Hey guys, sorry long time no blog, Vegas has been a whirlwind of having a great time with buddies out here, and frustration with poker tournaments. I have to say that I gave and played my absolute best in the final four tournies. At times during both 6max tournies that started my world series, I felt like at times I was simply being outplayed by the tournament pros, they were making better shoves than I was, and took advantage of my lack of awareness about the way they were playing. A good example is a hand that I played in level 3 of the 1500 6max event. I had about 30bbs effective, I called in bb with 88 from a middle position raise by a big stack. Flop comes 942 rainbow and he cbets and I make a very standard call, turn is a 3 and it goes check check. River comes a nine, I think I have the best hand for sure, but I think that by betting there is very little air in my range so I check in hopes that he will make a poor bluff, he bets about 2/5 pot on river I call in about .2 seconds and he shows me pocket kings. So for the first two tournaments, I just was not quite aware how tournament players viewed tournies (they don't want to take any risks postflop and are quite fine waiting till they are in push/fold mode). After that I feel like I really played my best but was just not dealt any cards.

The next 3 tournies were a series of frustrating experiences. Tournament #3 was a 1500 full ring in which I did finally build up some chips to 20k in level 3, but was immediately greeted with JJ vs AA, AQ vs AA, and finally to kick me off KQ vs AQ on a Q4266 board where I check called two streets and he checked back river. Finally went out to an 11bb push K9o vs AT sb vs bb when he flopped JQK lol gg. Tournament number 4 was another 1k in which level two I flopped a pair and flush draw against top pair bad kicker that felt the need to 3bet and call my 4bet all in, he of course made a full house by the river. Tournament #5 was another tourney that I felt exceptionally proud with my play all day. I did cooler the living the hell out of someone in the first 5 minutes where my 55 vs good against his T8 on a T55T8 board (WOW WHAT A COOLER!!!), but then immediately ran KK into AA against the drunk maniac on my left for a total of 28k chips in the middle of level 1!!!! button vs sb. I then proceeded to play some of my best poker of the world series moving from 3k up to 18k by playing postflop poker and forcing the tourney players into bad shoves on the flop and/or turn. I was up to 28k and feeling super confident in level 5 that I would make the end of the day and be in good shape to at least cash when I decided to pull off what I considered to be a good bluff but I will let you guys decide. The blinds are 300-600 and I open in CO with AQ and the sb who is an older lady called. Flop is 245r and I make a cbet and she calls. Turn is a K which puts a back door flush draw on the board and she checks again and I make a half pot bet again of about 3800 into about 7400 and she takes a long time and calls. At this point I put her a hand like 66-99 and very few other hands, I've seen her CR before so I doubt she slowplays a big hand here. River is a 5 that completes the backdoor flush draw, and now I continue to think that she has to fold to a shove with all of her range that is not a boat, so I shove pretty happily for her remaining ~11k and she calls in about 2 seconds with KQ and then says "I caught you right?" Yea you stupid broad you caught me. So frustrating not only that she made a nonsensical float OOP, or the fact that if she hit a Q she would have gone broke, but that she also had no concept of the board texture, the possibility that I could have a flush or a thinnish value bet, but yea you caught me. I followed that up with a 15bb cooler QQ vs AK and he caught his ace on flop to send me home.

Main event might have been even more frustrating. My table was certainly not scary, the two internet tourney players that could not play postflop were on my left, the only competent tourney player was across from me, and had some different types of live donks scattered throughout the table. I hit AA against one of the internet players to take down a 4bet pot in level 2, and besides that did not hit middle pair at any point. Thus I think I was forced to bluff in many different types of spots, 3bet pots, 4bet pots, 3barrels, checkraises, etc. that found my stack moving up and down from a low point of 16k in level 3 (and having about 80% of my stack in the middle on a river bluff), to a high point of 44k in level 5. At this point, I couldn't tell you how excited I was, because I felt like levels 2-4 were my best of the whole series, smelling weakness and just pouncing on it, picking up free chips, and folding in spots I should be folding even though it became tougher because of how few cards I was dealt. Then comes my hand that decided my world series.

Interesting hand:

We were 30 minutes away from the end of the day, and certainly a lot of the players were happy to make day 1. I have the craziest image at the table, but very few time had players seen my cards at showdown, and our whole table was there from hand 1 so no one had been eliminated. Blinds are 200-400 with 50 ante when I open AJ UTG+2 or 3 and the bb calls. The bb is the competent internet tourney player, and the very hand before dinner break I check called him on the flop/he checks back turn/and I call river with AT on 22726 and it was good. He was visibly surprised and said what I thought was sincere that he would not be messing with me anymore and he had stopped raising my bb and became one of the easiest bb to steal even though he was probably the best at the table (this becomes important because I think that he can only call with 55 and not a hand like A5 or 56). The flop comes AJc5c and I cbet 1800 into about 2400 and he calls. Turn is a 5 and I try to get 3 big streets from AT/AQ/A9 etc and bet 5200 into about 6k and he makes a rather quick checkraise to 13.2. I call rather quickly, surprised by this line and not 100% pumped about my situation. River is an offsuit 2 meaning the flush draw missed and he thinks for about a minute and a half and bets 18.2. This leaves me about 9k if I call and leaves me exceptionally short and am wrong but it gives me a really great chip stack if I call and am right. I tank for the longest tank of my life, get the clock called on me:

What do you guys do here and why????

I will leave my WSOP blog at this moment and continue soon with the rest of the stories later. Overall I made 4 dinner breaks out of 5 for the preliminary tournies with 0 cashes, and made it to day 2 of the main event without a cash. I am really frustrated not just for myself but also for my backers who believed in me and my abilities. I will have more of an overview type blog later on and also talk about my thoughts on this hand, but I am sorry I lost you guys money. I certainly have a long long way to go to improve my tournament poker game.

Salud!