Aces on Your First Hand of the WSOP Main Event: Dream or Nightmare?

WSOP

If you think you are having a bad day, just keep reading. It's every poker player's dream to play the biggest tournament in the world: the World Series of Poker Main Event. Some are even fortunate to be able to play every year. Bracelet winner, Max Steinberg, who has $4,032,510 in WSOP earnings, is one of those players, and in the 2015 Main Event, he ran deep to finish 4th for $2,615,361.

On Tuesday, he took his seat hoping to replicate his 2015 run, but instead was slapped in the face at the start and never even had a chance. It's either your best dream or your biggest nightmare to pick up pocket aces on the very first hand of the day. That's what happened to Steinberg. He looked down and saw AA and was possibly super excited or, if he's anything like me, scared AF.

I mean, it's the first hand of a $10,000 buy-in event! Unfortunately, it turned into his biggest nightmare, as it was the only hand he played, as it sent him to the rail not even five minutes into the start of the day.

Take a look at the hand.

Max Steinberg Eliminated in His First Hand of the 2018 Main Event

Max Steinberg
Max Steinberg (photo from earlier this WSOP)

When we arrived, the board was already out and the player that had just lost was already gone from the tournament area. We later found out it was 2012 bracelet winner and 2015 November Niner Max Steinberg who was the one to go bust.

Michael Rack (under-the-gun) was the one responsible getting it in against Steinberg (under the gun plus one) before the flop.

Max Steinberg: AA
Michael Rack: KK

The board ran out 97K6Xx to give Rack a set of kings and the first bust-out of the day a mere five minutes into the tournament. Steinberg out as the first player on Day 1b of the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Brutal. Steinberg then followed up his one-hand bust with a tweet saying, "well this is a first."

In a later tweet, Steinberg clarified the action by saying that the pocket kings player three-bet to 45K... from a 50K starting stack.

So if you think you're having a bad day, just remember, you didn't have aces cracked in a $10K buy-in on your very first hand.

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  • .@MaxJSteinberg picked up aces on his very first hand in the Main Event… and busted.

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