Nothing works. Even when I’m right I’m wrong. Can’t win flips. Can’t hold turns and rivers. Can’t get a bluff through. Can’t get value with the nuts. Can’t suck out. Can’t cash a single event. Cognitive dissonance rising… Sample size, yada yada, whatever. Expected but unexpected. Tournaments are cruel. Live poker is cruel. Everyone gets a god run but me. Frenchy won the 6max. I’m 0 for infinite. Still happy with my play. Not much I’d change. Feel like I played a bit different to how I do online, but live is a different game. And I never got deep enough to where it made sense to run a big bluff/spots didn’t come up. Harder without my trusty randomizer, too. Didn’t play any cash games. I said this time would be different and I’d recoup some buyins in cash… I guess covid kinda messed up that plan. Don’t even have the will to go play anything today. I’m just ready to go home. Still a fun trip, but sucks that my shitty run online for the last year continued in these high buyin events. Cognitive dissonance rising… I know I play well, though. Objectively, rationally, I know I play well. I guess I try again in a year or two… Unlucky in poker, lucky in life… I just wanted some inflation money… World could be a weird place in a year’s time…

As always seems to happen, the longer the trip goes on, the rarer the blog updates become. Of course it didn’t help that I got covid and didn’t want to expend any extra effort. But I’m feeling much better now after a few days of rest. On Tuesday I played day 1 of the 6max, but that feels like ancient history now. I’ll remind you again if you’re not following my twitter to check @danman274 for close to real-time hand histories and chip stack updates. Not going to go over any critical hands in this post because I’m pretty beat from 12 hours of poker and still feeling only ~90%, so I want to go to bed. But suffice it to say I’m glad I played the 6max (though day 2 would have been a struggle so I’m kind of glad I didn’t make it), as it was a very stimulating and challenging day which I think I navigated well. Of course it ended in me losing a flip as usual, QQ vs AK, to potentially double to 4.5 starting stacks. Wednesday and Thursday were when the brunt of my symptoms showed up, but I woke up today feeling clear headed, no fever, and barely any congestion. All systems go for the monster stack day 1A.

I would say my table draw today was pretty below average, and it only got worse as the day went on and bad players busted. It almost felt like a main event table, with Bulgaria on my direct left downing Corona after Corona (we lost count but it was over 20, no joke) yet still playing really well, Croatia 3betting a bunch, and Britbong taking me to value town with quads. Still some soft spots but it wasn’t a table where I could just go on cruise control. After coming back from dinner break with around 105k at 1.5kbb level, my stack went down only for 2 levels until I eventually lost a flip to get crippled, and lost my remaining 3.5bb with KK against Ax when he flopped an A and I didn’t improve. There’s a pretty interesting 65ss hand on twitter which started my process of chipping down, I might go over it in more depth on Sunday or something if I feel up to it. Overall I’m happy with my play again today; I don’t think I’d do anything differently if given another chance except maaybe fold the turn in that final Q8 hand (HH on twitter). Tournaments are just cruel like that, you can do everything “right” and still lose. Tomorrow I’m gonna focus a lot on turn decisions to make sure I’m defending enough vs the aggro players and make sure I’m tightening up vs the guys who aren’t really barreling unless they have it. Maybe I’ll finally make a day 2?

Hey blog readers! Forgot to write yesterday, oops, but my twitter covered just about everything of relevance. Another couple days of unsuccessful tournament runs, but that’s par for the course. Today’s attempt in the $600 deepstack was even quicker than most of the others so far despite the tournament starting deeper (in terms of BB, but fewer starting chips) and not skipping levels such as 300/500 which were skipped in the housewarming. Basically all hands of interest today are also on my twitter, and I honestly didn’t really play any hands that were really worth a breakdown here on the blog, since IMO everything was pretty standard. Just tournaments being tournaments.

After being awake for a couple hours today, my left sinus started feeling kind of dry, which is sometimes an early indicator that I’m getting sick. So after I busted I took a nap, I got some vitamin C in me as well as a zycam, and I’m gonna head to bed shortly to rest up for the $1500 6max tomorrow. I haven’t registered yet in case I wake up feeling crappy and don’t want to play/expose others to my germs. But I topped up my tournament buyin account so that I’m ready to reg online in the morning.

