Event 5: $1000 NLHE with rebuys; and a scary story/ethical dilemma
I am out of the $1000 rebuy. Doubled up a short stack stealing with J9s into his KK, then ran my AK into Phil Ivey's KK. Lesson: Don't shove into KK, unless you have AA or are able to suck out. I failed on both fronts.
Scary moment today during the last break of the day. While we were on break, a guy (50ish, fat) from a cash game table fell out of his chair and collapsed on the floor. He did not move at all for a few minutes and was sweating a lot and stuff like that. The floor reacted quickly, calling on radios and cell phones for an EMT. But for the longest time no one showed up except for a security guard (who they later said was an EMT, but he had no equipment of any kind really). Everyone in the immediate area knew what was going on, but no one more than say a radius of about 6-7 tables away did. So while I knew the Rio/poker room staff were doing all they could to get a doctor, I just went a few tables down and yelled "is anyone here a doctor" as loud as I could.
As it turns out, a guy from my table -- my neighbour on my right -- was in fact a doctor (specializing in internal medicine), and got to the scene (remember our tournament was on break). Anyway, as the break expires, he comes to our table and says "hey guys, I gotta attend to this guy."
I sort of look around the table at this point. The doctor is on a fairly short stack (IIRC about 35k with blinds 1k-2k), and he's 3UTG. I say to the table, "hey guys, as far as I'm concerned, when it's his big blind, he gets a walk."
Most of the table agrees or is silent (which as far as I'm concerned at the time is enough for me) but there are a couple dissenters, both shorter stacks. John Juanda suggests that we call the floor and see if we can deal him out (so he doesn't have to post antes and blinds), which I think is a better idea than mine. The floor is called over, and listens to our suggestions but rules that the tournament must go on. One of the rationales given for this is that there is "already an EMT there". I look over and it is explained to me that the security guard is an EMT, but as I said, he doesn't seem to have any medical equipment or anything like that really. I mean, I admit to not knowing much about this stuff, but I know that I want the dude who actually told me he is a doctor to be there with the guy.
Anyways, it's "sorry guys, nothing I can do" from the floorman. I get slightly emotional about the response and get a warning (I don't think I was out of line or anything, I just raised my voice a little about the fact that it's really just a poker tournament). Maybe I am out of line or was overly emotional. Maybe it's not my place to effectively suggest a form of collusion (of sorts) to the table, or try to act in a way that circumvents the floor's decision. It's possible that I overreacted. I've lived kind of a sheltered life, I suppose, and have never seen anyone in real trouble where I thought they weren't going to make it. I realize this stuff happens all the time in poker rooms and everywhere really, but I've never been standing two feet away from a guy who just keels over, collapses and doesn't move a muscle for five minutes.
So play in the tournament goes on. Guy on my left (who was one of the dissenters) makes some dumbass joke about "too bad, he (the doctor) should have went to law school instead, ha ha." I respond by getting out my iPod. We take our sweet time playing the first hand -- Juanda raised, everyone folded, and the hand took about five minutes to complete. After that hand the doctor comes back to the table and says the guy is going to be fine after all. Evidently he is a diabetic and had been at the table for a couple days and hadn't slept or eaten anything.
Less than an orbit later, he gets his stack in with AT vs AQ, busts, and attends to the guy again (who is now conscious, upright and seated on a chair). It's unclear to me whether he would have gotten all those chips in under normal circumstances (I wasn't really paying attention to the action), but he hadn't really been shoving a lot so I was surprised to see it when he turned the hand over.
***
Although I would have been very happy to go deep(er) in the tournament, I'm happy that I busted out today instead of early tomorrow. Now I may compete in my division of the World Jiu-Jitsu Championships (more commonly known by its shortened Portuguese name, the Mundials) in Long Beach, CA on Thursday. I'm really reluctant to miss the tournament ($1500 NL 6-max) on that day, but there are many poker tournaments and this is the most important BJJ tournament of the year (the black belt absolute division could certainly be compared to the WSOP ME, or maybe the WPT championship).
I haven't been training really hard in recent weeks, but there also hasn't been a huge gap in my training at any point. I've been eating well in Las Vegas and as such I'm way under the weight for my division (I weigh 132 and the division is a limit of 141). There will be some tough opponents and definitely the field will be bigger than any tournament I've ever entered, so I'm about 70-30 leaning towards doing that instead of the poker.
