It’s not something that fits within these pages, necessarily, but for the past three months, I’d been walking around with one of Joe Hachem’s hundred dollar bills in my pocket. The exact circumstances of how I obtained this cash is not a story I’ll tell here, but the effect of the cash is something worth discussing. In the small bit of poker I played since I acquired the bill, I ran bad. Ugly bad. Falling out of the bad beat tree and hitting every branch on the way down bad. I started to wonder of Hachem’s cash was unlucky.
Then, during a brief moment of respite from my reporting duties, I took another look at the bill. Maybe, I thought, carrying around wasn’t such a good idea. Instead, I put the bill in play and walked away with bills 20 times the value of Hachem’s hundred. I decided Hachem’s money works much better if it’s on the table.
Fast forward to today’s $1,000 re-buy event. Hachem has managed to make it through the first half of the day and build a big ol’ stack of chips. In fact, with the blinds still at 150/300, Hachem has amassed a stack 50,000 strong. With an M of more than 100 at the moment, Hachem is in good shape to go deep today. I’m not saying I know anything much about how Hachem plays, but the when the guy’s mood is in a good place, his play is fantastic. I have to imagine–what with him kissing Greg Raymer earlier today–Hachem is in a good mood. So, good mood plus good chips could equal good things for the 2005 World Champion today.
I say all this with the caveat that there is still an exceptionally long way to go in this event and Hachem is prone to bad beats. So, we’ll see what happens as the night grows long. All I know is that Hachem has a bunch of chips on the table, and if my experience is any indicator, Hachem’s cash on the table can be a very good thing.
Also in good shape are Barry Greenstein and Daniel Negreanu. Both are sitting on very playable mid-evening chip stacks. We’ll see how their nights work out for them.
As always, especially with the now-deep-stacked rebuy event, there is a long row to hoe before we can start talking about cashes, final tables, and bracelets. Still, it’s pretty darned nice to see thee boys with chips.
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