Since I had the whole evening free tonight, I used it to get myself a nice steak frittes dinner at Mon Ami Gabi over in Paris. Sat at the bar and had a nice lil on & off convo with the bartender who moved here from Bulgaria 9 years ago. The steak au poivre was sooo juicy and tasty, and for $32 it had to be some of the best value out of all the food you can find in Vegas. It was a nice reminder that French restaurants are the nuts. Meanwhile I also got a whiskey sour, just with knob creek, and that was $20!! SCAMMED! But it’s vacation after all, and I planned to have a couple splurge nights for the trip, so all good. Now I’m full, buzzed, and ready to get some rest. I barely missed cashing the 6max in 2019, I think I was like 8 off the bubble? Let’s see if I can put together a run this year.

A lot to unpack from today, lots of interesting hands, but I’m pretty exhausted and don’t really want to write at the moment. For now, my twitter @danman274 has a good timeline of what happened, including several hand histories. Plus some angry tweets about the snail dealer we had for 2 hours :). Stack peaked around 321k, over 6x starting stacks, but eventually I fell victim to a pretty brutal cooler, losing 235k of my 270k in one fell swoop, and busted the next hand. Still kind of wondering if I should pure raise the turn, expecting my opponent to not bluff the river often enough. According to the solver I can mix between calling and raising, but that’s because I recoup most of the EV I lose by calling when I bluffcatch river. However if he’s just gonna shut down and check his bluffs, I should probably be pure raising to just get value from his draws on the turn. Seems like a good exploit. Will try to get feedback from some trusted sources regarding that spot. Anyway, back at it again tomorrow for the final flight. Gonna get a good night’s rest and make the best decisions I can tomorrow.

Ugh, another day of nothing going my way. Sometimes I wonder why I play tournaments…and it’s only day 2 of the series LOL. This Housewarming just feels like it has such a fast structure that I have no chance unless I run good from the start or make a ton of moves. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to lean even more towards the aggressive side. Lots of 3betting is in order for my opponents.

Anyway, the hand of the day today came early on against a very active player who had just been caught bluffing the previous hand. It’s the first level of the day, 100/200 with a 200 big blind ante, and he opens to 600 in the HJ 7-handed. I look at KsJs on the button and 3bet to 2k, and he makes the call. This hand works fine as a flat or a 3bet, but with this guy playing nearly every hand, I can comfortably 3bet for value against his range. Kd Td 6c is a great flop for us, and after he checks I bet 1.5k into 4.5k, pretty standard cbet here. I can probably consider sizing up a bit on this type of texture, more like half pot. Anyway he makes the call and we go to the 4h turn, a blank. Now I have to decide whether to bet again to get value from AQ/AJ, Tx, diamonds, etc., or to check back and pot control and bluff-catch the river. Both options are appealing against this particular player, since he seemed to hate folding but had also shown a propensity to bluff. I opted for the bet this time, especially since I have no diamond in my hand (unblocking his flush draws). I make it 5k into 7.5k and he calls quickly once again. Ad on the river is one of the worst cards in the deck for my particular hand, though it isn’t too bad for my range. To make matters worse, he now leads out for 13k into the pot of 17.5k. Bleh. Here I am against a guy who I believe is over-bluffing, and I have a bluff-catcher in my hand. But something just doesn’t feel right…it’s really hard to come up with bluffs he can have in this spot, maybe a hand like 87 that flopped a straight draw and turned a double gutter? Turning some T into a bluff? The thing is, I’ll have lots of good hands on this runout after taking this line, so I don’t really feel the need to defend this particular hand especially vs such a big bet. It makes it hard for him to lead there without actually having something. I’ll have all the combos of AK, KK, TT, QJs, maybe even some QJo and AT are in my range here. So I decided to let it go after thinking for like 2 minutes, and he didn’t show what he had. Pretttty prettttyyy annoying river. The very next hand played out somewhat similarly, as I 3bet a different opponent with KK and ended up folding on the river facing a pot sized bet on AT4JT after I bet the flop small and checked back the turn. Not sure about that one either, I can maybe find a hero call there sometimes or potentially a bluff raise? Though I don’t expect to get them to fold a hand like a Ten or even AJ at this stage of the tournament, so bluff raising is probably torching chips.

After these hands, I had about 30k left, still plenty to work with but I’d need to get something going pretty quickly. I climbed back to 42k after winning a couple pots, but that was the high point as I dwindled from there. I don’t even remember any critical hands, it was more of a slow bleed again like yesterday. Eventually I busted: I called QcTc preflop off of 16bb vs an UTG raiser, T97r flop, he cbets 1/3, I jam for pot, he calls 8c7c and hits the 8 on the river to knock me out. Decided it was early enough to go for a rebuy, but that wouldn’t last me long either. After flopping two pair and chipping up to 60k from the initial 50k, I faced an EP limp and LJ raise to 4.5x, looked down at AKo in the cutoff with 30 big blinds, went all in (basically the mandatory play in this scenario), got called by 99, and lost. I’m pretty sure that second bullet lasted less than a single orbit (9 hands). That’s tournaments for ya…

Now, I guess I’m off to Bellagio to play some cash games and try to win back some buyins.

