WSOP Event #2 - $1,500 NL Hold'em Day 1a

Well I will ruin the suspense and let everyone know that I made it through 11 hours of day 1a and will be back to resume play on Monday. I'll give a little synopsis of the day as I best remember.

The first two blind levels were pretty uneventful, I really didn't have anything for premium hands but was able to pick up some uncontested money and built my stack from 3k to just over 5k at the first break.

Over the next two blind levels I had some better starting hands but didn't build a ton of chips. I had JJ hold against a really short stacked 77. Made a tough call with 1010 against a fairly tight player who had 99 and held again all in preflop. I did have to lay 99 down preflop twice after I raised and picked up blinds a few times to get to the next break with a little over 9k which would have been about average at the time.

At the start of level 5 I had a very weak player with a boatload of chips sit immediately to my right. He took a bit of a tough setup early where he flopped top and bottom vs top two and from there on he was hemorrhaging chips hard. Unfortunately, I was never once able to catch him. Our table got moved from essentially a hallway in the Rio to the main tournament room and then broke soon after. I had built to about 13k when my table broke and I moved to a much tougher table with a lot of big stacks surrounding me. I went card dead for an hour and a half and was completely frozen by the aggressive play around me. I bled to about 8k at the dinner break and was not very healthy with the blinds about to go to 300/600 with a 50 ante.

I sustained my stack with a couple blind pickups and then had this hand. Early position player limps for 600. He has limped with nothing but weak hands but is the type of player who is in for a penny in for a pound. I look down at AQ and don't really want his call but am confident I am ahead of him as long as I don't run into anything behind me so I jack it to 3k. Flop comes A63, he bets small I jam and he instacalls with his A3 having flopped two pair. Turn is a 4 and the river is a sweet lil ole Q to give me the better two pair. I still can't believe he called preflop but I guess in the end he got what he deserved, sure we'll go with that. Over the next 40 minutes I had some bad timing and some weak plays. I raised 77 preflop and laid down to shown AA preflop reraise. I flopped 2nd pair in the bb with 3 way action that checked around on the flop, lead out on turn and guy fishy raises and I lay and he nailed a set on the turn. I failed to take advantage of picking up some chips outta my bb when sb obv had piss all too. Then after folding my sb twice in a row to the big stack to my left in a no action pot I decide I am not going to do it 3 times and raise my 84 outta the sb and run into his KK and lay preflop. So from being happy and up to 17k I am suddenly back down under 10k and a little steamed. Thankfully our table breaks. I go pretty card dead again and bleed all the way down to 6k with no opportunities whatsoever. With blinds at 400/800 I find a4 in late position and decide to jam. The sb wakes up with AJ and instacalls but the first card off the deck was a beautiful little 4 of diamonds and it holds. The very next hand I pick up QQ and am first into the pot with a raise. The same player obviously tilting goes all in and I instacall. He has JT and the flop is AKx. Fortunately, the QQ holds and suddenly I am close to 30k and take that to the break.

At this point we have played down to 244 players from a starting field of 2,048. It had been determined by the tournament directors that we would play down to 225 people and wrap things up. With the blinds at 500/1k 100 ante this hand comes up when we are only about 5 people from calling it a night. The play has tightened up similiarly to bubble time. So, first postion raises to 2500, next player who has about 75k in chips reraises to 5500 and action comes to me and I look down and find Aces. Now, I am not sure about this play but I decide to just close my eyes and toss it all in. It is definitely a bit of an overplay but honestly at the time I was of the mindset I don't need to get cute here and I will be happy to take down 10k in uncontested chips. The original raiser folds quick and the big stack folds his JJ quickly as well. So, I finished the day with a stack of 41,600 and average stack will be just over 27k. They are still taking entries for tomorrow's day 1b but it looks as though the field will be a little over 4,000 entrants making the total prize pool in excess of $5,000,000. Official payout structures will not be announced until sometime tomorrow as they are still allowing registation.

Another couple interesting things from the day; I can not remember making a single hand bigger than two pair, the only showdowns I lost were in blind vs blind checkdowns, I did not have a single all in race situation. Overall I would probably give myself a grade of B on the day. I think I could have picked up a few more pots with some timely steals but in nl hold'em tournaments I generally bank on being the guy with the tight image so I can pick up uncontested money when needed. I was happy though with a number of laydowns I made not allowing myself to get married to the medium pairs.

On tap for tomorrow I still think I am going to go down and play the $150 O8 tournament at Binions in the afternoon. It should have a decent field and a lot of weak play. Unfortunately, weak players in O8 are known to go on great runs until they eventually implode.

