WSOP update

So it's been a rough week, but it's starting to look better. Last weekend I played three preliminary WSOP events. The $1500 NL, $1500 PL, and the $1500 Limit. Didn't make a dinner break. It was pretty rough. So I took a few days off, got a haircut, bought some new threads... and went into the $2000 NL event today feeling pretty strong.

At my first table, Jennifer Harmon was in seat 2 and Howard Treesong (a regular RGP poster) was also at the table. Early on I kind of played like a jackass. There were a few hands where I made a steal preflop and didn't follow through with it. And there was also a nut flush draw with an overcard that I just needed to check-raise with, but lost my nerve and just called on the flop, checked on the turn, checked on the river when I missed. So I was down to about twelve or thirteen hundred. Picked up pocket nines in early position and limped in... Harmon raised in late position after a couple more limpers and it looked like it was going to be headsup if I called... put her on some overcards, and when the flop came TTT, I check-raised her all-in. She said something like "Guess I gotta get lucky" and called for another 600 or so with AQ. She missed. After that I got some confidence back...

I made it well past the dinner break to day two. There are 49 players left out of a little over 1400 entrants. I'm in 17th with 63,500 in chips. A pretty big climb from the initial 2k. I've got Perry Friedman at my table going into tomorrow, who has a motherload at over $160k. He's the chip leader. The only other guy I recognized at my table was Fred Berger (sp?). He's a cool guy from New Orleans, I think, who is a regular on the tournament trail. He owns some sort of bead company, and has decent game.

This is a televised event... with any luck I'm going to be making it to the third day and back on ESPN. Gotta focus on that gold... can't let Scotty show me up. He took 2nd in the first event last weekend right about the time I was busting out of the Limit event... good for $350k. Ching! Alan Cunningham ended up taking that down, who's ultra-strong. It was a good final table.

Wish me luck tomorrow. If you pray, maybe you could say a few good words for me.

WSOP - Event #2

Went to Rio yesterday to check out the scene and to register for event #2, the $1500 NL. Drove up to the convention center, which is huge... roamed around the halls for a few minutes trying to figure out where they were dealing the tournament. Didn't have to look too hard. Just had to go with the tide of poker players all chasing the poker dream.

As I walked into the main hall, my jaw dropped at how many tables were setup. It's going to be a much different WSOP then it was last year at Benny's Bullpen. The room just keeps going and going... a few hundred tables.

All outside the hall there were players waiting in hour long lines to get into the events. Two lines... one to register as a player and one to actually buy-in. Took about an hour for me to wait through the new player registration line... about another hour and a half to wait through the buy-in line. The event sold out at around 7:20pm from what I hear, and I imagine there were quite a few disappointed players. Imagine flying out from the East Coast for the weekend with your heart set on winning the first open event, making sure to get to the casino the night before to avoid the lines...

So it starts in about an hour and a half. I'll let you know how it goes.

And oh yeah... the Rolling Stone article hit their website yesterday. But pick up a hard copy, though, because it'll have pictures.

Playing the Party...

So I've been playing a little on Party Poker under Kid_Dutch... played about five multitables there in the last couple of days. Got pretty close to the final table in two. Last night was brutal. We're down to 18 players, I've got about 22k in middle position and I get dealt AA. I decide to get tricky and limp in hoping a smaller stack behind me shove their chips in because the blinds are higher than gank on a Saturday morning. So there I am limping in with these dumb aces... pretty much broke the first rule of playing aces. Don't ever limp. Everyone folds and the BB checks to see a free flop. Q97. Now he swings right into it... 3k into the 7.5k pot. He's got me covered by about 30k. My mind is racing with all the hands that can beat me at this point... but I can't for the life of me put him on anything over a Q because I figure he'd try a little slowplaying. So I shove all-in and he calls me lightning quick... with T8.

The thing I don't really like about Party is that once two players are all-in they deal out the cards so fast that you don't really have a chance to see where you're at. So I didn't get that warm feeling of being reasonably ahead to an open-ended straight, and then the crushing feeling of seeing it get there that I usually expect from other sites and live play. Instead I just saw the cards flip over and about a millisecond later I hear the beep congratulating me on my $100 score as the 45k pot goes to the guy with the lamebrain hand. But man, what the hell was I thinking giving him a free shot like that?

So on a happier note, I've been playing the step tournaments on Party for a WSOP seat. Figured I needed to get some single table sats in, because tomorrow that's my main gameplan for getting into some of the WSOP events... go to the Rio and tear up the $175 single table satellites. Started at step 1 for $11. Those step one tourneys are pretty crazy because as long as you stay in the top five of your satellite, you get your money back... and usually five people bust out before 30 hands go by. So you can pretty much just sit back and wait for a free shot at Step 2. By the time you get to Step 3, though, pretty much everyone is just sitting there waiting for people to get knocked out so they have the free shot. So you have to change your strategy a little bit.

So here's how it went down... Step 1... finished 3rd.... Step 1 again... take it down. Step 2... finish 2nd (good enough). Step 3... take it down. So now I'm on Step 4. The buy-in at this level is $540, and I've gotten here on $11. Gotta advance to Step 5, then advance to Step 6... and then flat out win a Step 6 sat to win my seat into the main. God that would be so beautiful.