From this vantage point I was able to see that there are three ways to go about playing on Day One of a poker tournament this large. From the joker table I heard some of the most exciting words you can hear at the Series, “All in and a call.” Players rushed over from neighboring tables. An ESPN crew jogged over and set up their camera and mike. And for what? On a king-high flop one joker had pushed all in with pocket 6s and another joker had called with K-4. This is one way to play on the first day of the world championship of poker, but I don’t think it’s the right way.

David Williams might have it all figured out. After all, having finished second in the 2004 main event, he knows a little something about how to go deep in this event. What was he doing for much of the day? Watching television! That’s right. He had some TV show playing on his iPod—I think it was Law & Order—and he seemed way more interested in that than the action at his table. In half an hour I watched him fold his small blind—it was only $100 more to call!—several times and play but a single hand. From middle position he raised to 700. The small blind reraised to 2.3k. Williams called and as he did he paused his show and sat straight up in his chair. The flop came [10d 2 s 7h]. The small blind bet 2k. Williams showed A-K, which he folded, and resumed watching television.

Ten feet away from Williams, Patrik Antonius was playing in an entirely different manner, getting mixed up in as many pots as possible. He limped in as often as he could from any position. On a particularly exciting hand Antonius limped from the button. The guy in the small blind, who had been collecting autographs on the WSOP hat he was wearing, raised 1k. Antonius called and the flop came A97. The small blind bet 1k, and Antonius called. The turn was the 4. The small blind bet 1.5k, and Antonius raised to 5.3k. The small blind mucked what I suspect was a fairly big ace. Respect.

On the very next hand Antonius raised to 1.4k from the cutoff seat. The big blind reraised 2.1k. Antonius mucked. And so it went. Antonius played over half the hands he got dealt each round, sometimes raising, often limping, occasionally calling a raise. He won some pots, lost some others, but you got the feeling that with his experience and skill this style was going to serve him well in the end. He was definitely embracing the school of thought that advocates trying to accumulate a lot of chips against inferior players… or else going home early. As a big cash game player, barely surviving for four or five days only to get knocked out before making any money would not serve him well.

From what I could tell Farha was playing a mixture of these two styles, looser than most players but hardly as loose as the man can be. So which style is better? Only time will tell, but I do know that the best approach doesn’t involve moving all in with pocket 6s when there’s a king on the flop.

Looking dapper in the blue blazer he wore over a gold-and-black silk shirt, Williamson looked confident and relaxed throughout the day despite never building much of a stack. There is good reason for his confidence—Williamson is generally acknowledged to be one of the best pot-limit Omaha players in the United States. His name always gets mentioned alongside that of Sam Farha, Lee Watkinson, and Freddy Deeb. He has done particularly well at the World Series of Poker where he has cashed nine times, made six final tables, and won one gold bracelet in events featuring pot-limit Omaha.

It was a long short day for Williamson as he was perpetually hovering one poorly played hand or unlucky break away from elimination. At times he seemed more interested in the nearest television set which had the U.S. Open on. “Vijay’s back to even,” he announced at one point. But when it came time to mix it up he was more than willing. After two players, one of whom was Williamson, called a raise before the flop, the pot grew so large that Williamson only had two moves left in his arsenal: move all in or fold. Liking the 725 flop, he chose the former. His opponent took his time before folding his string of four overcards. “I had a pair and a ton of outs to make a straight,” Williamson said. “That was about as good of a flop as I can have for my hand.”

The next big hand he got involved in wouldn’t treat him as kindly. Once again, he was one of three players who mixed it up before the flop. The flop came 83J, and he shoved all his chips into the center of the table. The guy on the button, a young internet-schooled player, called with A-A-Q-J. He was winning but Williamson had a huge draw with his wrap: Q1098. This was one more example of the classic Omaha confrontation, an overpair vs. a big draw. Williamson needed one of the four kings, two queens, three 10s, three 9s, two 8s, or four 7s left in the deck—19 outs! But the turn was a 6, the river a jack, and Williamson was out.

“Oh my God!” said the kid who had done the knocking out. “He had a lot of outs. He had over half the deck.”

The other players at the table acknowledged his good fortune, on that hand as well as throughout the day.

“I don’t even know how to play this game,” the kid responded. “This is the first live PLO tournament I’ve every played.”

A moment later Andy Black, carrying a rack of chips worth 12k, was moved into the seat Williamson had left vacant. 

“I knock out one pro,” said the kid, shaking his head, “and another sits down.”

I caught up with Farha briefly before he sat down to play in today’s tournament. Despite big losses playing Brian Townsend heads-up at $1,000/$2,000 pot-limit Omaha, he seemed in good spirits. He told me he’d lost some big pots in bizarre ways, the worst of the bunch coming when he flopped three aces against Townsend’s three kings and lost to a flush. Farha hasn’t been the only one to get victimized by Townsend’s hot streak at the tables. He is reported to have also taken on Brandon Adams, Rafi Amit, David Benyamine, Patrick Antonius, Johnny Chan, and Bobby Baldwin, and in the end he finished up $1.8 million.

