Articles From The Pros

Josh Arieh feels the excitement, but has a rough ride at the 2006 World Series of Poker. The craze poker has become was experienced the minute I walked into the Rio Hotel. At the Horseshoe four years ago, you'd be screwed if you didn't know where to go because hardly anyone at the casino knew where the World Series of Poker was played.

Now, it's impossible to miss.

The Rio was littered with WSOP signs and beautiful Bodog banners leading everyone to the Amazon Room. Lines were 50 players deep no matter where you went. Those unfortunate enough to sign up last minute paid for their procrastination by standing in a line with hundreds of others.

Yep, poker is here, and it's here to stay.

Unlike years past, most of the events were No Limit Holdem tournaments. Not that I minded, but I definitely enjoy the change of pace that other games bring. The WSOP started slow for me. For the first week or so I didn't make it to the first break (you break after two hours of play). On the bright side, I wasn't getting emotionally attached to tournaments or getting stuck playing 10 hours without cashing a check.

My first breakthrough came in the $50K HORSE event. The hours flew by and before I knew it, I had lasted the first day and cruised through half the field. My chip count wasn't great, but I was still in it, and that's all that matters in multi-day tournaments. You can't win it all on the first day.

When the second day rolled around I started to catch some good cards and showed it up against some stiff competition. In fact, I was playing my ass off against the best players in the world. At one point, I looked around the table and kind of froze. There were 10 bracelets on my left (Johnny Chan), 10 bracelets on my right (Phil Hellmuth), the best cash game player in the world (Chip Reese), and while I don't recall the other five, they were all great players and I was beating them! I hadn't cashed in an event yet, but against world-class opponents I had built my measly stack of $50,000 to over $300,000.

I was in that Michael Jordan zone where the game felt like it was slowing down around me.

Unfortunately, the levels in the HORSE tournament went through the roof just in time for me to experience a two-hour drought and I went cold. Shortly after, I found myself watching from the rail. The tournament paid 16 players and I finished somewhere around 23rd. I didn't get any cash reward from the tournament, but it took me out of my WSOP dry spell. After playing some great poker, my interest in playing more tournaments was resurrected.

The $2K No Limit Shootout was a highlight for me. The format was great - there were 600 people in the tournament, so we started with 100 tables of six players. Each table played until there was one man left. I quickly busted my first table to become one of the final 100 players to move on.

My next table was pretty good. The guy on my right loved going all-in and I was fortunate enough to pick up a hand behind him and double-up early.

With three of us left and the chips about even, I found myself all-in with A-K of hearts versus pocket 5s (a flashback from the 2004 final table with me and David Williams). Since the third guy at the table was quite inexperienced, it was expected that the winner of the pot would move on to the final table. I ended up losing and making $4,800. It was my lone cash out for the entire WSOP, so to say this year was a failure for me is an understatement.

Now that I'm home from the most grueling six weeks of my life, I plan on relaxing in Atlanta as much as possible and clearing my mind of poker. I can't wait to get out to the golf course and enjoy the great Georgia sun.

-Josh Arieh