That's a picture of the back of my head to the left of that guy standing up. Picture courtesy of my sister, but I think Henry or someone has better ones.
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Day 2 started today but I am not playing. Because I busted.
Here's all the events of Day 1A for me:
I wake up at 7am because i am still on eastern time and once my eyes open i feel a little excited for the day to begin. I decide to go running to try to get rid of some of my excess energy. Vegas is hot at 7am. Real hot. I have to cut it short due to sweat pouring off me at an alarming rate. I go to pick up my goodie bag from my website's suite. It's filled with ridiculous jerseys and tshirts that have the sites name all over it. They are nice i guess, but i can't think of when i'd seriously wear any of them.
The website guy says I had better hurry over to the rio because the lines are huge. So hurry to shower and then shuttle bus it over. I get to the tiny line and have my seat card within seconds. So I go to the breakfast buffet they set up. Lots of people who look like what you think internet poker players look like. A guy sits at my table and we talk and I hope there are a million more guys like him today. Nice enough, and knows some poker but seems a bit timid and just wants to stay alive today. I call henry and wake him up and see if wants to head over and hang out for a couple hours before i play. my sister and her friends also head over.
The area around the wsop is kind of a poker circus with booths and promotions and stripper-looking chicks wearing next to nothing. Pretty weird in general. Later henry and rob would head over to all the booths and collect tons of free crap/pillow fight with strippers while i was playing.
15 mins before the event started i head over to my table. i was wearing my websites tshirt with a long sleeve shirt on unerneath because i heard the kept it real cold in there. The people in charge start telling everyone to turn our gear inside out or tape over the ".com" part of our gear due to some legal shit. I just take off my tshirt and play in the long sleeve.
My first table was great. There was one aggressive player 2 to my left but he seemed indiscriminantly aggressive and very trappable. 2 to his left was a guy who played any ace and seemed pretty clueless in general. The guy on my right was nice, but he was old and played an extremely tight/predicatable game. He says he monied in a limit hold-em event in the early 90s and played in last year's main event as well as some in the 90s and I have no reason not to believe him, but the way he is playing he is not much of a threat to me and I would be able able to fold to him if he ever tried to raise me. Gus Hansen played a few tables next to me. It was pretty funny when he came in late to take his seat, the guy on his right sees someone pulling out the chair next to him, looks up and does a ridiculous wide-eyed double take before he composes himself quickly to act act like he didn't. I guess he just realized he was going to have an aggressive,tricky player acting behind him for the rest of the table.
I didn't get anything to great but was able to take down a few pots and bring myself up to 12k before the first break and 15k right before break 2 when i got involved in a hand i played badly. i called a raise from a lady who wasn't too great for about 150 with 65 of clubs and the aggressive player also called to see a flop flop was K56, no clubs but 2 spades, and the lady checked. i checked hoping to checkraise but it checked around. Turn came a non-spade ten and this time the lady bet 300 and both i and the aggressive guy called. River was and Ace of spades. lady bets 1k i call and aggressive guy reraises to 4k. the lady folded and i thought for a long time about all the draws that may have got there and folded. But I played the hand terribly.
Got moved to another table a bit after the 2nd break. This one was harder, people were more aggressive and no one seemed like a sucker. You know what they say about not being able to spot the sucker at your table. The guy 2 to my left kept snapping off my bets with big raises on the turn. He had shown down good cards too and built up a good size stack so I wasn't sure what was going on, good/aggro player or just catching great cards.
I was back up to 14k when this hand i played really poorly happened soon before the dinner break. With the blinds 200/100 he raised to 700 under the gun (1st to act preflop) and it folds to me in the sb, where i look at 2 black jacks. I'm not sure why I wanted to play this, the best hand i had been dealt all day, out of position postflop but i just called and the BB folded. Flop is AT6 with 2 spades. Not a good one. I check the flop and he checked behind (as was his custom before he raised my turn bets). The turn is a low spade, I bet 600 and he quickly reraises to 1800. I have no idea where I am at (Actually I think he has a big Ace, which means anything but folding is dumb), I am out of position and I am an idiot, but for some reason I call the bet because 1: I hate that he keeps raising me (very bad reason to call) and 2. I now have a flush draw. The river comes a beautiful Jack. Realizing I was being an idiot earlier by calling I am happy to see my miracle card and fire out a bet of 1700. He thinks a while and raises me 5500 more. I should fold. I know it. I try to think what he could have. KQ could have got there, a flush is reasonable. Even AA is not out of the question. But I can't figure out why he is raising so much when I had folded to smaller raises earlier unless he doesn't want to be called. Somehow I convince myself that he has AK with the ace of spades and is trying to push me out. Why i did this I will never know. I make the dumb call after thinking for 2 minutes and trying to coax a read out of him (i don't get a read that he is weak by the way, one more reason i should fold). He flips over AK of spades and I muck. Everyone asks if i mucked AJ. I feel like saying "Do you think I would call with just 2 pair there?" but I realize that I did something 20000x worse.
