It's Sunday morning, and I prepare myself for another DSE event at the V. I'm not really thinking about much else other than poker at this point. I try to shake off yesterday's poor performance and head to the V...
I was pretty quiet for the first couple rounds of the tourney, not accumulating or picking up any kind of hand at all until I got put in the same spot as last night, only to better results. I'm in the BB with Q5 off again, and am allowed to limp. The flop comes Q58 this time, I lead out for a small "trying to steal the pot on the cheap" bet, and the Button shoves for his remaining 5k. I insta-call and send him to the rail. It's so weird that I just congratulated Pete on being able to lay down a hand like that and not overplay the Q to the point that you're out of chips, and this guy does it 12 hours later! After this hand, I literally just got whittled down again. No hands for a long time, and people raising ahead of me in spots I was going to use to steal mean I'm just losing my chips a little at a time again.
I finally get moved to a new table about 2 hours in. There's an older man sitting across from me with a pretty big stack, along with a few other big stacks. No one had been put out at my table except for the guy I put out, so no one had a ton of chips at my previous table. This was a completely different table and I quickly realized that if I didn't gain chips soon I would be in trouble. I get AK off in mid position and toss out a standard raise. I get called by the big stack old man from the BB. 689 with 2 spades flops. I Cbet, he calls. J spades hits the turn, meaning there's a possible straight and flush out there, so I bet the turn and he calls again. I'm a little concerned at this point, but my read says he no way has a straight or flush. The river is a blank and I fire a sizable bet at the pot. He thinks for a minute, and calls. I tell him, "I'm a liar, sir. You've got me." He says, "you don't have a flush?", and turns over a 6. "Six???!!! You have a 6, sir?" I ask. He replies, "Yeah, a 6. I thought you had the flush." I'm livid at this point, and ask why he would call if he thought I had a flush and he has bottom pair. He doesn't have an answer. This only infuriates me more as it is one of the rules of poker I've learned over the years. Older men will call down a weak pair all day. I know this, any player that plays even a remotely sophisticated game knows this, yet I still tried to move on him. This cost me my chips as it destroyed my stack and had me in shove/fold mode. Two hands later, I pick up K9 spades. 1010Q with 2 spades hits the flop and I shove. It's only me and the old man again, and he calls, showing J10 for a set of 10's. I don't improve and I'm making my quickest exit in a DSE event.
Instead of doing what I did yesterday, I decide to stop playing and take my time on my next move. I go find an In N Out burger and crush a 2x2 animal style. Man, it's been a while since one of these...and they're every bit as delicious as I remember. I run some errands and decide to go back to the room for a quick nap, then play the 11pm $100 at the Rio. I hadn't been to the Rio since a week prior in the WSOP 1k event, and I wanted to start getting my bearings for the Main Event. I decide I'm going to play the tourney for as long as possible, then grind out cash games until morning. I was going to take off Monday, as I had originally planned to enter the Main Event on Tuesday.
It's about 9pm, and I've literally just hit sleep, when BOOM!!!! A crash so loud I thought someone had broken through my sliding glass door. I shot out of bed confused as shit and see tons of lights bounce off the building behind me. I'm so disoriented, I have no idea what is going on. I completely forgot it was 4th of July! I throw a t shirt and jeans on and race downstairs to watch the show. The fireworks on the strip were set off right across the street at Ceasars, so I had a great view of an amazing fireworks display. The crowd that was out watching was special, to say the least. Two old man fights almost broke out over where people were standing. We were all standing on the sidewalk and in the street...what a disaster. The funniest part about watching the Independence Day fireworks in Las Vegas, was that the crowd was probably 70% foreign. They didn't care it was the 4th, they were just watching fireworks...pretty odd (ironic?).
Not being able to sleep I get myself together and head over to the Rio. Once I start getting close to the Rio, driving down Flamingo, I get butterflies. It dawns on me that the Main Event is starting tomorrow morning. Not for me, but it's starting. The whole reason I'm here is approaching and I'm not sure I want it to. I'm nervous and a little overwhelmed. The Rio is gorgeous at nightime. It definitely has the most lights of all the casinos and it pretty much stands alone, so it is an imposing structure. I register for the 11pm and ask about registering for the Main Event. I had realized that if I play my Day 1 on Tuesday, my Day 2 wouldn't be until Saturday. If I wait until Wednesday, my Day 2 would be Friday. Not that I'm looking to get busted, but I'm not looking to hang around if I do and I have a flight booked for Saturday. The woman at registration tells me I couldn't register for Wednesday or Thursday even if I wanted to, because they're trying to balance the field out...meaning everyone is trying to register for Weds and Thurs. I decide then that I will play Weds and register on Tuesday after the tourney started. This will also give me one more shot at a DSE event on Monday. I can play all day and take off Tuesday if I get busted, or if I'm running really good and wind up playing the second day I can always play the Main on Thursday. This choice definitely leaves me the most options with the ability to have an off day before I start the Main.
I'll be honest, I don't remember a ton of hands from the Rio tourney. It was mostly uneventful. I do know that I played the hands dealt to the best of my ability and didn't come out of it feeling bad at all. I think I finished somewhere like 45th out of 156...ok I guess. I did play 1/3 no limit as soon as I finished the tourney. It was about 2am, and there weren't a ton of tables going; I was able to sit right away at a 7 handed table. I pick up AA about 3 hands in and bump it to $11. I get 4 callers at this amount...not usually good news. An A hits the flop and I'm in great shape. I bet $20 out of position, again to look like a pot stealing move. Most would put me on an underpair here, because why would I bet the A? I get one caller and the turn shows a blank. I fire $35 at him to pretty quick call. I'm not really worried at all here. The river is another blank and I instantly bet $65 to a fold. I would've liked to gotten paid on that, but still a good opening hand, and I don't have to show what I had. About an orbit later, I'm able to limp into a 6 handed pot with Q10off. JK7 with 2 spades hits the flop. I bet $15 at the pot with an open ended straight draw and get one caller, a friendly but good Greek player. The 9 of spades hits the turn to make my straight. I bet $35 to a fairly quick call. A blank hits the river and I throw out $65 again. The Greek pined for a while, but finally calls and turns over Q9 spades to make his flush. This is a mistake on my part, as I really wasn't concerned about the flush at all. I knew it was a possibility, but I didn't put him on it. This put me down a couple of dollars, but pretty close to even. I pretty much played even poker for the next few hours, as the room was dying and tables were becoming short handed and tight. I leave at 5am, meeting Chip for dinner, as he was just off of work. We had chicken parm from Grande Lux in the V. I'm a chicken parm guy, and this was exceptional. The chicken breast is pounded thin to the size of a frisbee, then crusted with parmesean cheese...fantastic.
The thought really starts to creep in tonight that I may not want to play the Main Event. I've come all this way, and even though I don't have a ton of results, I'm definitely playing poker at a very high level right now. There have been a ton of instances where I just don't get hands early in a tournament and I'm forced to play short stack poker the whole way through and it's hard. I can't help but think that if I keep firing away in volume in smaller tournaments I'm bound to catch hands early and hopefully be able to cruise to a cash/victory. The money earned from a good cash or win in a smaller DSE or similar event would be significant as well. Why take one giant shot when I have a chance to take a ton of smaller shots and build my bankroll to even higher than it is now? I don't know, we'll see what happens tomorrow.
If I get to bed by 7, I'll be able to make Monday's DSE event...
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