Upping the ante at World Poker Finals

Aside from dealers, tournament officials, and 75 poker tables, the room was mostly empty. The early stragglers appeared to be people like me, wide-eyed and smiling, shaking hands at their good fortune to even be there, like teenage boys stumbling into the Playboy Mansion.

All of us were here, in the bowels of Foxwoods Resort and Casino in Ledyard, Conn., standing in a converted ballroom to play in a poker tournament. A big poker tournament.

Last Nov. 13, Foxwoods held the main event of the World Poker Finals, a $10,000 buy-in tournament. Months earlier, while living in Boston as a summer sports intern for the Globe, I had a won a seat into this tournament for $220 through a series of smaller tournaments called satellites. Like a lot of college kids, I watched the movie ''Rounders" a couple years ago, started playing quarter ante in a buddy's dorm, and got hooked on No-Limit Texas Hold'em, a hobby that's turned into a national obsession. The online poker industry generated $1.4 billion last year, and that's expected to double this year. More people in the United States play poker than golf, swim, or play tennis.

I'm part of that obsession. I've moved past the dorm games and I play pretty high stakes now, either online or at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, N.Y., a 35-minute drive from Syracuse University, from which I hope to graduate this spring. I've made more money playing poker than I want my father or the Internal Revenue Service to know (they both do) over the past two years.

Still, this event was the biggest thing I'd done in poker. By far. The world's best players, the ones you see on ESPN, would be playing. I had been staying at a hotel down the street for two days, and on that Saturday, the day of the tournament, I arrived at 11 a.m., an hour early, to leave enough time to solve any possible crises. But that also left me a full hour to wait. I walked around the room, chatted with a couple of dealers and read a magazine. After 45 minutes, I sat down at Table 2, Seat 4.

As players trickled in, I recognized only one player at the table. In Seat 1 sat Brian Wilson, who won a pot-limit hold 'em event at the World Series of Poker last summer. From the broadcast, I recalled that he played extremely aggressively -- and was pretty lucky -- to win the final table. Regardless, he was wearing the gold bracelet he had received as a WSOP winner. Cool.

Since I became serious about poker, I had yearned to play in one of these tournaments, and figured it would happen at some point. I wondered how I would react. I hoped I would be Steve McQueen-cool, staring down pros. That's not how it happened, though.

I didn't have butterflies in my stomach; I had fire-breathing dragons. My hands clammed up as I chugged a bottle of Dasani. I just hoped I'd be dealt ''rags" (bad starting hands) for the first 20 minutes or so, enough time to settle in and lose some of the nerves, enough time to separate the sheep sitting at my table from the wolves. That was the plan: wait for other people to screw up, gain confidence, then attack.

I looked at my watch. 11:57. The room had filled, with a few spectators sitting in the chairs lining the wall. More than 400 players bustled to find their seats. The minutes dragged on until, finally, I heard the tournament director drawl into his microphone, ''Shuffle up and deal."

The tournament had begun.

At random, the players in Seat 3 had received the button, signifying that they were the dealers for the first hand, making me the small blind -- a forced bet from the player directly to the dealer's left to stimulate the action -- which came to $25. The big blind (from the player two seats to the left) cost $50.

The first two players to act folded, and the third raised to $150. He wore sunglasses, had graying hair, a matching mustache, and a reasonable paunch (think Rip Torn on a bad day).

Everyone else folded, until the action came to me.

I peeled up the corner of one card and saw, to my horror, a black ace. I really wanted to just fold my hand, but that card enhanced the chances that it would be foolish to do so. I slid the first ace over the second card and inspected it: another black ace. I'd been dealt pocket aces on the very first hand.

In the past three years, I'd probably played 100,000 hands of hold 'em, and before every one I prayed for aces. For the weekend, I had played for about 18 hours and hadn't seen pocket rockets once. The one time I wanted anything but aces, there they were, two black ones staring me in the face. On the first hand.

I stared at my chips for a few seconds; it felt like hours. My throat tightened and my heart pounded. So much for the conservative plan. I didn't even want to raise, but I had no choice. If I wasn't going to raise with the best possible hand, no matter how badly I wanted to protect my chips, I really should take up another hobby.

I took a deep breath. ''Raise," I said. I stared at my chips again. I wanted to make the bet a total of $600, $450 more than the original raise, $575 more than the small blind sitting in front of me. I couldn't even count and add up my chips, my mind frozen by nerves. I finally managed to separate $600 from my stack. ''$600 total."

When people are excited at a poker table, their hands shake when they throw chips into the pot. This is called a ''tell" -- a signal to the others at the table that you're worried. I pride myself on steady hands when I play. It may be one of my strengths. But my hands trembled as I shoved the $600 into the middle.

Most times, you pray for action with a pair of aces. It's the best possible starting hand, and it will beat a single opponent at least two out of three times. If that opponent is holding a smaller pair, make it four out of five.

Now, though, I wanted my opponent to read my massive raise for exactly what I was holding, so he would just fold and I could move on to hand two without hyperventilating. No such luck; the portly fellow matched the raise.

The dealer laid out the flop: a king, a 10, and a 3, two of which were clubs. That was a pretty safe flop for my aces: No straights or flushes possible, and the chances that Mr. Mustache had called my significant raise with a hand to make two pair was extremely unlikely. If he had two kings concealed, he probably would have re-raised me before the flop, and he likely would have folded pocket threes. I decided pocket 10s would be the only hand that frightened me, other than queen-jack (for a straight draw) or any hand with two clubs (for a flush draw). I fired out $1,000 and prayed that he would fold, or at least raise, so I could fold.