Not too eventful of a day today, as these 30min level multiflight mega-MTTs have a pretty turbo structure. Started with 50k chips, bounced around in the 40ks for a while, went on a mini rush up to 72k, then slowly bled back down to the 40k region again as all my opens/calls got 3bet and I had to fold, or I missed the flop so badly I couldn’t continue. The critical hand of the day was at the 2.5k big blind level, and I started the hand with 46.5k (~19bb). I looked down at QcTc first to act and raised to 5k, folds to the cutoff who calls, everyone else folds. Cutoff is a young dude from France, probably a few years younger than me, who seems to be a good player. Flop Js 7c 3s – not the best, but not the worst either. In theory, the cutoff shouldn’t have very many flat calls here since I’m very short and opened from UTG; he should either 3bet smallish intending to call my jam (or go all in, depending on his stack), or he should fold. I expect to see a lot of suited Ax, suited broadway hands, and pairs. I decided to start with a check here, thinking if I cbet and get called and don’t turn any additional equity, I just have to give up. I don’t really like the prospect of that since I don’t expect him to be folding to one small bet here very often in position, so I want to start bluffing the turn once I do turn equity. Also my range doesn’t mind checking these types of boards with a good frequency (say 50%+) anyway. If he bets more than a tiny amount, I can just fold now without worry of being exploited, since I have plenty of hands like AA, KK, and AJ that are also supposed to check a decent amount here. However my opponent checks back, and we get the 5c on the turn, giving us a flush draw. This is what I was hoping for, now we can start blasting it – I bet 10k into the pot of 16k (solver approved but I can actually go even bigger as well) to both maximize my fold equity now and set up a river jam. Unfortunately he calls after not too long, so we have to hope to get there, but…Kh on the river is no improvement for us. However this is definitely a reasonable card to follow through on with the bluff, and I bet 29k into the 36k, leaving myself 1 big blind (subconscious tell? or good strategy?). We fade the snapcall as my opponent goes into the tank, and I proceed to stare at the 25k chip that I just bet as he thinks it over for what felt like over 2 minutes. Finally, unfortunately, he slides a little pile of chips in, and I tell him he’s good as I turn over my hand. He shows 7d6d, not a hand I expected him to have preflop, but similar to a hand like 66 that I was hoping I could make fold. The solver wouldn’t play his hand preflop, but it does call the river with A7s and 87s some of the time (and folds some of the time), though they have 0 EV (the same as folding) and are only calling so he hits his minimum defense frequencies and isn’t exploitable. So I successfully made him indifferent to calling, which is what a good bluff does to his bluff catchers, like 76s.

All in all, just a typical day of tournament poker. It felt pretty short, so hopefully we can build up a stack a bit more easily tomorrow and make a deeper run. Would be sweet to bag and then just spend the weekend playing cash games at Bellagio.

It’s been three long years, but my WSOP blog is making a return as I head out tonight to Las Vegas for the first couple weeks of the series. I’ll use this space as a journal of sorts for longer updates. For real time stack updates, check out my twitter @danman274 where I’ll try to post every time something significant happens. That’s all for now!

Obviously I had been meaning to post more, but the Main Event was draining and I ended up catching the Rio Flu, so I hope my twitter updates sufficed. As you probably know by now, I did not cash in the main. I busted during the final level on day 2, with about 50 minutes left of play in the day. But it was a fun experience and I’m extremely happy with my play – sometimes it’s just not your tournament to win. I’m very appreciative of all the people who backed me, allowing me to play in such a great event.

