as much as i want to win i really can't complain about cashing for 80k. michael binger won and he played well so i can't fault that. it unfortunately for me came down to two big hands where i lost AK < JJ and AT < KQ and thus went from a 2:1 CL to out.

i'm not sure if i have any specific exciting stories; the name of my game was more or less "stay patient and focused and whenever you find aces someone else will pick up a hand too". i did make some clutch resteals in the late game (12-9 players) where i seem to have inadvertently folded a better hand a couple of times.

maybe tomorrow i'll have more. i'm too tired to put together a coherent narrative (or use the shift key). i'm going to take friday off and get myself physically and mentally sharp for the main event.

I have 54,000 in chips going back at 1k/2k. 18 of us left; tough field.

I'm too tired to post specific hands, but what's most notable is that I had to exhibit some extreme patience-- getting almost no hands the first few hours, followed by QQ in the BB vs. KK on the button that knocked me down to 200 at 75/150. By the end of 100/200/25 I had 23.5k.

How to go from 200 to 23,500 in 14 easy steps:

1)Call all-in in the SB with Q8o after button opens 32s and hold.
2)Shove 550 with K9o, get called by AQs, flop a 9.
3)Shove AQo from BB over CO open, get called by A3o, and chop. (Boo)
4)Shove 77 over UTG open, get called by A2s, double up.
5)Go to dinner break with 3k.
6)Come back from dinner (at 100/200 now), pick up AA in SB, shove over EP open, pick up pot.
7)Open QQ in LP, call all-in from the BB, hold vs. AKs.
8)Open JJ, get 3 callers, bet the KKK flop, take it down.
9)Open AA UTG, get called by BB, raise his donkbet on the Q42 flop. Now we're at 14k.
10)Wait a while.
11)Tell the dealer "give me a good flop, dealer," after checking 83ss in the BB when EP limps his 12x stack. Flop a flush, check-raise, get all-in vs. AA with the As and hold.
12)Raise AJo to 1200 after two limpers at 100/200/25. Check the AK9 flop 3 ways. Call 2k from the second limper (who has 2200 behind) on the turn. Call his last 2200 on the river, hoping he didn't backdoor a flush; feel relief when he shows KQ.
13)Donk off a little in small pots.
14)Go on break.

I ran equally as cold after the next break, folding my way from 23.5k at the end of 100/200/25 to 14k at 600/1200/200. I got a walk and then with 17k opened AA and doubled up through Theo Tran's QQ. Only played a couple more big pots after that.

Field's tough and my table is tough. It's gonna test me, but I feel that if I keep a clear and calm head and don't spaz out, things might go my way.

I busted out shortly after the first break. Important facts and hands:

2500 starting chips, blinds 25-25, 40 minute levels.

The table was a reminder of why i need to play live more: Mostly loose, mostly passive, occasionally bluffy, very straightforward.

Possibly interesting hands:

Second or third hand at the table I pick up AQs and open to 100 in MP. Older gentleman two seats down calls. Flop is K83 two hearts (I have spades). I c-bet 150; he calls pretty quickly. Turn is an offsuit 10; I think a few seconds and check; he bets 300 pretty quickly. I start to wonder if he's a floaty type and that's a timing tell; I don't have anything to go on so I just fold.

A very friendly and not-bad-but-not-good-either middle-aged lady raises in EP to 100 and I call with 55 on the button. Flop T64; check/check. Turn Q; check/100 because I know I have the best hand; she calls quickly. River J; she thinks a few seconds and checks. I check; AJ good. Sigh.

Weird hand at the end of the first level. Younger guy-- solid, straightforward, talks like he has some idea of what he's talking about but probably isn't legitimately talented, throws in a 100 chip UTG and says "100" before it hits, but the dealer doesn't hear him and says "call". Me-- three seats down-- and the guy after me had thrown in our calls already; a short stack down at the end of the table started asking if that was a raise or call and then there was some confusion; the floor ruled it a raise, and so I called again with black JJ. next to act called; short stack made it 475 with about 300 behind. UTG snap-shoves and I quickly fold; I had a few minutes to think about it in the midst of the confusion, and I decided it wasn't especially close. The short stack threw the rest in reluctantly with 99; UTG had KK and I was reassured that my reasoning and decision-making were still sound.

Not that I played every hand well. Later in the level I opened A8o to 3x two off the button and the button called. Flop was an ugly AJT; I check-called 300 but didn't feel good about it (I rationalized that he might be making a move based on the earlier hand, but I hadn't had any reason to think that. Turn was a 9 and I check-called 500, knowing even more surely I was behind but rationalizing it with my straight draw (and possible outs to an 8). The river bricked (6 or below-- I don't quite remember) and I checked and he checked back AKs. So, yeah, I was better off assuming he had it, which was my first instinct, but my desire for information and a nice pot led me to make bad decisions. (I later folded AQo from the SB to his 4x UTG and the fish on the button's call. The fish made it tempting but I felt it was still entirely too dangerous. And I hate calling him a fish because he was a nice guy, but he'll almost certainly never read this.)

So a little later I opened JJ in 4th position to 250 at 50/100 (with about 1500 total obviously getting it in) and the BB-- a middle-aged Asian who played too many hands, limped lots of weak suited hands, bitched, berated the dealer once, threw cards once, and generally seemed to be having a miserable time-- called. Flop was 866 two clubs and I bet 300 planning to get it in. He thought for a bit and called. Turn was the Ks and I shoved my last 950. He tanked, bitching about the king, thinking for a while, then finally calling with 77. Doubled back up to 3k.

Then I played my favorite hand of the day.

Not much in the way of hands or pots for a while. The last hand before break I call an UTG 4x shove with A5o on the button; she has A6o and spikes a 6. I think the "double or nothing before break" mindset makes this a good call; plus, if she's pushing A6o, she's not folding KQ, KJ, and probably her range is well wider than that.

