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

For anyone interested in WSOP updates I have found that www.pokernews.com has the most up to date information. For my event you can check out all the tournament details at; http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2008-world-series-of-poker/event-2-1500-nlhe/
Full chip counts as well as payout structures are listed.

So, it looks like we start the day with 447 remaining players with 378 of us making the money. Hopefully, I can get a good table draw and will be able to pick up my share of blinds/antes as we near the money. The current blind level is 500/1000 with 100 antes so picking up 2500 in chips every uncontested hand becomes a huge deal. I will start the day with 41,600 in chips and average stack is about 27,000. I am sitting in the top 100 of the remaining 447. So, best case scenario is to be surrounded by stacks in the 10k-20k range. Generally these people don't want to tangle until they get into the money or have an absolute premium hand. The more I can chip up as we near the money the better off I will be when action undoubtedly ramps up as we hit the money. Once we hit the money you have to make it a lot further to make much more money so you will see all short to medium stacks prepared to get their chips in the middle. At this point it is important to gear down a bit and play more premium starters as you are going to get a lot of all ins happening.

A full report on my day #2 will follow in this thread. I hope that doesn't happen until very late tonight.

Well, here is the Day #2 report. My day started off quite well. I was sitting in 2nd place chip wise at my table and it appeared to be a relatively passive bunch from a quick glance so I was confident I would be able to chip up as we neared the money. My very first hand a guy with about 16k in chips raises to 3k in early position so I have to put him on a decent hand. I look down at 44 and decide the call is worth my while if I can spike a 4 I may be able to stack a big pair. Sure enough the flop comes 764 with two diamonds. He leads out for 5k and I contemplate smooth calling but decide if he has an overpair the raise right now is the best play to get his coin. I make the raise and he deliberates for awhile and lays down. A little unfortunate but I still pick up about 10k and am now sitting at over 50k. Within a few hands the super short stack to my immediate left busts out and a player with about 70k comes into the spot and freezes my blind stealing a little. We soon near the bubble and go hand for hand at 13 away from the money. It takes us over an hour to bust 13 people with every hand taking well in excess of 5 minutes now. This really sucked as I had hoped to have more time to pillage the medium stacks.

I bleed back to about 40k and hover there for probably an hour or so, really not being involved or feeling I have any chances to do much. The table dynamics have changed a ton over this time with a massive stack of about 180k moving into the table along with an aggressive stack of 75k both on the other side of the table. In my bb this hand comes up and I really feel it was one of my poorest plays of the tournament. The aggressive player raises from the cut off to $3600 with the blinds at 600/1200 I look down and find AsTs and decide I am going to take a flop. It comes KT9 rainbow and I check to him. He leads out for 4k and I really don't think he has much here. I know preflop he double checked his hand so I don't have him on a pair but some kind of unsuited hand with likely an Ace. I decide to raise to 11k and he very quickly announces all-in. I think a bit and decide he likely has KQ or KJ or some kind of weird flopped two pair hoping to sucker bet the flop and have me do exactly what I did. I think the biggest error I made in this hand was the call out of position in the big blind. If I don't have the player on strength and am going to get involved in the hand then I should be reraising there and taking it down or just getting out of the way. That hand hurt quite a bit and I was somewhat frusterated. I bleed down to about 20k when this action takes place. The guy that I flopped a set of 4's on the first hand of the night turns out to be quite the loose aggressive player. He has built his stack from 10k to close to 100k by making some astonishing calls that just happened for his sake to be correct. He is 3 spots to my right and raises the pot to 5k, I look down at find 88. Our blinds are now at 1k/2k so I am getting very thin with limited moves. I contemplate calling to pump the flop and hope he has missed but I decide I still have some fold equity and declare all in. He thinks for awhile (this clown had the clock called on him 3 times already because he takes so f'n long every hand) and eventually lays down to my complete surprise. Two rotations later I havent had a sniff of a hand I have the same guy raise my bb to 5k again and look down at kc9c. I feel for 3k for to see a pot worth over 9k it is worth my while against a guy who likes to call light. Flop comes KQT and I just push my 17k all in, he goes into the tank, eventually calls with AQ and I happen to hold and am back alive at about 40k with average stack around 55k. Shortly after this I find 10-10 and raise from early position to 6k. The monster stack reraises to about 16k and mr. calling station does what he does best and calls. I feel frozen in the hand to play Tens against two opponents so I have to much. The flop comes 7 high and calling station tries his hand at betting only to be slammed all in by the big stack and has to lay down. At this point I was really happy with my play thinking the big stack had QQ or better but I really think when he folded his hand I caught a glimpse of AK, I saw an A for sure so it could still been AA. We'll never know.

I get moved to another table and the blinds are starting to sting a little more. I am ping ponging around 40k with blinds at 1k/2k and make a nice uncontested reraise pickup with AQ preflop. Then just before we head to break I raise QQ from late position, the same guy who I made the move on with AQ calls and the flop comes A88. He fires out for 10k and I lay down, he shows an Ace so my laydown was correct but it is always frustrating when you see your best hand in over 5 hours and have to muck, but a good laydown is a good laydown.

When I come back from dinner break I have just over 40k and the blinds are really eating my alive now at 1500/3k with a 400 ante. It is costing me 8k to see a rotation. I think I made a mistake here, I had Ah3h in the bb and the very aggresive player on the button raises me and I decide to let it go and live another rotation. His range is wide open and I still had fold equity with my stack so I really think I should have pushed back. Anyways, I didnt and I bleed away my stack and get no cards all rotation, pay my big blind and have about 23k when I have this in the small blind. Middle position raises to $7,500 this has been his standard raise of 2.5x the bb since I came to the table. I have him on a fairly strong hand but look down and find 10-10. I decide I can't bleed to death anymore and this is the hand I have to make a stand with. I go all-in and he quickly calls with QQ and his hand holds and that is the end of my day.

So, my official finish is 130th with a payout of $4,558. And, although that does look somewhat good on paper it is always a disappointment to get that close to real money in a tournament and fall short especially when first place is worth over $850k. I felt overall I played solid poker but maybe did not take enough chances to make sure I kept my stack above average. Always easy to look back in hindsight. I did have to make some laydowns to reraises preflop and I am very confident they were all the correct decisions. One good thing was that the WSOP is not taxing on prizes of $5,001 or less so I didnt have to give 30% to Uncle Sam and got to hold on to the entire cash.

I registered for tomorrow's $1,500 O8(Omaha hi/lo) WSOP tomorrow that takes place at 5pm. So, with any luck perhaps I can parlay this cash into bigger and better things.

Once again, my room service has arrived so I am going to get into that and see where the evening takes me. I might drop a few $$ at craps tonight as I have been extremely behaved so far this trip.