In my last post, I described the first part of my Day 1 in the Main Event. I had run up to about 20,000 chips, and was feeling in pretty good control of my first table. Just before dinner break, I got moved to a new table, where I immediately felt that things were going to be a bit more difficult.
Anyways. So at 7:30pm, we start play again. Word on the street was that we'd likely be playing until 2 or 3am. So, I sat down to my 20,000 chips, prepared for another long haul. We started after the dinner break at level 4, which seemed to go by without too much happening either way from my standpoint. I did manage to steal some small pots, but nothing major. Just enough to keep around 20k.
As I mentioned before, this table was a lot different from my first one. Lots of aggression, and lots of bigger stacks. One guy had a HUGE mountain of chips, probably around 70k when I got there and definitely got well over 100k. I managed to get myself in a confrontation with him, too.
This came in Level 5, blinds at 150/300 with 25 ante. In this hand, he opened from UTG+1 for 1000. It folds to me in the SB, I look down at AKh. I have 18k right now and I re-raise to 3000. He thinks for a good minute, and finally calls. Flop comes down 789 with two spades. Not a great flop for me but I make a standard continuation bet of 4500. He instantly moves all-in. AUGH. Of course I have to lay it down. This hand haunts me for the rest of the night though, as I just lost almost half my stack right there and I keep dwelling on how I could've played it differently. Maybe I didn't have to re-raise pre-flop. Maybe I didn't even have to make the continuation bet. I don't know. He had been really active so I knew his pre-flop raise meant very little and that AK is well ahead of his range. So I think I have to re-raise there. Maybe I should've re-raised more to make it clear that I'm playing for my stack with this hand, and to give him no room to outplay me. I don't know. All I do know is that this has re-enforced my belief that AK is really hard to play with deep stacks. It has no implied odds if you do hit, and it's just begging for you to lose a big pot with it if you misplay it.
And who was this guy that I lost all these chips to? That would be this guy. Yeah I didn't know who he was at the time; I just knew he had a mountain of chips. Note that he won the Bellagio Cup just after the WSOP Main Event, and also I have since seen him on tv at some WPT tournament.
We got a 90 minute dinner break. Anne graciously picked up a sandwich for me beforehand so I wouldn't have to fight the lines, and we went back up to our room there in the Rio so I could chill out for a bit. The others relayed some news to me about who they had seen, gotten pictures with, etc. Brownpa got a picture with Annie Duke, and Emily got a picture with Phil Hellmuth. eww. Well here they are:
Anyways. So at 7:30pm, we start play again. Word on the street was that we'd likely be playing until 2 or 3am. So, I sat down to my 20,000 chips, prepared for another long haul. We started after the dinner break at level 4, which seemed to go by without too much happening either way from my standpoint. I did manage to steal some small pots, but nothing major. Just enough to keep around 20k.
As I mentioned before, this table was a lot different from my first one. Lots of aggression, and lots of bigger stacks. One guy had a HUGE mountain of chips, probably around 70k when I got there and definitely got well over 100k. I managed to get myself in a confrontation with him, too.
This came in Level 5, blinds at 150/300 with 25 ante. In this hand, he opened from UTG+1 for 1000. It folds to me in the SB, I look down at AKh. I have 18k right now and I re-raise to 3000. He thinks for a good minute, and finally calls. Flop comes down 789 with two spades. Not a great flop for me but I make a standard continuation bet of 4500. He instantly moves all-in. AUGH. Of course I have to lay it down. This hand haunts me for the rest of the night though, as I just lost almost half my stack right there and I keep dwelling on how I could've played it differently. Maybe I didn't have to re-raise pre-flop. Maybe I didn't even have to make the continuation bet. I don't know. He had been really active so I knew his pre-flop raise meant very little and that AK is well ahead of his range. So I think I have to re-raise there. Maybe I should've re-raised more to make it clear that I'm playing for my stack with this hand, and to give him no room to outplay me. I don't know. All I do know is that this has re-enforced my belief that AK is really hard to play with deep stacks. It has no implied odds if you do hit, and it's just begging for you to lose a big pot with it if you misplay it.
And who was this guy that I lost all these chips to? That would be this guy. Yeah I didn't know who he was at the time; I just knew he had a mountain of chips. Note that he won the Bellagio Cup just after the WSOP Main Event, and also I have since seen him on tv at some WPT tournament.
Anyways. So that hand sucked. And a few more hands sucked too, and I then found myself down near about 5,000 chips. uh oh. Things were looking quite grim. In another hand, I managed to get myself all-in on a bluff. I made a standard open from late position, the BB called me. Flop came down 346 all hearts. He checked to me and I moved all-in for about 4k. Oh right what did I have? umm JT offsuit. haha. Fortunately he folded, though he did take a while to think about it.
Then, in another hand UTG opens for 900. Folds to me in the SB, I look down at 99. I thought about just shoving right there, but I thought I'd just see a flop with this guy. He had been a bit reckless, so in retropect maybe I should've just played it safe and move in to save the guess-work, especially with how short I was. But I thought maybe I could play a flop with him and get the best of it there, so I just called. BB folded and we saw a flop of 35Q. Not the greatest flop for me but not horrible either. I checked to see what he would do. He bet out 4000. WOW. I had just over 5k so basically I'm playing for my stack here if I go with it. I tanked forever. I stared at him to try and get some kind of read... and my read was, he doesn't like this flop. But, he could still hate this flop with TT or JJ. Then again, that's two very specific hands, and there's a much wider range that he probably has. As I'm thinking, Shannon Shorr calls time (which means a floorman comes over to start a 1 minute countdown for me to act on my hand or else it's dead). But no matter, by this point I had basically made my decision and as soon as he called time, I said "ok I'm all-in." My opponent is forced to call the extra 1k or so with his 78o, no pair no draw. YES. Turn comes a 7 and I'm like NO PLEASE DEALER DON'T DO IT but then river comes a 9 for an unnecessary set and I double up. This was definitely the most difficult decision I had to make in this whole tournament, to play for my whole stack here, and I felt really happy to have made the right move in this spot.
A little later, I get QQ in late position and bust the guy who gave me that difficult hand there. Now I'm back up to about 20k or so.
I dwindle back down a little bit though in Level 6, blinds at 200/400 with 50 ante. I get JJ in mid position and facing a raise in front to 1300. I think about re-raising but decide to just call. Flop comes down A-high and he bets out 2200, almost the size of the pot. Augh that looks weak but I don't know if I wanna play a big pot right here. I think briefly about raising or calling, but decide to just get out of his way and lay it down. I'm not happy about it though.
Then towards the very end of the night, I get 99 again, this time in mid-late position. Here's a hand that I brutally misplayed. Two people limp in front. I limp along. Two more limp behind me and we go 6-way to the flop, which is K42r. It checks to me and I bet about 1500. A guy behind me raises to 5000, it folds back to me and of course I have to fold. So ok there's a number of different ways I could've played this. I could have just shoved pre-flop with those two limpers in front of me and just picked up those chips. Or, I could have just NOT BET when the flop wasn't so good for me and I had a million other people in the hand. yeah. dumb dumb. oh well.
Anyways, I do make it through the whole night, with $12,050 chips to go into Day 2. Not great, but still alive. Here is proof:
After we finished play that night, my crew and I went to a restaurant/bar in the Rio to celebrate my survival through Day 1. I had my first beer in a few days. And even though the night could've ended a little better, I was still on a pretty big high just from being at the World Series of Poker and getting to play in Day 2.
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