 Vegas June 2011 (WSOP) |
| Day 6 - PLO/PLH mix Day 2 |
| Last Updated: 2011-06-27 10:09:48 |
| Two days of a continuous adrenaline rush have finally caught up with me. I'm crashing big time, and a couple of celebratory beers aren't helping...but lemme see if I can get through today's recap coherently.
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| In case you hadn't heard, since I was only texting, emailing and posting on facebook all day, I had a decent day at the WSOP today.
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| After blogging until 5-ish this morning I was able to get about 5 hrs of sleep. We decided to hit the Paris buffet for lunch, then headed over to Rio. Like Wednesday, it really sucked waiting to play. From the time I got up until the 3:00 start time I was like a caged animal. My stomach was churning, I barely got through lunch. But...once I finally sat down at the poker table, it all went away and it was just another poker tournament.
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| No big names at my table, I did have Eli Elezra in front of me and Barry Greenstein to my left at other tables. Erica Schoenfeld and Humberto Brenes were also at the Greenstein table. Brenes was the only one that outlasted me of that group, BTW. Just sayin...
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| So early on I got a great confidence builder in an Omaha hand when with 9-9-10-J I got a flop of x-8-9, two spades (tho I didn't have spades). A nut- top set with a redraw to a straight and a backdoor flush is the kind of hand you get all in with in that game. The other guy had 7-10-A-x w/ two spades, so he was open ended with a spade draw. My set held up and I almost doubled up right out of the gate.
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| I then took down another pot or two and built a decent stack, a stack I thought would get me to the money. But as far as great hands for me, that was pretty much the end of the story.
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| Got pocket jacks under the gun, raised, called by the button, flop K-Q-x, I had to give them up. Got A-J suited 2nd to act, got reraised, had to give that up. Just like that I lost half of the chips I'd gained.
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| For the most part after that I was card dead. The few hands I raised out on after that took down blinds and nothing more.
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| Went into the first break ahead of where I started, but still not comfortable.
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| After we came back, we were down to about 90 paying 63. Then I made the only truly big mistake of the entire tournament. Once again I raised out with A-J early to act. It folded around to the button who shoved. I knew I was behind, but I convinced myself I was getting the right price. After all, I figured as short as he was there was a good chance I was flipping a coin or possibly had a better ace.
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| Well, I didn't, cause he had two of them.
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| That dropped me down to 8500 chips and made me the tournament short stack at about 20 from the money.
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| But a couple of hands later a loose blind stealer raised into my big blind, I was planning to go over with any two cards but actually woke up with an ace. He sheepishly made the call and tabled Q-7 off. I hit the 8 and doubled.
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| Around the table and into Omaha, he again raised my big blind and I looked down at A-K-K-x double suited. For someone in my position, this is more than good enough to get the chips in heads up. Again he made the bad call with just Q-9-8-8, his only suit was hearts and I had hearts covered so he was drawing very thin. Again my hand held up and I doubled up.
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| Finally with about 10 minutes left before the dinner break we managed to finally get down to bubble time. I was sitting just barely on 10X BB, but my chip stack that was being mis-reported on the WSOP website was still on the short side.
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| So the plan was very simple. Fold my way to the money, then get my chips in with any decent hand. After four hands (hand to hand is slow when you have 8 tables) we went on dinner break, then came back and it took about 40 minutes for the money bubble to burst when a guy was blinded all in in the small blind and David Williams was the only caller. Williams won the pot with a pair of Qs and we were in the money.
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| My final hand came not much later. Mr blind stealer was at it again and I looked down at an ace. Since I knew he was betting blinds with junk I decided it was good enough to shove having looked at just an Ace. Unfortunately I had just A-2 when I flipped them both over and he had A-6 and he hit trip 6s. Ugh!
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| As you can imagine, I'm feeling real good about myself. This was a TOUGH field and I outlasted 90% of them. Did I play perfect poker? I have exactly three hands that in hindsight I wish I had played differently. If you can play poker for that many hours and only have three hands you'd like to do over, you've had a good two days of poker IMHO.
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| I did not have a lot of cards, I had long stretches being card dead over these two days. But still I got to the money.
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| I've already told Joann I will be playing in this same tournament next year. And I will have even higher expectations for myself.
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| Tomorrow I will probably play in the noon Mega Stack at Caesars. Venetian is too pricey. Then there's the final PLO tournament I plan to play Saturday also at Caesars.
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| So we still have plenty of poker to play this week... |
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