POTD #18 2019 WSOP Main Event B-Side vs Dario Sammartino

A famous B-Side and an answer to the question "Why did you go all-in?"

Vinyl is making a comeback. For the younger readers, recorded music used to be pressed onto vinyl discs. The A-side would feature the lead single, and the B-side would feature a lesser known song. I say this as someone who has never really listened to vinyl and has more A-side/B-side experience with cassette tapes, but nevertheless. Like Monte Carlo Monday, today’s hand will look at a lesser known hand from a tournament where I played a more memorable hand.

2019 was a very good year for me. I began the year winning the PCA 100k, then I came 2nd in 500k HKD at Triton Jeju, then came third in an 100k at EPT Monte Carlo, and then I final tabled three events at Triton Montenegro. I went to Las Vegas just to play the World Series Main Event and hang out with some friends.

The Main Event is a beast of a tournament: It’s the longest tournament that runs all year, the days are long, the levels are long, and it is for many people the biggest tournament they’ll ever play. The advice I tend to give people when they ask a version of “I’m about to play the biggest tournament of my life, what should I do?” is “Don't panic and try to play a different version of your poker game.” If you go into the tournament with a mindset of “This is a special tournament, unlike any other,” you’ll likely make a “special” play, unlike any you’ve ever made.

I was running good and feeling good and decided to put my theory to the test. I was going to focus and play good poker, but if someone rejammed 25 BBs on me and I had AJs, I wasn’t going to stare them down to see if they were strong so I could hero fold. I asked for a count, called when I received the number, and beat 99. There was a whole lot of winning small flips and flopping top pair vs. worse top pair type hands that occurred through my run in the main event. That’s the baseline requirement for making it to the top 60 of an 8,569-person tournament. When I made day 6, I had realized how big the stakes were and I had adjusted my game accordingly, but in a key hand my instruments were not perfectly calibrated.

2019 WSOP Main Event Day 6

80k/160k/160k (SB/BB/BBA) I have 13M, Dario has 4.16M after posting the ante.

The Hand:

I complete A♣️5♦️ in the SB, from the BB Dario raises to .. a size, I forget and it doesn’t really matter much. I go all-in for 26bbs he calls with T♠️T♣️ and wins.