Vegas June 2015 (WSOP)

Day 3 - WSOP DS, Aria

Last Updated: 2015-06-09 10:16:31

Been a tough couple of days on the poker front. Card dead is an understatement. Hopefully I'm just getting it out of the way now.

Joann and I had a simple plan for the day. I was going to go get money and buy into the WSOP for later in the trip while she showered, then we were going to hit the buffet at the hotel in Aria and then I would head down for the 1:00 daily in the Aria poker room. My plan was to buy into Wednesday HORSE and the first Day 1 of the Monster Stack on Friday.

I accomplished my first task. Sort of. I will be on tables 39 Wednesday and 87 Saturday in the Brasilia room. After having made up my mind for the last several months that I definitely wanted to play on Friday...when it came time to actually pick a day I went with Saturday.

So I'm heading back to the room walking past the Aria poker room, triple checking my seat cards to make sure I bought into what I wanted to buy into (and being honest, as many times as I've played I still think it's cool that I've bought into the WSOP)...and then something catches my eye that didn't compute. I saw the banner for the Aria weekend WPT event and for this weekend it said "June 6-8".

Wait a second...isn't today the 8th?

Yup.

I never actually checked the dates. I just assumed that if they were doing a weekend "thing" it would be Friday to Sunday. Nope. Saturday to Monday.

I get up to the room, give Joann the bad news, then check what Planet Hollywood is running. PLO, which I love to play but it doesn't help me practice anything I need to work on. Looks like it's going to be the WSOP deep stack again.

We start to leave the room to hit the Aria buffet, we get to the elevator and I ask Joann if she wanted to go to the Bacchnal Buffet at Ceasars today since we have so much extra time to kill.

Back to the room to get walking shoes. The entire day is in turmoil now :-)

We fill up, then head over to Rio and get there about an hour early so we have some time to watch the final two tables of the $10K Razz World Championship. Didn't get to see a Phil blowup this time. Then on to the deep stack for me.

Ugh.

In 3 hrs I saw TT, 66, TT and 33. Maybe a 22 in there. No ace bigger than A-10. And I had two very loose players 2 and 3 seats to my right which meant that there were almost no opportunities to steal blinds once in a while. It was rough. The only three pots I won of any size came when I just went "calling station" on one of the loose players, calling him down with two of my pairs in spite of overcards all over the board and won both hands, then I hit a nut flush and got paid some. That was pretty much it. When I eventually found a spot to get all in it was bad enough I was only 40-60, but the other guy flopped two pair and I whiffed. Ouch.

That's roughly 9.5 hrs of poker in two tournaments, about 10 total pairs and no aces bigger than A-J. Sheesh.

So on to the Aria 7:00 and it started out great. Won the first two pots with K-Q and A-K, flopped a K both times and got paid some. Then it was back to nothing.

Almost two hours before I saw my first pair, 77. I raised, got reraised and called. Then check-raised all in on a Q-4-2 board and got away with it, either I was bluffing with the best hand or I got him off something like 99 through JJ. Off to the break.

Things started out pretty good, I actually picked up some pots with a few more small pairs and caught another nut flush and got paid...eventually I worked my way up to about double my starting stack.

But that was pretty much the peak for me. Eventually I busted when I caught two pair and the other guy got runner-runner flush. Yuck.

So the plan for Tuesday is simple. We're going to do what we were going to do Monday - Aria buffet, Aria 1:00 daily. There will be no 7:00 for me Tuesday, it will definitely be one-and-done because I'm playing in the WSOP Wednesday and don't want to be up until 3am.

Oh and Phil is now a two-time Razz World Champion. 14 bracelets. You don't have to like him, and I hear pros talking and writing all the time about how incorrectly he plays in certain situations...but the guy knows how to get to a final table. In my opinion his consistency in giving himself the final table opportunities makes him arguably the best tournament player in poker.

And now a two-time Razz World Champion. As if Phil wasn't bad enough, I feel really bad for the next person who's playing a mixed tournament with Phil and sucks out on him in a Razz hand. I will almost guarantee the entire room will hear the words "I'm a TWO TIME Razz world champion and you called me with THAT????? They're just trying to give it to me!!!"