The Best Poker Player I’ve Ever Played With
I thought I’d seen it all and played with the best: Darren Elias, Bin Weng, Chino Rheem, Loni Harwood, James Carroll, Shannon Shorr, Andrew Moreno, etc…. Until Friday….. Everything was going smoothly. I’d satellited into Flight 1A of the $1700 WSOPC Graton Main Event and had run my starting stack of 40,000 up to close to 100,000 after winning a big 4-bet pot.
That’s when an intense young man sat down on my right with a 40,000 chip starting stack. On his first hand, the player to his left raised and he 3-bet. The flop came down A high and he made a very small bet when it was checked to him which his opponent called. The turn was a Q and it went check check. On the river his opponent made a slightly larger than half pot size bet which he tank called. His opponent flipped over 99 and he scooped the pot with Q8dd. Yes: He’d 3-bet his first hand with Q8dd and called a big bet on the river on an A high board. Things were about to get interesting….
Before continuing I want to go back to my most exciting moment in poker which occurred in 2014 when I won a $1000 satellite into my first Main Event. The excitement of knowing that I’d be playing in The Main Event was incredible. 50,000 chips, 2 hour levels. I couldn’t wait. Schooled by Harrington On Hold ‘Em, I anticipated easing my way into the tournament in the early levels. But I was in for a rude awakening because Chino Rheem was at my table and he made things difficult for everyone right from the get go: raising, 3-betting, etc… I could barely see a flop. Not what I had expected!
Fast forward six years later to the 2020 Bay 101 Shooting Star. It’s Day 2 and there are about 36 players left. I’m at a table with Chino again and Darren Elias is to my right. Chino raises, Darren 3-bets from the small blind and I wake up with QQ in the big blind. I go All In with my ~35 big blind stack, Chino folds and Darren calls with AKdd. There’s an Ace in the window, Darren has me slightly covered and I’m devastated. I can’t help thinking what could have been had I won that hand.
Back to the WSOPC Graton Main Event Flight 1A on Friday. I didn’t know it at the time but the man who had sat down on my right and started crushing the table from hand #1 was Marco Johnson – a two time WSOP bracelet winner with almost $5 million in career winnings. As I said, Marco was raising and 3-betting a lot so when he raised on the button and I looked down at K8dd in the small blind I figured it was plenty good to 3-bet with. Travis Fujisaka folded the big blind and the action was back on Marco who went into the tank. After a long time, he 4-bet to just under 20,000. (I believe the blinds were 600/1200/1200, his original raise was to 2,400, my 3-bet to 7,500 and his 4-bet to 19,700). I had ~75,000 chips and my first instinct was to shove All-In. I was convinced it was a light 4-bet and he’d fold to a shove. But the more I thought about it that felt like a punt. Shoving 60+ big blinds with K8dd in a pretty deep structure isn’t ideal. If he called, I was almost certain to be a big dog. And so I folded. After that, I stayed out of his way. And I watched Marco carve up a table of competent players and accumulate a massive stack.
It wasn’t until a few hours ago that I found out who he was when I checked PokerLiveUpdates.com to see a picture of Marco headlining a blog about today’s final table. In fact, he’s the chipleader. At the time, I was aggravated because his relentless aggression caused me to curtail my game. In retrospect, I got a cheap education in world class poker from the best I’ve ever played with.