I managed to chip up early on day 2 from my 104k to about 160k by the end of the first level. But after that it was a trying day, as I often found myself in nasty situations when some of the nut worst turns and rivers rolled off the deck. But I stuck to my strategy, made disciplined folds when it was required of me, and continued to hover between 120k and 200k for the rest of the day until my bustout hand. This hand was played against an opponent who had steadily chipped up from ~250k to ~600k over the course of the 2.5 levels I played with him (my table broke about 2 levels into the day). He was getting slammed by the deck, open raising a ton of hands from all positions, and not getting much resistance. Playing 8-handed, he raised first to act to 4k. Like I said, he was playing a ton of hands so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up with a 30% range here (which is faaar too many hands from UTG). Because of this, when I looked down at T9cc from the CO, a hand that can be either called or 3bet, I decided to take the aggressive route and 3bet. I should have a ton of fold equity, and a ton of equity when called vs his broadway cards and pairs. He did call my 13k 3bet and we saw a T95 rainbow board with the 5c. Awesome, top two pair. He checked, I bet 13k into 32k, and he called. Not sure about my sizing here, I’ll have to double check this spot in PioSolver. Using this sizing encourages his KJ/KQ/Ace High hands to call, which I don’t mind since I have them pretty crushed, but I miss value against his Tx, 9x, and overpairs. He does call and the turn is a Jc, which gives me a flush draw. He opts to lead into me now, for 27k into the pot of 58k. This is a rather small lead, but it makes sense since the Jack will improve a lot of his hands. I don’t expect him to lead right out with the nuts (KQ), but more likely with turned two pairs along with turned pair+straight draw hands that want to set their own price. He can also have some bluffs with hands like AQs that floated the flop and now have a gutter and recognize that the J isn’t a great card for me. He’s an accomplished player (Andrew Brokos) and certainly seemed capable of taking some stabs here with random hands. I think I very often have the best hand, and if I call the 27k then I’ll have about 80k left and the pot will be 112k. I don’t want to see a J, Q, or K on the river and face a jam, because that puts me in an extremely difficult spot. So I opted to jam myself for value/protection, putting his QJ/KJ hands in a world of hurt. Unfortunately he showed up with the good ole JT offsuit for turned top two pair, and although I still had 11 outs going to the river, he found the Kd to hold and eliminate me. So it goes. I’d probably play the hand exactly the same way if I had to do it over, once I use that flop sizing anyway. Perhaps betting close to pot on the flop is the best play, setting up a turn jam.

Anyway, thank you all again for contributing and following along. It was a blast and I hope to be able to go back again next year. I definitely had an edge on most players in the field, and never felt intimidated or outplayed. I even pulled a few successful tricks on a guy with over $5 million in lifetime earnings. I know I’ll break through with a big score sooner or later, for now it’s back to the PioSolver grind and MD Live weekend tournaments.

It was an up and down day yesterday, but overall I’m happy with the result. I didn’t get the most restful sleep, so I’m pleased to have made good decisions and survived (and thrived?) to day 2. Setting goals is dangerous for an individual poker tournament, since variance is such a factor and you’re likely to end up disappointed when things occur that you can’t control. However, I had told myself that I would be happy to bag 100k, so I can’t complain about the 104.6k stack I’m bringing into tomorrow. If you don’t follow many poker players on twitter, you might have missed the crazy antics of yesterday which included a player stealing (jokingly?) his absent neighbor’s entire stack, a player going all in blind for 300bbs, exposing his hand, exposing his ass, and tossing a shoe at his opponent, and an earthquake. Check out this article for more details: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/07/2019-wsop-main-event-day-1c-single-day-attendance-record-34759.htm Here’s a recap of my day:

I was dealt JJ back to back to start the tournament, which was interesting. I won the first hand after raising in the BB vs a SB limp and him folding – that was the first and last time I won with JJ on the day out of 4 attempts. I lost the second hand after 3betting vs a limp and CO iso raise, then getting 4bet and opting to just fold. I don’t even think he would always 4bet AK there 300bbs deep in position, so I like my fold. That put me below starting stack, and I didn’t make it back until the last hand of level 2.

I played an interesting hand with AdQs where UTG opened, UTG+1 flatted, I called on the button, and the big blind called. Flop Ah5h3c checks to UTG who bets 1.5k into 2.9k, UTG+1 folds, I call, and BB folds. Turn 4d he bets again 2k into 5.9k and I don’t think there’s anything I can do but call. River Jh is bad for me since I now lose to AJ, but I don’t always expect him to bet AK or AQ now, and I didn’t think this player would take this line/sizings with a flush draw. He ends up betting 2k into 9.9k, which for this sizing I think actually is nearly always AK/AQ. I’d seen him bet river and fold to a raise a couple of times already, so I know he’s capable of laying down hands, and when you think about my range I really don’t arrive at the river with many worse hands. I have a lot of two pairs and sets and flushes, as well as AJ, so AQ is near the bottom of my range. Folding feels bad and calling feels bad, so I opted to turn my hand into a bluff by raising to 10k. After about a minute in the tank, he made the call and to my surprise had AJ. I wasn’t expecting that hand to bet river so small, nor to fold to a raise, so I don’t mind my bluff. I think he may have found a fold with AK/AQ. That took me down to 30k.