My room service just arrived. The crab cakes here at the Imperial Palace kick ass and the french onion soup is pretty damn good too. Not to mention the service is generally super fast. Time to tear into that and get some sleep. Live poker seems to be much more of a drain than sitting and playing online for me. I think you just pay attention to so many more details that it is easier to get mentally fatigued.

In Vegas

Landed in Vegas without any problems on Friday night, well other than the taxi line that was a sea of people. I got checked into the Imperial Palace. I was hoping there would be a big line and I could bypass the general masses with my Platinum Harrah's card but alas there was no line for anyone and I got checked in with ease. I headed to the Rio to register for WSOP event #2, a $1500 NL Holdem event. As of last night there were already close to 3,000 players registered and there will be hundreds more registering this morning. For some reason a lot of players really love standing in line and registering for tournaments at the last minute. With such a large field the tournament will be split in two and have two starting days. I decided to choose today as my starting day as there is a $150 O8 tournament I would like to play at Binion's tomorrow. If I am lucky enough to survive day #1 then I will resume play on Monday when the remaining players are combined together. I assume about 75% of the players will be knocked out on their day #1.

The tournament structure provides 3,000 starting chips with 1 hour levels and opening blinds starting at 25/50. Day 1 is slated to commence at noon and play for 10 levels which with breaks will have people playing until a little past midnight. I will make another entry later with information on how my day went. Hopefully, I will be reporting on a chip stack and not about an exit story.

I'm off to the Rio now to find out where I actually start to play. My entry card shows me located in the "Buzzio" are which is not the main WSOP room. Last night I saw that there were about 15 tables set up outside of Buzio's seafood restaurant so I might be starting there away from the main tournament room.

Vegas Bound

Well, where to start? I have never written a blog before but wanted to try it for my upcoming Vegas excursion. If I enjoy the blog writing and find I get some positives out of the process then I may continue to write on a more regular basis for my daily poker exploits. However, this blog is intended as a synopsis of my upcoming Vegas trip. I know there are people who like to hear how I am doing in various events and this will certainly be a good avenue to reach people at their leisure. Also, I want to write the blog as honestly as possible to help keep myself somewhat in check over the course of my trip and curtail the degenerate gambling.

I fly to Vegas tonight from Fargo. I decided to book out of Fargo to save about $300 on a one way ticket to Vegas. I took a bus down here and actually the bus ride was not nearly as painful as expected. I read a little bit of Super System II which was enjoyable, it had been awhile since I read any poker literature. (well read anything for that matter)

The Plan: Play live tournaments for the entire month of June.
During the World Series of Poker there are tournaments of all sizes and structures to be played. The Venetian runs their Deep Stack Extravaganza for the entire month. I've always enjoyed the Venetian card room. It is roomy, good service, and the tournament directors do a very nice job. Also, when you cash they pay you in casino chips and do not take the 30% taxing for the IRS. I understand this year they are going to try to facilitate field sizes of 800 players for their events.
Caesars is hosting a MegaStack series to compete with the Venetian tournaments. I had some success on my last trip at Caesars chopping a $500 PLO tournament when we were 3 handed. Officially finishing in 3rd place for 2nd place money. The only real annoyance with Caesars or any Harrah's event is that they will tax your winnings immediately as a Canadian citizen. Oh, and depending on where you sit the room can be super cold.
Binions started a new series last year that is quite interesting. Basically they mirror the World Series of Poker events but do so at smaller buyins and two days before the actual WSOP event. So, if there is a 2K holdem event then binions will run a $200 holdem event two days earlier.

With all these tournaments happening I plan to target as many Omaha events as possible. I plan to play at least two WSOP events. The first, which starts tomorrow, is the $1500 NL Holdem event. I used my points from PokerStars to buy into this event. Last year the event had close to 3000 entrants and I expect it to be larger this year as it is the cheapest event PokerStars will allow you to buy into. There are going to be two starting days so I don't know if I start Saturday or Sunday at this point. Also, I will be playing the $1500 PLO8 tournament in late July. I played it last year and did not cash in spite of the overall field calibre being absolutely horrendous. If I happen to hit some nice early cashes I will consider playing two other O8 WSOP events as well. However, I always find that limit O8 is tough to play in a tournament format. At the start you have far too many people seeing the flops so it becomes bingo and then all of the sudden your blinds are so significant that you must hit hands and have them hold or you are suddenly done. I guess my track record online over the years seems to show I have a similiar ROI with limit O8 as I do with PLO8 but I certainly do not feel nearly as comfortable in the limit structure.

I will try to make daily posts as I come back to the hotel room each night. If anyone has any comments or suggestions do not hesitate to let me know.