I think my horrible play in that hand is a result of 1. live play getting to me a bit and 2. being pushed off my hands earlier and not dealing with it well. i hate (and everyone hates) being bullied and i picked a very wrong time to fight back. Not an unlucky time, just a wrong and dumb time. I am steaming a bit at myself for losing over 9k on 1 dumb hand and decide to take it easy until the dinner break unless my cards are fabulous. They aren't and I go into the dinner break at 5.5k.
At dinner I have a couple of beers with henry and rob and loosen up quite a bit so I am feeling good instead of steaming. After dinner I start getting awesome cards. I take down a few pots uncontested with pocket pairs. Then I get called by the BB when I raise with AQo and the flop is all crap, but I go all-in anyway I pick up a pot. I pull the same trick when I have TT and the flop is something like A98. I again go all-in and get the needed fold. A few more pots and I am back up to 12k before the next break and feeling great.
Next level is bad. I keep getting reraised out of pots. I can't hit a flop to save my life and pots keep getting raised too big before it gets to me when i have speculative hands. I call a short stacks all-in with AQ and he has AK. Halfway through I am back down below 4k. Then I get dealt JJ in late position, raise it, get reraised by the SB, shove all-in, get scared when he quickly calls, but love seeing him turn over 99 and I am back up to almost 9k right before the last break.
It is now 1 am and I have a little strategy session with henry and rob. I remind myself that there is no prize for making it to day 2 and i need to look for opportunities and make things happen if i want to make it deep in the tourney. If nothing presents itself i will wait but blinds are moving to 200-400 with a 50 ante. that means i will lose 1100 chips each time around the table if i fold each hand. Even that wouldn't get me to day 2 and it definitely won't get me the chips i need to contend. I post my blinds early and am down to 7900 when I am under the gun with KQ of hearts. I limp in, the aggressive guy 2 to my left also limps and a guy 2 to his left raises to 1800. He had not been too active but was not terribly tight either and had quite a few chips, he had also raised me out of a couple of pots. I felt he had a pretty strong hand, but that's it. The button calls his raise. The button had just gotten a huge rush of cards (AK beats A8 on an AK8 flop, AA beats QQ etc) and has lots of chips. He had reraised earlier with his aces so I felt he was just trying to catch a flop and could have a lot of hands. It folded to me. There was now 5500 in the pot and I had 7500 left. I felt I could probably get in a squeeze here.
My plan was to raise all-in and have the original raiser be afraid of my limp/reraise (a popular play with aces under the gun I was hoping to represent) and also afraid of a big stack calling with whatever he had. I was pretty sure the big stack was just hoping to hit a flop and would fold. That way I take it down and get up to 13k without even a showdown. Maybe he even calls me with JJ or TT or possibly some other lower pair and I get a coinflip to get a chance at getting up over 20k for a good price. The only things I am in very bad shape against that definitely call me are AK, AA and KK and I have 1 K making AK and especially KK less likely. When I hear him reraise me all-in himself I am briefly a bit happy because I thought he would have just called with AA or KK. so I am only worried about AK and AQ before the button folds and he quickly flips up AA. At least he doesn't have the ace of hearts.
Flop is JJ8 (1 heart) I need a T,9 or a non Ace heart to stay alive (preferably a T or 9 of hearts)
Turn is an 8 of hearts and I need one of 8 non-ace hearts out of 44 cards to stay alive.
I don't remember what the river was, but it wasn't a heart.
I was not real happy but I was OK with going out trying to make a move and running into aces rather than getting bad beat or making a dumb call. So I got drunk.
Some celebrities I saw were Norm McDonald a couple tables away, the afro-haired kid from that 70s show wandering the area and james garner because they made a big deal about him playing. poker celebreties were gus hansen a couple of tables away, dan harrington who walked past me (i outlasted him, most other years that would mean i made the final table har har) and Richard "Quiet Lion" Brodie at the table next to me (Henry showed me his blog right before I left for Vegas but i didn't realize who he was until i looked him up today). Some other pro was at Gus's table that a guy at our table was making a big deal about, but I had no idea who he was. Norman Chad was also walking around.
Since lots of poeple asked about TV i would say I have next to no chance at being on the broadcasts unless possibly a large background shot or maybe behind the table of Richard Brodie as they filmed him quite a bit. The TV cameras stayed mostly at tables with known pros and celebs. They wandered to my second table and filmed about half a hand before they realized we were boring as hell and walked off to film the that 70s show dude or something.
Hope to be back next year. Thanks for reading.
