All In (10 page)

About half an hour into the first round, my first chance came. I drew pocket jacks. I made a modest raise before the flop, one just large enough to determine whether someone had a larger pair than mine. Anyone holding pocket kings or aces or even queens would have raised.

All but one player folded, and he merely called.

Very good
.
Slow play these jacks, and let the pot build.

The flop made my hand look even better. No queens. No kings. No aces. I don't remember all the cards, but I do remember that the dealer turned a nine. Even if someone paired the nine, I had this hand won.

In poker, the sooner you push other players out of a hand,
the better. If you have a chance to take a pot before the flop, you do it. More cards on the table represent more chances for someone to get lucky. I didn't want to take that chance.

The first to act, I said, “I'm all in.”

The other player in the hand had a chip lead on me but not one so large that he would risk his tournament with nothing higher than a nine on the table. I knew he would fold.

“I call,” he said.

The moment he turned his cards, I felt sick. He held pocket nines, with a nine on the board. Three nines always beat two jacks.

I had to get lucky on the turn or the river and draw to stay alive. The dealer didn't waste any time laying the turn and river on the table. The jack didn't come.

Not only had I not won a seat to the World Series of Poker, but I was one of the first players to bust out.

I stood, took off my glasses, and shook the player's hand. “Good luck to you, my friend.” I said it with a smile, though inside I felt absolutely ill. I am not a patient man when it comes to meeting my goals. Baseball fans may say, “There's always next year,” but I didn't want to wait another year. I walked outside, disappointed and more than a little mad at myself.

When I got to the car, I looked at my watch. That's when it hit me:
If I don't hit any traffic, I actually have time to get to Pechanga before their tournament starts.

I normally don't play more than one event in a day.

I decided to make an exception.

Thankfully, traffic was light on Interstate 15 that Saturday morning. I exited onto Highway 79, which was also the exit for my home. As soon as I pulled off the freeway, I started having second thoughts.
Do I really want to risk another $225? I've already lost over $100 today. That's enough.

Up ahead was the traffic light where I had to make the difficult decision. I could go straight through the light to get home.
But if I don't turn right on Pechanga Parkway,
I thought,
I'll have to wait a whole year for my shot at the main event.

I turned right.

I made it to Pechanga with a few minutes to spare. Including me, 188 players entered. Of the $225 entry fee, $25 went to the casino and the rest went into the prize pool, giving us a total payout of over $37,000.

Since only those who make the final table cash out, making it there would make this a profitable day for those who wanted to merely finish in the money. I was not one of those people.

After falling flat earlier in the morning at Lake Elsinore, I played the first few hands at Pechanga tight. A tournament this size demands patience, not reckless aggression. Although I always play to win, I knew gaining the chip lead right out of the blocks wouldn't guarantee anything. In Texas Hold 'Em, you can go from the chip leader to busted flat in a matter of only one or two hands. I knew it from experience.

Play started at ten in the morning. By the afternoon, I found myself in the top 25 percent in terms of my chip stack.

Be patient. Do not overplay your hand. Let the cards come to
you,
I reminded myself.

Too many players who start off strong get themselves into trouble by letting their adrenaline get the best of them. They start playing marginal hands and soon find themselves in the short stack or worse. I fought the urge. I knew I didn't have to knock out all the other players myself. Sometimes the best play is to fold, sit back, and allow the other players to destroy one another.

My patience paid off. For the third time in five months, I made the final table. I was determined to force a different outcome.

When play began at the final table, I had the sixth or seventh largest stack, which is another way of saying I was in the bottom third. One player held what appeared to be an insurmountable lead. No sooner had the final nine taken our places at the table than one or two players brought up chopping the pot. That means they wanted to end the tournament immediately, divide the prize pool evenly among the nine of us, and let the chip leader have the seat at the main event.

I hated the idea. Luckily for me, I wasn't alone. The chip leader, a man named John, stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. “Let's just play and see what happens.”

That was fine with me. I wanted to win, not settle for one-ninth of the prize money.

Two hours passed. The final nine were now pared down to four.

“Let's chop,” a player said.

John still held the chip lead and shot the idea down once again. Since he'd maintained his lead throughout the final table,
he didn't see any reason to lessen the pressure on the rest of us.

I now held the second largest stack and didn't want to chop the pot either.

Play continued for a long time. Finally, two other players busted out, leaving only me and John. He still held the chip lead, but I'd closed the gap considerably.

“I'll tell you what, Jerry,” he said. “The casino gives a cash prize of $1,700 along with the seat at the main event. Here's what I'll do. You give me the seat, and I'll give you the extra cash. You put that with your second place money, and that's a pretty nice payday. Wadda ya say?”

“I appreciate the offer,” I said, “but playing in the World Series of Poker is a dream of mine, too. Let's play the cards and see what happens.”

“Suit yourself.”

Head-to-head play is different from going up against nine or ten players. You must be cautious, but at the same time, you can't sit back and fold time and again. The blinds increase every few hands, which forces more and more of your chips into the pot. If you never take a chance and play a hand, the blinds alone will knock you out of the tournament.

John and I went back to the game for about an hour. I managed to grab a two-to-one chip lead, which meant now I could dictate the action. Yet I still had to be cautious. Leads have a way of disappearing fast in Texas Hold 'Em.

Sometime around four in the afternoon, the dealer gave me an ace-nine in the big blind. If not for my dark glasses, John would have seen my eyes open wider. I'd been waiting
for a hand like this.

John acted first and raised.

“I re-raise,” I said.

John thought for a moment, then said, “I'm all in.”