I will absolutely be back for the 5k NL shootout on Friday.
Scary moment today during the last break of the day. While we were on break, a guy (50ish, fat) from a cash game table fell out of his chair and collapsed on the floor. He did not move at all for a few minutes and was sweating a lot and stuff like that. The floor reacted quickly, calling on radios and cell phones for an EMT. But for the longest time no one showed up except for a security guard (who they later said was an EMT, but he had no equipment of any kind really). Everyone in the immediate area knew what was going on, but no one more than say a radius of about 6-7 tables away did. So while I knew the Rio/poker room staff were doing all they could to get a doctor, I just went a few tables down and yelled "is anyone here a doctor" as loud as I could.
As it turns out, a guy from my table -- my neighbour on my right -- was in fact a doctor (specializing in internal medicine), and got to the scene (remember our tournament was on break). Anyway, as the break expires, he comes to our table and says "hey guys, I gotta attend to this guy."
I sort of look around the table at this point. The doctor is on a fairly short stack (IIRC about 35k with blinds 1k-2k), and he's 3UTG. I say to the table, "hey guys, as far as I'm concerned, when it's his big blind, he gets a walk."
Most of the table agrees or is silent (which as far as I'm concerned at the time is enough for me) but there are a couple dissenters, both shorter stacks. John Juanda suggests that we call the floor and see if we can deal him out (so he doesn't have to post antes and blinds), which I think is a better idea than mine. The floor is called over, and listens to our suggestions but rules that the tournament must go on. One of the rationales given for this is that there is "already an EMT there". I look over and it is explained to me that the security guard is an EMT, but as I said, he doesn't seem to have any medical equipment or anything like that really. I mean, I admit to not knowing much about this stuff, but I know that I want the dude who actually told me he is a doctor to be there with the guy.
Anyways, it's "sorry guys, nothing I can do" from the floorman. I get slightly emotional about the response and get a warning (I don't think I was out of line or anything, I just raised my voice a little about the fact that it's really just a poker tournament). Maybe I am out of line or was overly emotional. Maybe it's not my place to effectively suggest a form of collusion (of sorts) to the table, or try to act in a way that circumvents the floor's decision. It's possible that I overreacted. I've lived kind of a sheltered life, I suppose, and have never seen anyone in real trouble where I thought they weren't going to make it. I realize this stuff happens all the time in poker rooms and everywhere really, but I've never been standing two feet away from a guy who just keels over, collapses and doesn't move a muscle for five minutes.
So play in the tournament goes on. Guy on my left (who was one of the dissenters) makes some dumbass joke about "too bad, he (the doctor) should have went to law school instead, ha ha." I respond by getting out my iPod. We take our sweet time playing the first hand -- Juanda raised, everyone folded, and the hand took about five minutes to complete. After that hand the doctor comes back to the table and says the guy is going to be fine after all. Evidently he is a diabetic and had been at the table for a couple days and hadn't slept or eaten anything.
Less than an orbit later, he gets his stack in with AT vs AQ, busts, and attends to the guy again (who is now conscious, upright and seated on a chair). It's unclear to me whether he would have gotten all those chips in under normal circumstances (I wasn't really paying attention to the action), but he hadn't really been shoving a lot so I was surprised to see it when he turned the hand over.
***
Although I would have been very happy to go deep(er) in the tournament, I'm happy that I busted out today instead of early tomorrow. Now I may compete in my division of the World Jiu-Jitsu Championships (more commonly known by its shortened Portuguese name, the Mundials) in Long Beach, CA on Thursday. I'm really reluctant to miss the tournament ($1500 NL 6-max) on that day, but there are many poker tournaments and this is the most important BJJ tournament of the year (the black belt absolute division could certainly be compared to the WSOP ME, or maybe the WPT championship).
I haven't been training really hard in recent weeks, but there also hasn't been a huge gap in my training at any point. I've been eating well in Las Vegas and as such I'm way under the weight for my division (I weigh 132 and the division is a limit of 141). There will be some tough opponents and definitely the field will be bigger than any tournament I've ever entered, so I'm about 70-30 leaning towards doing that instead of the poker.
I will absolutely be back for the 5k NL shootout on Friday.