WSOP-E

My Twitter stream keep tempting me with links to live poker - before it was the EPT, and now the WSOP Europe.  Yesterday I took the bait and watched a little of Event 5, a 2,000 Pound NLHE tournament. 

Right away, I was right back in the swing of things, watching, learning, and putting myself in the pros shoes in terms of the decisions they made and whether I agreed or would have played differently.  It was a good feeling to be back in the proverbial saddle, if even from a distance.

Twitter hit me with the links again today and again I clicked, this time based on my experience the day before, the need to kill some time, and the final-table presence of one of my favorite pros, Erik Seidel.  The 8-time bracelet winner is one of the quietest and most unassuming, yet funniest and most intelligent pros on the entire tour and has been from some time.  He is one of the members of the very short list of pros I look up to.

I watched the tournament on and off, around work and the memorial service/wake for my Great Uncle John.  It was 2:15 eastern time when it finally ended, Seidel losing heads-up in his quest for a ninth bracelet.  Not the result I wanted to see, but good poker nonetheless.

I learned a few things about heads-up play in the process, and a couple about tournaments in general, but mostly I watched how the players conducted themselves at the table.  That kind of thing facinates me for some reason.  I see people all the time who act like complete jackwads when they play live, yet there are guys like Seidel who are so low-key one would think them acting quiet because they are out of their element and thus terrified.  Nothing can be further from the truth.

I'm still trying to determine by "table image", what I want to be known as.  There are cases to be made, even within my own personality, for at least a couple of different approaches.  Maybe it depends on my mood, or the situation.  As I have already written, I won't be taking things too seriously.  Just how verbally and demonstratively I "don't take it seriously" remains to be seen.