Now it was my turn to act. With a sizable chip lead, I could afford to take a chance, even though losing would mean flipping from the chip lead to the short stack. I looked at my opponent, who fidgeted in his seat and rubbed his face with his left hand. I didn't know for sure that he was bluffing, but I decided to find out.

“I call,” I said.

I could tell by the look on John's face that those were the last words he wanted to hear.

As soon as I turned my cards, he shook his head. He knew he was beat. “Good call, Jerry.”

I looked at his cards. He had an ace, which meant he hadn't bluffed. But his other card was a lowly five.

I pumped my fist. “
Yes
.”

Another ace came up on the flop, which was good for me. However, a three or a four also came up, which meant John might possibly hit a straight. The turn card came: a jack.

He couldn't make his straight. Only a five on the river could beat me now. The dealer burned a card, then turned a seven.

I jumped and shouted, “Praise the Lord,” at the top of my lungs.

I was on my way to Vegas.

The poker room manager shook my hand. “Congratulations,
Jerry. You played a great tournament.”

“Thank you.” It was all I could say. Honestly, I was in shock and couldn't believe I'd just won.

“Now, Jerry, the grand prize can be paid out in one of two ways. You can take the seat at the main event, or we will give you a check for $10,000. Which do you prefer?”

Oh my. Answering that question was my toughest call of the day. On the one hand, the main event had been my goal since the day I'd first discovered poker two years earlier. This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. On the other hand, $10,000 is a lot of money. If Sue had been standing next to me, I knew she would've said, “Daddy, what are you waiting for? Take the money.”

But my wife was not standing there with me, and I didn't call her to ask what she wanted me to do. For a moment, I wanted to say, “Write the check,” but I didn't. “Playing in the World Series of Poker is my dream. I will take the seat at the tournament.”

The manager smiled. “Well, it looks like your dream has come true. You are going to Vegas, Jerry.”

I could hardly believe it. In six weeks, I, Jerry Yang, would take my seat in the biggest, most prestigious poker tournament in the world.

When I won my seat at the main event of the World Series of Poker, I won just that: the seat. I didn't win an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas. The $1,700 cash prize that the Pechanga Resort & Casino gave me didn't come close to covering the cost of a hotel room and food for the twelve days of the main event. If I'd stopped and thought about it logically, I would've realized $1,700 was more than enough for an amateur player to drive to Vegas, see the sights, and then get knocked out on the first day of play. The thought never entered my mind.

The main event lasted twelve days, and that's how long I planned to stick around. I may have had a million-to-one shot to win it all, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking,
You never know. Stranger things have happened.

I searched hotels online and made a few calls. The Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, site of the World Series of Poker, offered a special room rate for players, but even with their 50
percent discount, the $200 a night price tag was way out of my range. Other hotels in the area around the Rio were just as expensive.

“Wow,” I said to my wife, “this is going to cost more than I thought.”

That's when I had an idea. I'd go back to the Pechanga and ask the manager if the casino might help cover my hotel expenses. It seemed logical to me.

Not to him. “I'm sorry, Jerry, but that's not our policy.” End of discussion.

In my lifetime, I've learned the value of persistence and having a backup plan. I drove back up Interstate 15 to the Lake Elsinore Hotel & Casino, where I'd busted out in half an hour trying to win their qualifying tournament. I hoped no one there remembered that little fact.

I found Pat Wilmes, the poker room manager. “I won a seat to this year's World Series of Poker at Pechanga,” I said, “but they won't give me a hotel room in Vegas. You know how much I play here in your casino. Would you be willing to cover my hotel room for me?”

To my surprise, Pat said yes. “All we ask, Jerry, is that you wear a ball cap with our logo and one of our shirts.”

“I'm happy to do that. Thank you very much.” Wearing a hat in exchange for a hotel room sounded like a sweet deal to me.

“Do you care which hotel we put you in?”

I'd been to Las Vegas only one time, and that had been to make my marriage official.

Sue and I had been married in the traditional Hmong
way, with the elders coming to our home and us making our vows. Since the state of California doesn't recognize the traditional Hmong wedding ritual, though, we had also needed to get married someplace that would give us a state-approved license. Since it's cheaper to get married in Nevada than California, we went there. Even then, we didn't spend the night in Vegas. We basically rushed in, went through the ceremony, and drove home.

Judging by the little I'd seen in my brief time there, I decided one “hotel and casino” was just about like every other. “As long as I have a place to go to sleep, I'll be happy,” I said.

Pat called me a couple of weeks later and gave me the name of my hotel and driving directions. “It's not on the Strip but downtown. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” I said. On the Strip or downtown: how different could one be from the other? I was going to Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker. Nothing else really mattered.

The 6,000 players competing in the main event start their tournaments on one of four days, July 4, 5, 6, or 7. That is the only way to fit everyone into the Amazon Room. When I won my seat, I could choose any of the four days. I almost chose the third start date, July 6. I figured even if I busted out, I would have at least one extra day to hang out in Las Vegas and enjoy the sights and sounds of the World Series of Poker.

Right before I wrote July 6 on my form, though, I remembered a dream I'd had back in 2005. In my dream, I was riding in a helicopter with several of my friends. Thick fog
covered the ground below. We had to get to the airport, but the pilot couldn't find it in the thick fog. Everyone in the helicopter in my dream panicked. Low on fuel, the plane was about to crash. The pilot radioed the control tower and cried out for help.

In my dream, I heard the voice of the air traffic controller. “Don't worry. I know exactly where you are. Descend slowly through the fog until you see the numbers on the runway. That's where you need to land.”

The pilot in my dream did as he was instructed, and the gray fog obstructed my view through the window. Suddenly I saw the numbers on the runway, just as the air traffic controller had said. I never forgot that sight or the numbers: 7–7–7.