On My Way to the 2009 WSOP!

I’m on the plane heading to Vegas for the 2009 WSOP and am about as excited as I was heading out in 2007 to play my first Main Event. I had played some preliminary events in 2006 and 2007, but when I took the trip out to play the Main Event in 2007, I had just quit my job and was just excited to be going out to play in my first World Series of Poker Main Event. I had no pressure on myself or specific expectations. My goal was to have fun and get through day one and then take it from there. Once I got through day one, the goal became to just cash. As the tournament went on and on, it started to become clear that I had a chance to really do something in that tournament. I will never forget calling my wife on break and she said, “Do you know that you are the chip leader?!?” What? I was the chip leader in the Main Event of the World Series of Poker? That was cool.

Heading out last summer for the 2008 series, I put way too much pressure on myself. I had worked on my game a lot and had had a couple decent scores in live tournaments, I had won a Sunday Major on Full Tilt and I had an unbelievable number of people asking for updates and wanted to follow every step of my progress. I didn’t want to let any of them down and I also wanted to prove myself as a legit player. One that should be respected at the tables. I started off pretty strong, earning a 12th place finish in the $3K NLHE event for about $24K. After that, I think the pressure got to me and I just didn’t play the best that I could. I didn’t get enough rest throughout the series and going into every $1,500 event, I really just had the mindset that they were crapshoots and that they didn’t fit with my more naturally conservative early game. I think I gambled a bit too much early in the wrong spots and played a style that was not comfortable for me. I didn’t expect to win – I just knew it was more likely that I would bust early and I went in with what I realized later was a losing mindset. Plus, I knew I could just head over to the Bellagio and play an afternoon tournament or go jump in some single table tournaments.

This year, I am coming into the series with a much different mindset. I have done less traveling to play live so far this year and I have been playing a lot online. I have logged about twice as many tournaments this year online as I did all of last year and I have really been working on my game. I have experimented with a lot of different styles of play and worked on incorporating some new concepts and strategies into my tournament game. I started off the year pretty strong (no, not to the tune that the guys that are absolutely crushing the online tournament scene have, but a solid start nonetheless). For the past six weeks or so, I really worked on a lot of the new things and testing reads with my online play. This led to some erratic results and actually many tournaments where I chipped up nicely and then lost some big flips late that cost me some pretty serious money. After doing a lot of analysis of my play, what was working – what was not, I feel really good about all of this experimentation and incremental adjustments. I was feeling really unlucky about these tournaments where I chipped up and either got cold-decked late or lost a big flip, but realized that in many of those cases, I was actually in some avoidable situations quite often. Combining all of the new things that have been working for me, eliminating the new things that have not, and going back to the roots of my core game that I still really believe in, I have a new-found confidence in my game and am really excited about the upcoming series.

I am not going to make any bold predictions for X number of cashes, X final tables, or X bracelets, but I am going to predict that I am going to be entering these tournaments with a renewed confidence in my game and a lack of outside pressure to perform. I will be updating my progress on Twitter, Facebook and my blog, and I really hope that I give my family, friends and fans a lot to root for along the way. But, this year, the focus is going to be on playing the best that I can every day and everything else will follow. I am not going to be consumed with getting back to every single message and I apologize in advance to those that are already waiting on responses and those that might not hear from me until after the summer. Just know that its simply too much to keep up with and I owe it to myself and everyone else to focus on my game.

I am starting off the series with a satellite Tuesday night for the $40K tournament that starts on Thursday. Wednesday night, I am planning on playing in Annie Duke’s charity tournament at the Hard Rock – Sucking out on the Rivers – to help support Annie’s charity Refugees International. After that, its onto the $40K if I win my seat or I will kick off the series with the big $1K event on the weekend.

My boys, Pat and Bob, are staying with me in a condo for the first month, so I expect to have some great results to report for them and all the other friends I have made in the poker world. I also have a lot of students coming out this year, so I really hope that Acumen Poker is well represented deep in many tournaments. I think this is going to be a good series for me, not only for my results, but also because I have so many friends that I will root for to have a great series too, so for those final tables that I don’t make, I hope that I will get to provide lots of rail support along the way too.

I am also excited that the folks at Bluff have asked me to start putting my blog on their site, so I will be double-posting it on my blogspot site and on Bluff. Hopefully this will help keep the fire lit under my butt and I will be better about blogging.

Well, time to read a little bit and listen to some music – maybe even catch a little nap before I get to Vegas. I wish everyone safe travels over the holiday and throughout the summer. Hope to see lots of you here and good luck in the tournaments.

Decide to Win!

lee.childs@acumenpoker.net
leechilds.blogspot.com
www.twitter.com/leechilds