1K NL Day 1

Started with about 250, down to 26 or 27 and they're paying 25 places. I have 61K, average is around 110K. There are a bunch of short-stacks trying to hang on and one player with over 500K in chips.

I had tough tables all day with the best player at the table always 1 or 2 seats to my left. Jason Mercier was on my immediate left for about 9 hours. According to a bunch to the tournament regs he's in the top 5 best tournament players in the world. I tried to stay out of his way but he kept getting in mine, it seemed like he raised 40% of the hands at our table.

I'm not playing to get in the money tomorrow and cash for $2500. With blinds at 1500-3000 to start, I won't hesitate to reraise someone all-in if I think I'm ahead of their range. Most of the big stacks are relentlessly raising at this point in the tournament so it's a distinct possibility.

More to follow, hopefully late in the day.

Out of 2K in 33rd or so - off to play 1K

2 Big Hands

1st Hand

Kenny (Poker Stars Pro don't know last name) raises in late position. I reraise TT to about 8K with 45K behind, he calls. Flop 963, I bet 9K, he calls. Turn Jack, he checks I check. River Q, he moves all-in. I thought and thought before finally folding. He said after the tourney he had 89.

2nd Hand

Same guy raises on button, I reraise to about 9K with ~30K behind with the AsQc. Flop is J92 with two spades. I move in, he calls with J9. Turn's an Ace, river's a brick and I bust.

Oh well, I really wish I had called the first hand. Both his preflop calls are pretty bad given how shallow our stacks are. I wouldn't be complaining if I called and won the first hand though. Oh well, that's poker.

Off to play the 1K, last one on this trip.

$2150 NL Day 1

Quick update since it's 3AM and we start back up at 1:00:

135 Players, Super Strong Field, 15K Starting Chips

We're down to about 45 players, 15 places pay with 1st around 90K.
I have 54K, average is about 48K. High point 70K, low point 6.5K

Played good, ran better. Hope to do the same tomorrow.

Out of the Main Event

I had a pretty frustrating day. I started out winning seemingly every pot I played and had built up my 30k starting stack to 47K by the middle of level 2. Towards the end of the level I was dealt Kings in the big blind, there was a raise and call in front of me, I reraised and the initial raiser 4-bet to about 6500 (he had 27K or so). I had a strong feeling he had Aces but I just couldn't bring myself to call or fold so I moved in and sure enough he had Aces. I flopped a King and he rivered an Ace to add insult to injury. That brought me down to 20K.

From there it was all downhill. It seemed like I went two hours without a playable hand and my stack was down to about 5K. I went all-in a few times without getting called and was up to about 8K when I moved in with AK. I was called by JJ and after a Jack flopped, I was out.

I had a really great table today, the level of play was surprisingly bad. Unfortunately the cards didn't cooperate.

I'm planning on playing a 2K event tomorrow at 4 PM and then possibly a 1K event on Friday. More updates to follow on that.

$650 Bounty Hunter - Main Event on Deck

I played the $650 Bounty Hunter tournament today and ended up finishing on the bubble in 16th - there were about 115 players to start. I think I played well although I did make a few mistakes especially early on. I sometimes lack confidence playing live and am afraid to pull the trigger in certain situations which is exactly why I wanted to play this before the main event. As the day went on my confidence grew and I felt a lot more comfortable and really got into playing my game.

When we were down to 16 players, I was the chip leader with about 120K in chips. A bunch of the players got together and decided they wanted to give $50 each to whoever bubbled, that way the bubble boy wouldn't leave empty handed. I was thinking to myself at the time, "Why would I want to do this when I'm the chip leader?". Then I thought about a time where the situation was reversed, I was a short-stack, and one person wouldn't agree to giving the bubble boy money so nobody ended up doing it - of course I bubbled. So I went along with it and wouldn't you know, it was me who ended up bubbling. So, I ended up pocketing $750 for bubbling and I had also picked up $1200 along the way for knocking out 6 people - it was a $200 bounty for each person I eliminated.

The hand that did me in was AJ. The blinds were 3K-6K with a 500 ante and I had ~120K to start (yes 20 big blinds was the chip leader). I raised to 15K from mid position with AJ and a tricky/good player who viewed me as pretty loose preflop reraised all-in to about 80K. So I had to call about 65K to win about 110K. Against a lot of players I would have folded knowing they wouldn't want to put their tournament life at stake on the bubble without a big hand. But I knew this player's range was fairly wide; I don't think he expected me to risk 2/3 of my chips being chipleader and being on the bubble without a very big hand. Knowing this I called and he flipped over 99 which I think was right in the middle of his range. He flopped a set and I was down to 40K or about 7 big blinds. About an orbit later at 4K-8K I reraised the button all in with A8 (I had about 30K) and unfortunately he had kings.

I'm really glad I played today, I feel a lot better about my game and my confidence/comfort level going into tomorrow is high. I hope I'm as lucky as I was today, if so I should be able to make a run in the main event. I'll have an update at some point tomorrow...