I go into the break with 3025. Not long after the break the button opens to 400 and I shove 2525 on top with AhQd. He calls with KsKc. I flop a backdoor heart draw and turn a queen but ultimately do not make the best hand, and say good night and head upstairs.

I tried some online tournament grinding but bricked out of everything I played. It's only midnight or so, but I'm surprisingly tired. Not sleepy, just hazy.

Oh-- I didn't post last night because I was exhausted, but I did play in the, uh, "sick and go" (are we calling it that?) and that was a lot of fun, if not the most +EV table. I might have a post up soon, depending on how much I'm allowed to spoil.

All in all? I feel like coming here was definitely the right choice.

It was over a short five and a half hours in.

Some highlights:

-Playing far too many pots, I swing early up to 22k down to 19k up to 24k down to 17k. My downswings being bigger than my upswqings would normally be a cause for concern, but much of that was explained by...
-...being dealt 16 pocket pairs, winning a total of five pots with them, and flopping one set. (and about five hours in, the numbers were fourteen, three, and zero.) I won the blinds twice with KK, flopped a set with KK and won the pot on the flop, won with 99 unimproved, won with QQ with a reraise... and lost with QQ, 77x3, 66x3, 55, 44x2, and 22.
-The first QQ hand: Brendan (2+2's CardSharpCook) makes it 300 in MP; a middle aged player who was pretty loose preflop and didn't seem to care about the money called, then the button (a pretty straightforward / passive player) made it 1200 on the button. I had queens in the small blind. I don't like any of my options, so I call. The BB then cold-overcalls! Brendan and the other caller call. The flop is AJ9 and I turbomuck when the button bets 2000. The BB then makes it 5000, and everyone folds-- the button shows the other two queens, the BB shows his three jacks, and the other two claim to have folded AK. BB lost a lot of value here. (And as I would later discover, he didn't need a hand as strong as JJ to cold-overcall preflop.)
-Later, at 100/200, I limp K7s UTG (I'd been playing pretty loosely and limping a lot even in EP, so this wasn't unusual and I expected to be fine postflop), the loose player from the last hand made it 700, and I called. Flop is KJ2, check/check. Turn 7, I check because I know he's betting anything he has, he bets 1200, I make it 3400, he shoves, I call, he shows AA. And I once again run into an 85-15 as an ace hits the river. I do not dodge bullets.
-I'm at 5650 chips now coming out of the break. The big blind is not back yet, so when it folds to me I raise to 1025 (at 200/400). Folds to the small blind, who double-checks his cards, tanks, asks me how many chips I have left, tanks again, and after a minute or so says, "I probably should do it, but I can't...' and folds AKo faceup.
-Speaking of folding AK: last level UTG (tight and pretty passive preflop) opened to 500, and the loose MP I doubled up with folded and accidentally exposed AKo (yeah, you tell me why). The SB called, and the flop came AKx. Now, this could have led to a brilliant game of chicken where SB and UTG "know" the other can't have much, so they start making moves at the pot and at each other (sort of like the Yeti theorem's schizophrenic cousin), but instead they checked it down; SB showed 99 and UTG showed QQ. God, SB banging at that pot would have been sexy.
-I chip back up, winning a nice pot when I get minraised by 66 on a 743Q6 board after I lead into 4 people with Q5. Not long after, I double up when I defend my BB vs. Brendan's raise with 7d4d (basically planning to check-raise any flop that hits me). The flop is 977hh; I make it 4k with 3800 back (yeah, I know it looks stupid, but I go with whatever seems right at the moment to me) after he bets 1500. He calls, the turn is the Th (gross, can I EVER get a blank?) and I have to shove in the rest; he has JhTx and this time I dodge however many outs I had.
-Kinda drift along after that until my bustout hand. The QQ on AKx guy limps, and a guy I want to say is a Frenchman in his early-to-mid thirties, but I have no idea how accurate either of those depictions are, makes it 1500. I'd been watching him since he got to the table and expected him to do this with almost anything, and he'd been raising limpers frequently. So I decided to pop him with anything decent from the BB. I look at Th8h and make it 5100. Now the limper looks back, asks "what's the total bet?", gets the total of 5100, and eventually calls. (OK, I get some warning bell "WTF" signs in my head, but I just can't imagine what he has here.) The other guy folds.

Now, he obviously has a strong holding, but I seriously doubt he rolls like this with aces or kings. So my plan for the flop becomes "Shove any piece and hope he folds". Not well-thought-out, but I have about a pot-sized bet left; I can't give up on it that easily.

The flop comes KT5. I move all in. He calls. He has AK. The turn and river are queens and i'm out.

Yeah, my bustout hand looks stupid in hindsight, but I don't think it's too bad, and a willingness and capability to make plays like that is part of the reason I'm successful in the first place. If I was wrong this time, well, I can figure out why, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. And even so, I expect most of his calling range there to be in the JJ-99 range, meaning he's going to fold that flop a significant percentage of the time.

So that's the end of my World Series of Poker.

However: Tomorrow the Bellagio Cup begins. I have to decide if I want to enter another 10k event or not, but the allure is always there. That dream of "Oh, THIS time I will spike a big tournament score!" I just don't know-- my excitement for the game and optimism of knowing that i always have as good or better a chance than anyone in the field is tempered by my pessism of the reality of tournaments and the long time that can go between scores. They can be the proverbial cocaine in the rat feeder. Ah, variable reinforcement.

I wasn't even going to enter the Stars 100k until my roommates talked me into it and I registered a minute before it started.

I took down almost 24k for first. Now I'm hitting the strip. I recommend the Petrossian Paris at the Bellagio. Their mojitos are amazing.