**** TJ's Summer 2025 Quest for Poker Glory ****

I appreciate the shout out ♥ but the voice of McMuffin would've said to muck initially. I mean call has "some merit" but UTG+1 could easily re-open so that makes it an initial muck.

GO GO GADGET! GL

The spin is officially ON.

Doubled through the table chipleader twice.

I flat a late position open from BB with JsTs, flop comes Jc-8h-4h. I check/shove, he calls with Jh5h. Tiptoeing through the raindrops on that runout, but it stays clean.

Two orbits later, he opens to 12k from UTG+1, I 3bet AA to 30k, he calls. Flop K-7-3 two spades, he checks, I downbet 15k, with another 48k behind it. He obliges, and shoves, and I’m up against KJo, and hold.

Sir, that hand is not doing well vs my 3bet range at this stage.

On about 170k, 125k is average now.

Let’s GO.

be back with extra melted butter in a jiffy

[emoji846][emoji846][emoji846]

On dinner break, with 131k, heading back to 5k/10k. Average is 192k.

Got unlucky in a big spot.

UTG moves in for less than 2bb, then a shortstack shoves for 6bb. A middling stack flats both, with about another 50k behind it, and I see QQ in the small blind.

I reshove, covering everybody. The only player with money behind folds. The smaller stack is in bad shape with Q6o, and the other shortstack has K5o.

The flop contains a king, and I don’t improve. He scoops both pots. Would have put me up to about 300k, if it could have held. Such is life.

We’re about 50 players away from the bubble. With these blinds, it’ll probably go fast.

Once again, folding to mincash does absolutely nothing for me. I’m hunting for the biggest bag I can get. If my spot comes before the bubble, I won’t pass it up.

Where is Wing Zone?

It’s in the Horseshoe food hall. The choices are Johnny Rocket’s, Nathan’s, Wing Zone, Sbarro, and Ben and Jerry’s for dessert.

Thanks for sharing all the food pics, I really enjoyed reading through the TR. GL in the final few days of your trip. Take some souls like the PLO hand from Wynn.

I didn't even see Wing Zone, and I really like wings.

BTW, congrats on making the money. Now run it up!

WTG!

GO GO GADGET!

iirc Jeff Boski had a 40 MTT cashless streak online. Main thing is the here and the now; it's called the present because it is a GIFT!

GL GL GL

Made the 5th and final break of the night, before 3 more levels, then bag.

I lost a flip for what I thought was my tournament life, AJo < TT, but he counted it, and I came back to 1bb and change, which went all in dark in the BB the next hand.

That all in dark hand turned out to be KK, and I tripled up. Now I really wish I’d folded the AJ, if I knew I was getting KK next.

That was the start of the next hour and a half, surviving and advancing as a short stack. When it got desperate, I got it in behind for my tournament life, and won, twice: J9s > A7s, and J7o > Q5s. So I’m very fortunate to still have life.

Then I picked up AA in the big blind, and got a freaking WALK :(

I have 168k coming back to 10/25, about 1 double up away from average. Still very much in pushbot mode. We’re gonna give it our best, to bag the biggest stack we can at the end of the night, or go out trying.

And bust, on yet another sick tournament beat, in a summer that’s filled with all too many of them. JJ couldn’t stay ahead of 66, all in preflop.

That’s good for 567th place, out of 9,875 entries this flight, for $820. I made money on my two bullets today! Definitely couldn’t say that every day, or even most days, on this trip.

This one was particularly soul crushing, because it was my last best chance at a very above average score. Now I only have three days left in town, to stare at allllll the red ink in my poker book, and try to decide what’s the best use of my time.

Definitely not jumping in a cash game tonight. I’ll sleep on it, and reevaluate when I wake up.

So I’m looking at the schedule, trying to come up with a plan for tomorrow.

Option A is the $1100 Mystery Bounty at Aria. 500k guaranteed, 1-day event, 104 S-points. Hmmmmm. There was the $2200 mystery bounty on Day 2 on the same day as the $800 daily I played at Aria, and I can assure you, it’s high drama and comedy as people were pulling envelopes. Could there be a 50k envelope with my name on it? Tempting. I wonder if supercharging the tournament variance and embracing it could be the optimal strategy, at this point in my trip, stuck bigly.

Option B is the $1100 PLO event at Venetian. 300k guaranteed. I’m not sure I want to play PLO in a tournament format, though. I think it’s best suited for cash games.

