This week, I wasn't exhausted, and inspired partly by a strong showing in the $2,000 no-limit hold'em event (knocked out with four tables left when Asher Derei called my stronger hand and drew out on me), I pulled ten large out of my pocket and entered the $10,000 no-limit hold'em WPO championship event.

140 ENTER ONE OF POKER'S TOUGHEST EVER FIELDS

139 other of poker's best and brightest decided to take their chance too, and the average starting field was far stronger than the average starting field at the World Series, where a lot of rich people enter the championship event just so they can tell their rich buddies that they have played in the World Series of Poker. The WPO may someday reach that kind of status, but for today, the only players entering this event are players who think they can win this event.

To give you an idea of the field strength, for most of Day One I was facing a table of Asher Derei, Phil Hellmuth, Jason Viriyayuthakorn, Teddy Tuil, Eli Balas, Mike Laing, and Amir Vahedi (I managed to survive Day One in 32nd chip position out of the 80 survivors). On Day Two, I faced a line-up that included Surinder Surinar, Don Barton, Ian Dobson, Michael Davis, Hilbert Shirey, Doyle Brunson, Paul Phillips, and Tony Hartman. Just lovely.

HEY, WHO WAS THAT GUY I JUST KNOCKED OUT?

Nonetheless, I not only survived on Day Two, I thrived, playing exactly the kind of small pot poker I wanted to play. The most I ever won in one pot was $13,000 when I busted out Doyle Brunson (he moved in on my Q-Q with A-Q, so it wasn't exactly like I outplayed him craftily after the flop or anything), and when the shouting was done, we had 27 players in the money, I was one of them, and I was in sixth chip position with $97,900.

Suddenly, those dreams of the half million dollar first prize didn't seem so unrealistic, and in keeping with the old Dan Jenkins line "Ya gotta dance with the one who brung ya," I planned to stick to the same small pot tight-aggressive style that had gotten me where I was.

The plan worked very well for about 90 minutes, and I was up to about $115,000, when I had one of those "false move" moments I'd worried about at the 2001 WSOP. I'm not sure how many mistakes I made in this one hand—it really depends how finely you want to split hairs on whether certain plays were one mistake or three—but I made a few, and the only consolations I've been able to find are, first, I'll never make these particular mistakes again, and second, it proved to me that I was right to save the $10,000 at the 2001 WSOP.

THE SET-UP FOR THE NON-COMEDY OF ERRORS

Once again I was facing a hugely tough table, but there aren't any soft tables this late in an event like the WPO, and there were only two players at the table who had stacks large enough to damage me: Humberto Brenes (who had become the chip leader on the very first hand when he moved in from the button with Q-5, got called all-in by Phil Ivey's A-K and $31,000 stack, and caught a queen on the flop), and the ultra-dangerous Mike Laing, seated exactly where I didn't want him, two spots to my left.

Enough preliminaries. Here's the big hand, and I think you'll find the mistakes very instructive: I hope you don't have to learn these lessons the hard way, although you might, because there wasn't anything that happened here that I didn't already understand in theory. I just had a momentary lapse in concentration, and that's all it took.

Brenes made a small raise from middle position, and for the first time in 11 hours of play, I merely called a raise (here, in the big blind, with Q-10, thinking it was the sort of tricky hand where I might flop something monstrous and trap Brenes). Before that, I'd either re-raised or folded every time since I'd called a small raise on the button with 5-5 early in Day Two, hoping to flop a set.

So the first few mistakes were:

1) Calling instead of raising or folding;
2) Calling in a spot where I'd be out of position.
3) Getting involved with another big stack.
4) Getting involved after the flop with a player who'd demonstrated the cards he might play would be unconventional, making it difficult to know where I was after the flop.

The flop came 7-8-9, giving me an open-ended straight draw, and an overcard in the queen that would probably give me an unbeatable straight if the jack happened to hit. I decided to bet out $20,000 at a pot that probably had about $8,000 in it. That's the fifth mistake. Nothing wrong with a bet here, but it probably should have been about $10,000, closer in size to the pot and easier to get away from if raised.

"I'LL SEE THAT 20K AND RAISE IT ANOTHER $35,000"

Brenes raised me $35,000, and after only about 20 seconds (mistake number six, and probably the fatal one: not taking enough time to make such a big decision), I decided to move all-in on him for another $60,000. Brenes knew me to be a reasonably tight player, and I was certain he wouldn't call a bet of that size with an overpair, and almost equally certain he wouldn't call it with even two pair. The minimum it was going to take was a set.

The only problem was, Humberto held 10-J: he'd flopped the stone cold nuts, and so it was a trivially easy call. Bye-bye Andy, in 22nd place. To reach the money in such a tough and prestigious event was an accomplishment. To blow myself out of it with one lapse in form was something that will stay with me for a long time.

SO… WAS I UNLUCKY?

Was I unlucky to run into the stone cold nuts? Of course. Was I unlucky to get knocked out of the tournament on the hand? Of course not, because of the errors I made. If I don't get involved with a big stack to start with—and that's Tournament Poker 201—no problems develop. Had Humberto been bluffing, or even just held a moderately strong hand, and I'd picked up $60,000 with my own bluff, I'd have looked like a hero, and perhaps gone on to win the tournament, as Humberto did. But he wasn't bluffing, and I wasn't winning.

I think most of the lessons are pretty clear, except perhaps for one important one: my willingness to admit to myself that I had indeed made serious mistakes. It just so happens that my other job involves being honest with my readers about what happens in my poker travels, and if I'm audacious enough to call other players' actions mistakes, I figure I need to be audacious enough to admit to my own. That's the only way I'm going to get better, and it's probably the only way for you, too.

Your only advantage is that you don't have to tell the world about them!