He did neither, calling my raise with two purple $500 chips. The dealer slapped an ugly 10 of clubs on the table as the turn card. Yuck. This made him having pocket 10s less likely, but if he did, it also meant he had an unbeatable four of a kind. It also completed a possible club flush. Chances were, I still had the lead, but all I could think was how embarrassed I'd be if I was knocked out on the first hand. So I ''checked" (passed on making a bet).

Rip tossed out two orange chips, each worth $1,000. That pretty much eliminated the specter of his four 10s -- he would have checked that hand, hoping for me to improve with the river card and win a massive pot. The flush remained a distinct possibility, but I still wasn't convinced. Plus, even if he did have a flush, I held the ace of clubs, and another club on the river would give me the highest possible flush. So I called.

The dealer burned a card and flipped over the river card, the truly revolting king of diamonds, the last card I wanted to see. If my opponent had a king in his hand -- a possibility I idiotically had not even considered (the nerves, you know) -- he would now have a full house, his one king matching the two kings and two 10s on the board. I checked again, and he made the same bet, $2,000. Even a novice would see I was beat, that my aces -- unbeatable a scant two minutes ago -- had been reduced to rubble. But what if ol' Rip had been messing around with queens or jacks in the pocket?

And look at all that money, my money, in the middle of the table.

With my opponent's last raise, there was now $9,250 there, and I only had to call $2,000 for a shot at it. I pondered for a minute (it felt like a week) and decided I couldn't give up now. I called, waiting for the other guy to show his cards, feeling like a defendant who knows the judge is about to yell, ''Guilty."

Rip proudly flipped over the ace of hearts and king of spades, and I meekly revealed my aces to a series of groans from the table. The dealer pulled in the cards and pushed the pot to Rip. I had lost nearly $6,000 of my original $10,000 on the first hand. I figured I had to be dead last in the entire room. I wanted to hide.

''What a disaster," I said, stuck in a state of shock.

And it was, from a perspective of both luck and skill, the latter of which I neglected to utilize. I should have decided whether I felt I was ahead or behind when the turn came, then acted decisively. Rather, I played passively -- a sin in no-limit -- and let my opponent take control of the hand.

I had played scared. But I was scared. I imagined the shame of calling friends and family and telling them I had busted on the first hand, when I should have been analyzing the hand and contemplating strategy. Lesson learned. And I definitely should have folded on the river.

Poorly as I played the hand, I still got very, very unlucky to lose it. Ace-king will beat pocket aces seven times out of 100. After the turn, my opponent had a 5 percent chance to catch one of two remaining kings, the only ''outs" -- cards to give him the winner. And he did. Poker can be a cruel, cruel game.

Poker also stops for no man.

Seconds after shoving the pot to the other side of the table, the dealer started spewing cards again. There are no timeouts, no water breaks. I certainly needed a few moments to regroup, but another two cards nestled into my hands seconds later.

It is this situation pros fear most, when the risk to play recklessly in an attempt to recoup lost chips arises. It's called ''tilting" after what happens to an abused pinball machine. I needed to make sure that I did not tilt, or the piddling $4,000 in front of me would disappear as fast as the first $6,000.

I told myself to hunker down, try patiently to catch a monster and double my chips, and I'd be right back in the thick of things. I took my own advice for a while, then I played the ace-5 of spades combination too loose (called too many bets) in an effort to recapture the chips I just lost. By the turn, I had made four-to-a-flush, but the river gave both players full houses rather than giving me my flush.

My stack had petered away to a measly $2,100 in chips.

Three hands later, four players called until it reached the player on my right, who had assumed a massive chip lead on the table (he was the one with the better full house on the previous hand), who made it $350 to play. I figured he saw four players show weakness by limping in (only matching the big blind) and wanted to bully the table with his towering stack. I decided if I had even a semi-strong hand like pocket nines or ace-jack, I'd move the rest of my chips in, figuring, at worst, I'd be even money against whatever the big stack held. I peered down at ace-king of hearts, a monster hand. Against any non-pocket pair, I was a big favorite to win, and I had about a 50-50 shot at winning against a pair, other than aces or kings. I decided not even the poker Gods could be that cruel.

''All-in," I said.

The players who had called the big blind all folded, leaving my fate to the chip leader.

''Well, I was just trying to steal the antes," Mr. Big Stack said.

He pondered for a couple of moments, looking me over and scratching his salt-and-pepper beard, which rested below shades and a red cap.

''Well, just in case you've got pocket fours or something like that . . . I call."

Hmmm. That sounded like pocket sixes or something like that, which I had a fighting chance against but didn't want to risk the tournament on. Even if he had something really goofy like 10-jack, that would still make me only about a 60-40 favorite.

He sheepishly revealed the king of diamonds and the jack of clubs, and I showed my ''Big Slick" (ace-king). Perfect. Barring a flurry of clubs or diamonds or a miracle straight, I needed only to avoid the three jacks remaining in the deck. I should have been pumped. Instead, I was terrified. Play this game long enough, and nothing makes you comfortable.

I survived the flop -- three baby cards, no help to my opponent whatsoever.

Only a jack on the final two cards would knock me out. What a story this was going to make -- rookie almost busts on first hand, comes back to win! The dealer burned a card and flipped over the turn card so only he could see it.

I studied his face and noticed a grimace. He placed the card on the table slowly, almost apologetically. It was the jack of hearts.

My stomach tried to leap out of my mouth. The table groaned sympathetically as the dealer laid down the final card, the useless 8 of hearts. I was done. I looked at my watch. 12:51.

I hadn't even lasted an hour.

The worst part about leaving a tournament isn't the losing, and it isn't the money. It's the simple fact that everyone else gets to keep playing, and you don't. You shake hands with the players at the table, and no one really notices you after that. It's as if you never played at all. And that's exactly how I felt as the dealer flung cards to every spot at the table, save one unoccupied chair.