Option C is a daily, at either Resorts World, or the daily deepstack at the WSOP. The latter might get 1000 entries on a Sunday, which could be good for $25k-ish up top. The former, despite how much I love the room and the food, only has a 15k guarantee for the entire prize pool, so I’m not sure it’d be worth my time.

Option D is sleep in, get up when I feel like it, take a leisurely breakfast, and make it over to a big room for PLO cash games. I think I’ll stay at 1/2 PLO, despite the temptation of possibly a big day if I run well in a 5/5/rock game. That’s still a bit out of my comfort zone, though. I wouldn’t even want to sit that game with less than 2k… and that’s a lot to me. I’d much rather sit for the max 1k in a less aggro, looser and more multiway game.

If I choose option A, the big drawback is a more rushed morning, as the event starts less than 10 hours from now, as I write this.

So I’m leaning option D, at the Wynn. I can get there when I want, and quit whenever I want.

We’ll see how I feel when I wake up.

At 26 big blinds effective, with extra dead money in the pot from BTN, you don't 3bet-fold JJ. Running into KK here is just a cooler.

NLHE tournaments with 30 minute levels are by % probably the hardest tournaments to bag at the WSOP. Good run in the Gladiators, even if it ended shy of day 2. Hopefully it will be the start of some positive tourney momentum.

Slept til about noon, had a shower and a shave, then went to get something to eat at Esther’s Kitchen.

I had some pasta on my mind, but they were doing their Sunday brunch menu, so I got the chicken Parmesan sandwich.

It was better than the same thing at Parm in Aria, and at a better price, too. Veggie chips!

Just that, and a water, was $21.

Now I’m on the list for PLO at the Wynn. I checked in ahead of time on Poker Atlas, but it’s still a pretty long list.

from every poker related strat post i've read from TJ Eck
no doubt he skill posses sick tournament strategy to take down a big one with his bare hands

2.5 hour wait to get into a game :/

I’m seated now, even though it doesn’t look like a great game.

But these things can change quickly, so we’ll give it a shot.

Chicky Chicky Parm Parm is always a great choice, even in sandwich form.

I’m starting to think 19 straight days in Vegas, with all the poker I can handle, may be too long.

PLO today was just meh. I played another long, 7 hour session. I didn’t feel unfocused, and I thought my decisions were fine. But I definitely felt like I was on autopilot for long stretches.

I was down a small amount, then a big spot came up. I 3bet AA93 preflop with spades, 4 calls, and I led out the Qs-7s-3 flop, then got raised.

I decided in that moment, I was gonna play for it all, and quit after this hand no matter the outcome. Up against a set, I had 11 outs twice, but missed them all, gg and gl. Picked up my last 800+, and went to the cage, to book another session down.

I’m not sad, angry, or upset when I look at my books and go over my very ugly numbers. I’d describe the feeling more as numb to it all, which might be worse.

But don’t feel bad for me, I really am fine. When I hit my big score making that final table back in February, I eagerly began planning this Vegas trip in anticipation. This was well within the range of acceptable outcomes. And I’ve been winning at a good clip in poker back at home ever since, anyway.

I’m still playing the Main Event in a couple weeks. That’ll be the culmination of a lifelong poker dream of mine: the assurance of having enough success at poker to get to play. And of course, the upper bound on what dreams may come are literally limitless.

For my penultimate day in town, I’ll be playing the $600 TORSE event at the Nugget. It’ll be a fun, different experience to get to play mixed games. I still do enjoy playing poker all day, so that’s what I’m going to do.

yeah, I think for someone who is a relatively occasional player...playing almost 3 weeks straight is a ton. Very hard to play the A game for that long for anyone...let alone someone who has a FT job

and then not getting the results you hoped for makes it a lot tougher still.

So sorry for the run-bad. That JJ/66 hand stinks!!! Too bad about the Wyncore PLO, too. That can be such a great game, but I've never played there during WSOP. Good luck in the TORSE -- and have fun!

I appreciate that you have hung in and kept posting, even when the results weren't what you wanted. I echo the sentiment that you should have fun today. You don't have to play to live. Enjoy yourself.

Slept pretty good, made it over to the Nugget in time to grab breakfast at Claim Jumpers.

Now sitting in the TORSE event, let’s gooooooo!