A few orbits later, after chipping down a bit more to 26k, I played another big hand. I raised the CO with Ah8h and the big blind called. This player had been active and mixing it up a bit, putting in an interesting turn raise vs me in an earlier hand. Flop AsKs3h, he checks I bet 900 into 2.1k and he raises to 2k. Easy call and see what the turn brings. He can have A3, 33, and spade draws, as well as potentially some gutshots like JT and 54. Turn 7h brings a flush draw for me and he bets 3.5k into 6.1k. Nothing to do here except call. River Jh gives me the nuts and he bets on the small side, 5k into 13.1k. The only question is how much to raise, and I settle on 16k leaving myself about 5k behind. I think going all in looks a little too strong and may get him to fold. He called pretty quickly, so I’m guessing he had 33. That took me back to 48k. Then, an orbit or two later, I open AA to 700 in the LJ, Robert Varkonyi (2002 main event champ) calls on the button, and the same opponent 3bets to 2.7k from the SB. I decide 4betting is the best option since we’re very deep and I don’t want to trap, especially since Varkonyi probably calls if I call. I also like 4betting more since this opponent and I have significant history at this point. I don’t have to go too large being in position, so I make it 7.2k, and he pretty quickly 5bets to 25k after Varkonyi gets out of the way. This is a huge sizing, and with me having only 48k to start the hand it basically commits him. So I don’t take too long before going all in, and he snap calls with QQ. AA hold on a KxxJx board (seeing the paint cards made me sweat…) and I double to 96k!

I wasn’t on that stack for long, though. I 3bet a weaker player’s LJ open in the CO with 9c8c and ended up triple barrel bluffing on an AsQh9d Js Ad runout and getting called down by AhTd. Pretty sure I still like my bluff since he has to fold all his KQ/QJ/QT by the river, and he should arrive with a lot of these hands given my 1/3 pot flop sizing and 55% pot turn sizing. River I bet 17k into 25k which I think may be slightly bigger than necessary to target those hands, and slightly smaller than necessary to target the exact hand he had. I can have AA QQ JJ 99 KTs AQ AJ and A9s, so I like my bluff with a huge range advantage and nuts advantage. That set me back to around 65k, which is where I stayed for a while.

Later on, I had a hand with black 88 where I opened UTG+1 and got called by a solid player in MP and a good player in the BB. We saw a Qh8d6c flop and I decided to go for the check when the BB checked, since I’ll often be checking some weaker hands here and I unblock top pair. MP bet 1.8k into 4.1k and the BB called. I think I would have just called and continued to trap if the BB folded, but with him calling I now prefer a raise to protect against the various gutshots he can have. I make it 7k and just MP calls. The turn is the 9d which gives JT a straight, but I don’t expect all of his JT to bet/call the flop. A more likely hand is T9 since that has a double gutter, as well as AQ/KQ and even 66. I continue for 11k into 21.7k, which is a size that puts his Qx in a tough spot and doesn’t let him fold T9 now that he has a pair. He calls and the river is a 4d bringing in backdoor diamonds. A clean card for the range I put him on, but he Can sometimes have backdoor diamonds to go along with his Qx. The nice thing is the 9 is a diamond so he can’t have T9dd. I Probably should bet again here, but I decided to go for the check/call expecting him to potentially turn T9 or Qx into a bluff sometimes, and thinking 66 would value bet anyways. He ended up checking and my hand was good, so I think he likely had AQ and may not have called a river bet regardless.

