15 minutes into the tournament, I made a bad play, calling a king high flush draw after a player raised. The flush came and his flush was ace high. Ouch!
I had made a rookie mistake, calling a big bet with a flush that was only king high.
Never again, I promised myself!
Tightening up my standards, I played, increased my stack -- and made the final table. When I sat down, I had the smallest amount of chips at the table. Mine totalled less than $20,000 while the chip leader had over $200,000.
Maybe it was the royal flush. Maybe it was thinking about Brunson and following his advice.
But I kept chipping away at the lead and my stack kept increasing. I played hard and aggressive, remembering Doyle's advice to be relentless in my attacks...
...and suddenly I found myself facing the chip leader. He couldn't believe it and, frankly, neither could I.
I won the tournament and collected $1,300. The other players were stunned, but not half as stunned -- and happy -- as me.
NEVER call it quits. It pays off.
