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.