My weekend at the Rio for the WSOP

Nice bag! Let’s spin it up tomorrow letssss goooo!

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I started Day 2 with a little over 40k and the bb was 3000. Pretty darn short, but not quite desperate. Who should I find in the seat to my left? None other than Joe Cada, Main Event champion. Pretty nice guy, and I thought so also watching him win the Main. It's weird, I've played this event twice and both times had a Main Event champ to my left. The other was Greg Raymer, who wasn't as nice on the felt. He 3 bet me relentlessly, lol. Joe wasn't in position to do that though, he was shorter than me.

Oh, and who was 2 seats to Joe's left? Braxton Dunaway, last year's winner of the Monster Stack! Quite a table to find myself at. Everyone at this table was better than me, and not by a small amount. It wasn't enjoyable playing against these guys, but a lot of fun watching them push chips around. You really have to not GAF about those chips. Joe went out, and a couple hours later, so did Braxton. I don't remember specifics about many hands, I was picking up blinds and antes, but not very often because I was still mostly card dead.

I do remember one hand - very active guy at the other end of the table in seat 10 is villain in the small blind. I can't remember my stack size, it was about 15 bigs. I'm utg in seat 2 and shipped 78 suited. Yes, I've been so card dead that it's the best hand I've seen in an hour. He asks for a count, and hems and haws, but is very subtle about it. He fooled me anyway. It's now on seat 1 in the big blind. He's a very friendly guy as well, and has become table chipleader. Actually, just about all these guys, who are on a different tier then the usual schmucks you see that win smaller tournaments, are nice guys as far as being on the table. Maybe playing among super-competent guys has humbled them somewhat. Anyway, back to the hand - seat 1 folds. My stack is no threat to him, but seat 10's is.

Seat 10 shows aces. He was trying to suck seat 1 into the hand but was crafty about it. The hand plays out and my straight cracks seat 10's aces. He was clearly annoyed by it, but the pro that he is, didn't berate me or grumble about it. This is a key point in the tournament for me. I have over 140k in chips, about 32 bigs. But I failed to PAY ATTENTION.

Just a few hands later I'm dealt two Jacks. In the same hand! I'm dazzled and transfixed by so much paint in my hand, and make a stupid play. Why not, I'm a crappy player that got lucky to still be in this tournament. I see a guy at the far end of the table raise, I calculate a raise, about 14 bigs, and make the raise. Wait a sec, why is it so much? Too late, chips have found the table. Then I see that the guy at the far end had 3 bet. And I 4 bet. With freaking Jacks. The guy to my left ponders the situation and ships his 40 big blind stack. 3 bettor quickly folds. I ask for a count. I'm actually considering calling. A little voice reminds me (it's my voice) from a week ago. "Stop doing stupid things" it says. I fold. The guy sitting next to me asks after the hand if I had queens, because he had kings. ROFL, a highlight to my foolishness. Sigh, back to 15 bigs.

At Level 15, my luck runs out. Everyone has seen my shoving and just keeping my head above water all day. They are waiting for me to shove at the wrong time, and get my butt off this table. Every hand the last level has had either a 4 or a 2 in it. To be honest, it's made me last longer because it's made me a folding machine. I get KQ offsuit, good enough to shove again. This time I'm called by AT suited. I'm behind, but not by a huge amount. But it doesn't matter because neither of us makes a pair.

I'm out at around number 1550. Wait, what? They're paying 1300, mincash is over 3 grand, would've been some nice padding for the bankroll. Usually I'm hyper-aware of the bubble, but the only nearby clock is behind me and I have to turn my chair to see it. I was trying not to make it any more obvious that I'm only playing to end up in 1300th place, so I'm not checking the clock. The bubble would have broken in probably another level, 2 at the most. Had I been PAYING ATTENTION when I had 140k chips, I would've locked it down and not made the huge JJ blunder.

Anyway, it was fun to see in close proximity how real pros work, and how they would decimate a field of even skilled amateurs. They bet relentlessly, sometimes with just a big ace, sometimes with a small pair. No fear. But few stupid moves.

I was considering coming back in July, but I don't know. This level of player won't be encountered in the Colossus, at least not at the early tables. But the Vegas traffic has induced some car trouble, and it depends on what it takes to sort that out.

Sounds like a memorable run, even if the result wasn't quite ideal.

The other side of jamming the KQ and losing to AT is that you would've been in a great position if you'd won, which you should about 40% of the time.

Yeah, it was really about all I could ask for. And the best part about it is there's no skill needed post-flop. We're all on equal ground. Plus, my shoving short game is nowhere near as bad as my overall game, having played so many WSOP STT's all these years. I've even beaten a semi-famous poker author heads-up in a home game tournament. This was not your usual home game host, he knew people. And people that knew people. There were bracelet winners and guys you've seen on tv, etc. So I felt really good about that win.

The differences from the Monster Stack were stark in the $230 Milestone satellite I played at the Orleans today. What a clown show, 6x open raises from utg, stuff like that. Oh well, can't be playing $1500 tournaments every day. Unless I make a lot more money. That's another game I'm working on, the stock market game. It's not horribly difficult to make a few hundred a week and there are lots of weeks until WSOP 2025. The key is just like with poker, avoiding the major eff-ups. Maybe I need to think about my trades more, like with the poker, before I actually make them. Heh, maybe one skill can enhance the other.

Another cool thing I saw today, Rampage in the Horseshoe parking garage. Luckily for him, I was late getting somewhere so I didn't have time to annoy him with my fanboy BS.

Was Rampage looking for the free alarm clocks?

Not that I know of.

Tried the Seniors Deepstack because it's over in one day and it's $250 vs $1000. Lots of rookie play here even though these old dudes are playing like it was 20 years ago. This one pot I doubt was ever played the way they did though. Raises pre, and they go to war on the flop. They BOTH have gutshot draws. Seriously. Ironically the one card (one rank actually) that fills both of their straight draws hits the river. One guy has the dummy end though.

Yup, that sounds like him. 😀 He had a fairly decent stack when we started, but when you play to win, not just min-cash like me, you lose big pots sometimes.

Braxton Dunaway sounds like the name of the romantic interest in a Mills & Boon