Tao of Poker

WSOP Day 24: 119/2778 = $4,740

By Pauly


I finished in 119th place out of 2,778 players and won $4,470 in prize money in Event #38. I had a tough table on Day 2 that included several pros such as Men the Master and Action Bob. I was eliminated by Erica Schoenberg, who happens to be a friend that loves reading Tao of Poker, especially the Last 5 Pros I Pissed Next to.... And you know what? She put my chips to good use. She made the final table.


Congrats to Erica for making the Final Table
I cover plenty of Day 2s so I knew what to expect when I showed up to play on Sunday. A couple of the floor staff that I work with gave me words of encouragement. They thought it was cool that I got to play... and went deep. Several friends came out to sweat such as Friedman and Joe Speaker. Readers like Stuart and Lonnie also stopped by to watch my table which happened to be on the rail. Lonnie also brought me two cool Phish t-shirts for good luck.

I started out in Seat 6 with the small blind with Julie Deng (who made the final table in the Ladies Event) in the big blind. Erica, Men the Master, and Robert Cheung were all to my right. Action Bob was to my left. It was weird to have Patrik Antonius and David Benyamine come by and sweat my table since they were railbirding Erica. But I had a swarm of media coming over every few moments like the Drew and the other kids that work at PokerNews or Otis and Mike from Poker Pages.

On the third hand of Day 2, everyone folded to me and I shoved all in with Kd-Qd. No action and I picked up the blinds and antes. A couple of hands after that, I found Ah-As from UTG. I bet 5.5K with the blinds at 1K/2K and 300 antes. If I shoved, I'd get no action but with Chueng and Men the Master in the blinds, I figured they would call that bet no matter what they held... unless they sniffed me out for Aces. Everyone folded to Men in the small blind and he called as did Cheung in the big blind. The flop was Ad-9h-4d. Men checked and Chueng fired out 12K. I peeked at my cards and moved all in for about 25K.

Men stared at the flop before he muttered something. I couldn't hear what he said but I saw him toss his cards into the muck. Cheung looked down at his cards, played with his chips for about ten seconds, then folded. As the dealer push me the pot, Men said, "Show me your A-4."

"Nah," I said.

"Come on, why don't you show me what you had?"

"Read about it on my blog tomorrow," I answered.

I had 46K and the blind level increased. I picked up zero cards as two players at my table busted out courtesy of Erica Schoenberg. She kept adding to her stack as I kept bleeding chips due to the antes and blinds of 1.5K/3K.

With 30K left, I found Ad-9d at the cutoff. Erica raised 9K. I figured that I might be able to push her off that hand if I moved all in. Erica is a solid player and doesn't mess around playing a lot of garbage hands, but I hoped that her tight image might allow me to persuade her to fold after I shoved all in. No such luck.

"I call," she said as she tabled 9c-9s.

Here's how BJ Nemeth described the action on PokerNews:

The flop comes {Qd}{5c}{4d}, and McGuire picks up a diamond flush draw. The turn card is the {3c}, and McGuire also picks up a gutshot straight draw, and he has 15 outs going to the river. But the last card is the {8c}, and Schoenberg wins the pot with her pocket nines. Paul 'Dr. Pauly' McGuire is eliminated in 119th place, earning $4,740. He also receives a bonus prize -- a hug from his friend Erica Schoenberg.

After I busted out Erica walked over and gave me a big hug. She whispered into my ear, "You were the only player at the table I didn't want to knock out."

"Then why did you call?" I whispered back.

I wished her luck and told her to use my chips wisely. And... she did as she advanced to the final table. I'm going to be pulling for her to win a bracelet.

Thanks for all the phone calls, emails, blog blurbs, and text messages. And thanks to a few friends (and readers) who came out to watch me play on Day 2. Also, thanks to all the press and buzz from my friends in the media. They seemed to be the most geeked out as I went deeper and deeper. I'm a little bummed that I didn't make the final table but outlasting almost 2,660 other players in a WSOP donkament is a quite a feat.

The worst part about busting out? Having to go to work an hour afterwards. Ouch. I covered Day 1 of the $50K HORSE event and it was a stacked field. They had only a handful of more players than last year but the payouts would be different which pissed off some of the pros. More on that issue later.

I'm shocked that so many players busted out early like Jeff Lisandro and Johnny Chan. Also busting out on Day 1 were Sam Farha, Bob Feduniak, David Benyamine, Minh Ly, Mark Vos, Chau Giang, Gus Hansen, Lyle Berman, Andrew Black, Josh Arieh, David "The Dragon" Pham, Jerrod Ankenman, Jerri Thomas, and Nick Schulman.

Eli Elezra ended Day 1 as the chipleader with 561K. Bruno Fitoussi, David Oppenheim, Gavin Smith, and Phil Ivey rounding out the Top 5 in chips.

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Don't forget to check out LasVegasVegas for Flipchip's WSOP photos and there's the Poker Prof's cool 2007 WSOP Info page.

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