Just a few hands later, Varkonyi opened UTG+1 and the same villain from the previous hand called next to act. I woke up with 99 in the big blind and decided to just call in this particular formation. 652r flop checks to villain who bets 1.5k into 4.4k, easy call for me since his range is QQ-77, sets, potentially 44-33, and maybe some random broadway stabs. But generally not too much to protect against and not much value in raising. Varkonyi comes along as well to a 5 turn, completing the rainbow. This card is best for my range and it’s standard to lead here with some of my hands. However in this specific spot, I probably only want to lead 5x and straight draws like 87, 97, and 98, due to the range I gave villain. I’ll have to check this one later in PioSolver. As played though, I led 4.2k into 8.9k and only villain calls. River is the magical 9 which brings in the 87 straight I can have and gives my other potential straight draws pairs. I want to polarize myself now to 5x and straights, while checking my 9x and other pairs, so I bet 15k into 17.3k. To my surprise he raises to 41k. He basically can only have 66, 55, 22, and bluffs, since he never raises his QQ-TT here vs my sizing. If he has quads then GG, I’m all in for 70k. He tanks for about 3 minutes and eventually folds what I believe to be 22. Absolutely great fold on his part, but when you really break it down it’s hard for me to have anything but 99. If I have 66 or 65, then I’m just calling his raise, since he can easily have 99 himself. That means I would lose to 99 and 55 and beat 22. In a tournament, when the same amount of hands beat you as hands you beat, you should be just calling. Especially when the opponent is capable of folding the hand you beat. The chips you gain when you go all in and get called by a worse hand are worth much less than the chips you lose when you go all in and get called by a better hand and bust the tournament. If he’s a good player, and if he thinks I’m a good player, he can reason this out and deduce that I only have 99 or a bluff. So great fold by him. That propelled me to 130k and I didn’t play too many more interesting hands throughout the night, slowly chipping down a bit to what I bagged.

After many flight issues, I’m safely in Vegas and in my airbnb. Time to get some precious sleep in preparation for tomorrow! Be sure to follow along on Twitter for more frequent updates, @danman274.

In almost exactly one week’s time, I’ll be on a plane heading back to Vegas to play the 2019 WSOP Main Event the following day, on Day 1c. The Main Event is a tournament like no other, and I’m excited to be playing for my second straight year. I feel like I learned a lot from last year’s experience, and I’m ready to bring that into this year to maximize my chances of running deep. In the meantime, I’m heading up to my family’s lake house tomorrow for 5 days of rest and relaxation. Vacationing at our lake house is always one of the highlights of my year, and will be a great way to decompress preceding the stressful long grind of the Main Event. Looking forward to giving you all a sweat soon!

I flew back to Baltimore in the early morning yesterday. It’s nice to be home, though it was bittersweet leaving Vegas. Unlike last Summer, I played a considerable schedule of tournaments over 10 days, so I got my fill of poker. I wouldn’t mind playing more though; the grind definitely suits me. I once again almost got a taste of a deep run in the millionaire maker, again cashing for ~4x the buyin and falling just short of day 3. Whenever you almost make a deep run like that, it’s very energizing and makes you want to play that much more. That was the only event I played that had 1 hour levels throughout, and it made me wish I could play all of the weekend events in June that have the same structure. I also wish I could play the main event again, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen this year. It conflicts with family vacation, and though both are fun I value the family time and relaxation more. But next year I need to figure out a way that I can spend more of my summer in Vegas. All in all, I lost $1871 on the trip. I spent 8300 in buy-ins and recouped 5829 in the millionaire maker and 600 in bounties from the super turbo. That means whatever percentage you staked me for, you owe that percentage of 1871. I’ll be issuing payouts accordingly.

Aside from the poker, the trip itself was a lot of fun. It was great to see Julius and Mike again after many years, and hanging out with Tyler for the first time was fun too. I met a lot of players at my tables who were fun to talk with, and even got the contact info of one of them so we can talk hands in the future. It was crazy how many times we bumped into each other over the course of 10 days. I imagine that if I were out there for the whole Summer, I would make a lot more lasting friendships. I also saw over 70 pros who I recognized from TV, streams, final tables, etc. I introduced myself to some of them and even got a selfie with Daniel Negreanu! I look forward to going back again next year.

Here is the remainder of the receipts: two additional big 50 entries for day 1d, two entries in the $600 deepstack (decided to fire twice since the prize pool was 8x the guarantee), one entry in the $1000 super turbo bounty where I won two $300 bounties but didn’t cash, one entry in the $1500 6max, one entry in the venetian $1100, and one entry in the $1500 millionaire maker in which I cashed for $5829.

The last hand of the night, I raised KK from early position, got 3bet by the active button player, and went all in for 860k at 16k big blind level. He called with AA and held up. Rip the dream. Would have had above average stack going into day 3 if that hand didn’t occur. Such a cooler.

Have about 330k for a very healthy stack. Let’s run it up and bag big for day 3!