During his hot streak Townsend has made very few bad decisions. He’s begged off playing when he has felt tired, opting to get a good’s night’s sleep instead. He stays at the table when he’s playing well and he gets up when he’s running bad. He also took the money and ran, leaving town as soon as he felt burnt out. The only thing he has done wrong is talk a little too much shit about his opponents at the Bellagio on his blog online, including cutting lines like, “Most famous poker players are not very good and overrated.” Some of these players aren’t very happy about this, but at least with Townsend’s departure they’ve started showing up at the Rio again.

I had planned on entering this event, but the poker gods argued against it. I went to register last night at 11:00 p.m. and discovered a line that snaked its way out of the Amazon Room and into the center of the intersection where the two major hallways meet. The estimate at that time was that it would take two hours for those at the back of the line to reach the cashier’s cage. I chose to sit in a cash game and check back later.

I feel like I have finally shaken off all the rust that I accumulated after six months away from the game. I now know exactly where I’m at in most of the hands I get involved in. Now if the cards would only help me out a little. For my first six hours of cash-game play this trip, I didn’t get dealt a pocket pair higher than 10s. When I finally got a pair of queens two nights ago, the betting at my table went like this. The player under the gun opened for a highly suspicious min raise to $10. The next player popped it to $30. I flat-called from the small blind. The player under the gun made it $100 more, a betting pattern that screamed aces or kings. It was an easy fold for me. Sure enough, he had aces. The problem was that his opponent called (stupidly) with jacks and was rewarded for his stupidity by catching a jack on the flop. When a queen fell on the turn, I wanted to puke, but I had made the right play so I should have been happy (although I wasn’t). Later in the night I got kings in the small blind and reraised a raiser and a caller. The big blind moved all in, a move that screamed aces. But then I (over)thought the play and decided that, because of my aggressive play the last several rounds, the big blind could possibly have thought I was making a squeeze play with weak cards. The possibility that he might have been as weak as A-K or queens or even jacks convinced me to call, and, hell, I had kings. He of course showed me aces.

With Sam Farha’s encouraging words in my ear I sat down at a pot-limit Omaha table last night having never played the game live before. Having written a book with Sam on Omaha strategy, I felt well prepared and I actually played really well. I played only good starting cards and won the pots I showed an interest in. Then came the big hand of the night. I limped from early position with JJA6 and called when a player in late position raised. The flop pretty much nailed me on the head: QJ2. I had flopped middle set and the nut flush draw. Even if he had a hand as strong as top pair and a wrap, something like Q1098, I was still a 73%-23% favorite. Do I even need to say that I didn’t fill up or make my flush and my opponent won with a straight.

When I got up from the table at 2 a.m., I checked the line to register for today’s $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event… and it was exactly as long as it was before. I took that (along with my run of cold cards) as a sign that I wasn’t meant to play today. The last I saw 2,617 players had entered with a long line of alternates still waiting to get in. Madness. 

Two cab rides to the Bellagio and back gave me a large enough bankroll that I can now enter at least a couple tournaments during my stay. After attending the World Series once as a fan (back in the Binion’s era) and once as a full-time writer (last year), this year I’m going to actually do some playing. I wonder if my having not played at all in the last six months is going to be any sort of handicap. I am hoping to be more fresh than rusty.

As important as the Bellagio jaunt was (no cab rides, no bankroll, no playing), I had to pull myself away from the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha with ReBuys events to do it, which wasn’t easy considering how talented the players at the final table were: Devilfish Ulliot, Humberto Brenes, John Juanda. Minh Ly. Any of these names ring a bell? 

I sat down at the newly designed final table area (last year’s high-school football stadium look has definitely been elevated at least to the big-time collegiate level) just in time to catch Devilfish run into the Shark. While in the natural world Brenes would win every time, at the poker table it’s a different story. Especially at pot-limit Omaha. While Brenes is pretty good at this game, Ulliot is excellent. Case in point: everyone folded to him on the button and he merely limped in with [Qd Qc 7h 6h]. I really like this play. Brenes was the short stack at the table, and I believe Devilfish knew Brenes would be looking to get his money in with just about any hand. (The alternative theory is that Devilfish didn’t want to overplay his queens and was content to see a flop with position on his opponents.) Brenes raised all in with AK85, which with three cards of the same suit really isn’t much of an Omaha hand. Devilfish called pretty quickly, which gives credence to theory number one. Devilfish won by making a queen-high flush, and I can’t say that I was upset. I can only take so much of the Shark shtick.

The other hand (and bust out) of note in the early afternoon occurred after Erik Cajelais opened with a raise and John Juanda reraised with the last of his chips. Erik was pretty much priced in to calling the $215,000 raise, and he had a decent enough hand to do it with [Kc Qc 10h 10s]. Juanda, of course, had aces (as well as a pair of eights). You can’t do any better than pushing all your money into the pot with a pair of aces (one of which was suited) but the flop gave Erik a wrap, and the queen of diamonds on the river made his straight. Juanda was gone in seventh place. 

It was at that point that I had a decision to make: more final table action or self-preservation in the form of bankroll accumulation. As you well know, I chose the latter, and I’m glad I did. As fun as it’s been to watch other people play cards for bracelets all these years, well, it’s not as fun as doing it yourself.