Event #13 Saturday went much better than #9. I lasted over twice as long, and lost as a much bigger favourite. About 100 minutes in I raised from UTG+1 with 97s, and get 3 callers. I flop a flush draw, and BB bets about half pot. I call, and so does the button. We are 3-way, the pot is growing big and on the turn I make my flush. BB checks, I bet 2/3 pot, Button raises, BB folds, and we go all-in. He shows a flopped slow-played set (not a good play imo). He obviously rivers a full house, and I am gone.
The beats you take playing live Live Draw HK are somewhat harder to bear than online. Everything is much more in your face, it takes longer to play the next hands, and the emotions of yourself and your opponents are an important part of the game much more so than online. This recent beat is not exceptional at all, but it took its toll on me emotionally. It more or less ruined my day actually. But I am nothing if not stubborn, so I will keep plugging of course. Yesterday was a vast improvement, we hung out at the mansion for most of the day, and then went for a good meal and some cash game. I watched game 2 of the NBA finals, played 10/20NL at the Bellagio for a few hours and won $1100 in only small pots. A good solid evening that I think I needed.
WSOP cash.
I played my fourth event of the series yesterday, or I should say, I am still playing it! I have made it to day two of event 27 ($1500 NL) with a little over average chips, and we are in the money.
It was a great day 1, in which everything suddenly worked out, in sharp contrast to earlier events this year, when nothing worked out. I played two different tables, both of which was among the best I have ever played. On the first table, two thirds of all hands went unraised preflop, and on both tables the level of passivity was at times almost mind numbing. It was very cozy though, with an 80 year old geezer to my left who couldn’t really see the board, and a middle aged woman across taking the ‘friendly game’ prize. They went very deep with the method of call preflop, call flop, call or check turn, call or check river and show down a set, trips or a straight for the winning hand. They combined for a total of 2 preflop raises in five hours, and on one of those the lady put in 2200 chips from the button when the blinds were 600/1200. I will never know if it was actually meant to be a call as well. On the other raise, the lady knocked out the short stacked geezer with kings against queens. She is still in it with a decent stack.
There are just 224 players left, and first prize is $628k and of course a bracelet, so that is where I am going.
I gotta run, I am playing in an hour and a half. Wish me luck.
Vegas update
As I am sporting the mother of all hang overs, this will just be a brief report of our doings in Vegas. Pretty much every one of us is losing at the tables, so there is not much profit yet.
I played event 21 yesterday, a regular $5k NL tournament. I doubled up early with aces against eights all-in preflop, but went totally card dead after that. I also made a semi bad bluff that cost me a chunk. I finally bust with 30 BBs about 5 hours in with a flush draw and over cards against aces.
It turned out to be a good day anyway, as I saw the cirque de soleis show ‘Ka’, which is an awesome production. Other prime activities include a long drive in the desert. We started out by Hoover Dam, drove by Lake Mead to the Valley of Fire, and then home. Day before that we visited the gun range, where I shot Saddam Hussein in both eyes with a Desert eagle in two shots total. I also tried an AK-47, an M16 and a .45 hand gun. Much fun. Our internet is basically not functioning, so sadly I can’t spoil you with updates as much as I would like.