My table draw is posted online, and boy is it a good one. First of all, I have the most chips at the table, which means I should be able to abuse the impending money bubble. The only other stack that’s close to me is in the 6 seat and I’m in the 8 seat, so I have great position on him. Furthermore, after checking his lifetime earnings and how he’s done in various events, I’ve determined he is most likely a fish. It would be lovely to make some hands against him and take him to value town. The best player at my table seems to be a young Moldovan kid who lives in the UK, and he’s in the 5 seat so I also have great position on him. The 4 seat also looks like a formidable opponent. However, neither of those two players has many chips to work with. The rest of the table seems mediocre at best based on their results. You could say the same thing about me though, so I know results can be deceiving. The only downside is that we’re in Pavilion, which means at some point our table will break as players are moved into the Amazon room. Hopefully that won’t be for several hours and I’m able to run over the table for a while. Should be a fun day! I believe there are about 2800 players remaining from a total of 8809. The WSOP pays 15%, so 1322 will make the money. I intend to be in that group.

The second weekend is here, and I have the day off today. You know what that means: I bagged chips last night in flight 1A of the Millionaire Maker. 254.6k to be exact, good for over 125 big blinds heading into day 2 tomorrow. Yesterday started off great, as I got full value with a boat and shortly after caught a big bluff to propel my stack up to around 75k from 25k starting. I wasn’t feeling 100% on my game though, as I was a bit tired and perhaps a bit worn down from 7 straight days of poker. I was up late Wednesday on day 1 of the 6max, and after bubbling day 2 I went to Venetian to play flight D of the 1100 3mil guaranteed. Unfortunately, there was some jewelry show at Venetian taking up all the convention space, so the tournament was held in the poker room. There wasn’t enough space to accommodate everyone that wanted to play, so there was a long line of alternates. I ended up waiting 3 hours to get a seat, and by the time I got in it was with 5 minutes left in the 600bb+ante level with 20k starting stack. That means I basically started with 25bbs, which is still profitable but not nearly as profitable as playing from the start, and much higher variance. I never got much going and busted blind vs blind Q9s vs QJs for 16bbs all in preflop. Standard. I slept about 7.5 hours Thursday night, but because my quality of sleep Wednesday night wasn’t great, I don’t think that was enough to fully recover. Hence my tiredness yesterday. That led to some mistakes in the early/mid afternoon, but thankfully an early dinner break gave me a chance to reset my mind and satisfy my unusually persistent hunger. I came back ready to grind up my 75bb stack after pigging out on some Indian food, and lady luck decided to join me. After chipping down a bit in some unfortunate spots, I found a big chip-up with AKo vs 99 all in preflop to increase my stack by about 70%. A little bit later, I flopped a straight in a 3bet pot with 98s on QJTr and stacked a fish who couldn’t find the fold with AA on the turn. Finally, I held KK on the button and 3bet the aggressive CO player’s open raise. The SB thought for a bit before cold 4bet jamming his ~50bb stack, and I of course snap called. He had JJ and my KK held up to rocket me up to ~240k. There were some ups and downs in the last level of the night, but I managed to chip up slightly more to go to day 2 with a super solid stack. Playing with former world champion Martin Jacobson and fellow final tablist JC Tran was also a cool experience (see my facebook post). I know I’m slacking on posting buy-in receipts (as well as daily updates), but they’ll be up at some point. Things can get a bit chaotic here, and I don’t always have the energy to write out an update. Hope things continue to go my way tomorrow!

After having a few close calls but no luck making a day 2, I finally put chips in a bag last night. That being said, I bagged less than starting stack and am in imminent danger of busting my 5.5bb stack heading into today. The 6max is a high variance battle, and I was doing well to keep up until I played a crucial pot with AK that sent me down to 10 big blinds. For the rest of the night I was active in trying to double up, but all of my all ins resulted in folds from my opponents. We’re something like 14 people away from the money with 289 players remaining, but as one of the shortest stacks I can’t fold my way in. I’m gonna have to get a little bit lucky. Off to the Rio now.

I’m starting to run out of tournaments to win. The super turbo bounty yesterday started off quite well. I managed to chip up to 3x starting stack by the first break (6 levels in) and had collected a bounty (worth $300) as well when I won KK vs 66 all in preflop. I had another opportunity for a bounty when I raised Q5s from the CO and the BB shoved for 15 bbs, but unfortunately he had A5o and I didn’t spike a queen or make a flush or straight. 0 for 1 on 3-outers. After break, I had another opportunity for a bounty when someone jammed UTG+1 for 7 bbs and I called on the button with A9o. But he had AQo and held up. 0 for 2 on 3-outers. I did manage to collect a second bounty and chip up when a dude raised over my cbet on Jh6c3c. I held AcJs and elected to go all in for not much more, and he called with KdQd (??). The turn was a clean 7 and the river card was paint, but thankfully it was another jack and I scooped a nice pot. From that point on I went a bit card dead and the blinds continued to soar. One player at the table was extremely short stacked and everyone wanted to hunt his bounty – he’d already managed to double up twice, but kept chipping back down. He was in the big blind when the HJ opened to 3.5k at the 1.6kbb level, and I looked down at ATs in the CO with a stack of 38k. The HJ had been a pretty passive player so far, mostly limping instead of raising. But I did know he had raised 55 earlier in the day and that was from early position. The fact that the BB is so short (~5bbs) means the HJ should be raising quite wide (possibly over 60% of hands) to go after the bounty. Whether the HJ realizes that or not is another story… The standard play in my spot is definitely to just go all in, and that’s what I ended up doing after some thought. The BB thought about joining the party but eventually folded, and the HJ didn’t think too long before tossing in the call with AQo. The board ran out clean for him and he covered me by about 2k chips, so that was that. 0 for 3 on 3 outers. Maybe that means I’ll spike one or two today in the 6max ;D. Speaking of the 6max, I don’t really know what to expect in terms of field strength. It could be a tough event, since many good players are drawn to the short handed structures. I expect to be battling for lots of pots, and wouldn’t be surprised if my whole stack is at risk in the early levels. But maybe I’ll get a soft table like yesterday and can cruise for a while. It is the WSOP after all – there are always plenty of weak spots in the low stakes fields. Let’s hope for a good table draw! I slept for a solid 10 hours last night and I feel around 90% healthy, so my performance should be near peak today.

After I busted the tournament yesterday around 2:30, I went to go find my friend Julius who was railing the final table of the 10k short deck nlhe event. He had a 1% piece of one of the players, who he knew from his RunItUp discord group. For those who don’t know, RunItUp started as a twitch channel when Jason Somerville streamed poker a few years back. Like most twitch channels these days, the community wanted a place to talk outside of twitch chat, so they created a discord group. Jason no longer streams, but the community seems alive and well. It was cool hanging out with some of the RIU guys on the rail, making new friends and rooting for their friend Alex, who ultimately won the event with a double knockout to seal the deal. If you go take a look at the winner’s photo on WSOP.com, you’ll see I managed to sneak into it even though I had only known them all for a few hours! I also managed to get a pour from a ~$600 bottle of red wine. I didn’t see what grape it was, but honestly I wasn’t a huge fan. It was pretty intense. I guess I can’t yet appreciate a good wine lol. That may be the closest I get to a WSOP bracelet this summer, and I’m okay with that. But it would be pretty sweet to make it up onto that stage myself. 6max starts at 4pm, let’s get it.

Another short one since I still feel rather lousy physically and it’s been a long day. Yesterday was the least successful day yet, as I busted my first bullet of day 1D of the Big 50 in less than an hour of play after finally getting seated with 50 big blinds. Afterwards I got some medicine in me, had lunch/dinner, and re-entered with 25 big blinds to give it one more shot. I began to run up a stack but lost a pivotal flip 77 vs AK offsuit to cripple me to 6 big blinds. After doubling AK vs KJ, I stop and go’d with JTs on a 985 flop and got called by 87. I had about 50% equity but it ran out 4, 2 for me to bust. Today I played the $600 500k guaranteed, which ended up getting a prize pool of over $3 million, absolutely crushing the guarantee. Things went well for a while, but with 30 minute levels stacks get shorter and each pot becomes that much more important. I ended up leaving some value on the table in one pot, then making an incorrect (but potentially still good) calldown in another, and eventually lost a flip 88 vs AJ offsuit to bust. After getting some dinner, I decided to max late reg with 12 big blinds, because value :D. AND I FINALLY WON A FLIP. 55 > AT offsuit. Note that in all of these “flips” I’ve had a pair vs an offsuit broadway combo, so I’m actually more like 55% to win. Anyway, after that I continued to chip up to 80k from the 30k I bought in for, but ultimately got super coolered. At 3k big blind level a guy new to my table raised from the HJ seat to 10k off a ~60k stack (slightly suspicious but usually this is a hand like AJ or 99), the small blind jammed for ~100k, and I woke up with AK offsuit in the big blind. The only play here is to also jam myself, so I did for ~80k. The original raiser called and turned over AA (really?!??) and the SB had AQ suited. It ran out 943 Q 7 and I lost to both of them. If not for the queen I’d at least be left with ~40k. But oh well, the small buy-in events are over and done with and now it’s time to run good in the bigger ones! 1k super turbo bounty is at 11am tomorrow and the 1.5k 6-max is at 4pm on Wednesday. Gonna get a good night of sleep and hopefully be significantly less sick in the morning. Buy-in receipts to come at some point.