A late main event summary

So as I wrote in the last post, I was planning to play the main event for the World Series of Poker. Forking up the $10,000 in white $500 chips, twenty of them to be exact, and watching the cashier take the money and hand me back a paper slip in exchange felt kind of bizzarre, putting up the single entry-chip I won for my first 10k event in New Orleans somehow felt easier. Strange indeed.

I was fairly nervous and antsy about it right as I had bought in. The night before the main event I figured I would be a total wreck and completely unable to get any sleep, but to my surprise, it was quite the opposite. I was eager to play, but I didn't feel as nervous as I would expect. I fell asleep fairly easily (falling asleep is usually a task in itself for me) and I woke up the morning of the main event feeling very eager to play. I just wanted to get to the table, play with my chips and settle in asap.

I walked up to the table I drew, I didn't really notice anybody I recognized immediately. I saw a Pokerstars Supernova VIP player (so his shirt said!) in seat 1, and I am always more fearful of talented online players than I am most live tournament grinders. I found out later he was Rainkhan and that I'm pretty sure I've played Starcraft with him several years ago, anyway, he would end up giving me a lot of grief.

Then there was my fellow swedish countryman Martin De Knijff sitting two seats to my left, which I didn't like either, good players having position on me cripples me of course. I was scanning around for any other familiar faces when the guy on my left covered in a hoodie looks at me, then looks back, then takes a doubletake and goes "Swede?!"

It was a cool guy I got introduced to last year at the World Series named Greg Hopkins, I had actually talked to him the night before the main event and congratulated him on his new piece of wristwear. He won a bracelet in the 2007 WSOP in a $2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em tournament. I've been told before he's a very good tournament player and he's on my immediate left so I figured this is gonna blow balls. Greg and De Knijff both on my left. Oh well.

The structure was pretty good, two hour levels, 20k start chips and 50/100 starting blinds. So
I decided early I wasn't going to get out of line but sit out the first couple of orbits and just see what develops. Well, as usual with every other grand plan I have, this went out the window the very first hand.

I look down at 99, I raise and take it down. The very next hand 88, I raise get a caller, get raised and I have to fold. Third hand I have 66... I come in for a raise again, this time I get raised on the flop and have to fold again. Fourth hand I pick up yet another pair and I'm almost hoping I'll stop getting pairs so I don't ruin my image right out the gate and end up looking completely loose/weak as I'm not ready to play big pots with underpairs so I end up folding a lot when the flop misses me.

In the first 10 hands, I'm involved in 8 of them. All 8 having a pair. Jesus, so much for sitting out an orbit eh. I pick up two sixes in the second orbit. I limp in early, one guy in the back has yet to play a hand and makes it 600 to go. A pretty decent raise, I was hoping he had a big pair obviously and called. Flop is 6 5 2. Yahtzee, double up incoming and 40k chips and I'll cruise to a final table! I check, he bets 1200, I make it 3600, he turbo-mucks. So much for a double-up.

After this, I can't remember in detail very many hands I played. I know I spewed a lot of chips playing poorly. Playing too weak, too loose and basically just not playing my game at all. I was too eager to get a lot of chips early and I really played subpar and this is what really disappoints me about this tournament.

The only decent pot I won was after I had dribbled down to like 11k. I call a raise with T9s and flop was 10 high, he checks I check, turn is a J he bets like 1200 I call. River is a low blank and he instantly bets 3500. This was an unusually large bet and especially for this guy who was playing fairly snug. He was visibly frustrated and had expressed his frustrations a few hands earlier when he said he couldn't get anything to work. I was pretty sure it was ace high, it didn't make sense for him to check any other hand on the flop and then immediately fire the turn. If he had AJ or KJ (didn't think he'd open KJ) by some chance I had a feeling he'd take a moment and pause on the river before deciding a bet amount. Not just haphazardly throw out a decent bet. I call, my hand is good and we go on break.

Almost immediately coming back from break I'm at 16k. I get involved again with Rainkhan, he's up to over 70k at this point and he's cruising. He's ran very well, flopped sets, made flushes, the only one busting anybody at our table and he's playing fast now. He was opening a lot of pots and he yet again opens to 1200 from MP at 200/400 blinds, the cutoff calls and I decide to call with KQ on the button.

Flop comes down K-T-4 with two spades. Rainkhan checks, other guy checks, I bet 1600 a very small feeler bet. Rainkhan immediately raises and counts out 7000 and puts it in the middle, a very substantial bet. I didn't think he was in love with his hand the way he was acting and I had a feeling it might be some kind of combo draw, pair/flushdraw, flushdraw/straightdraw and I tanked this for a few minutes. I finally came to the conclusion my image at the table is very weak I've folded to a lot of raises, my bet was very small on the flop and he was a hyper aggressive player. I fully believed he'd just use his stack to be able to take this one down with a draw and this would be the most likely line he'd take with a draw. (I may be wrong, but this is what was going through my head at the time)

I decide to call and to call off the rest on the turn (another 9k) if no spade falls. I call, the turn pairs the 4, he immediately shoves. I take a deep breath, think this hand through one last time as I would hate to be wrong and have to remember I busted from my first main event overplaying KQ. I apologized to the table for taking so much time, and then finally decide to call, completely going with my instinct. He says "Are you drawing dead? Please tell me you are drawing dead!" and bounces out of his chair. Oh fuck. That's not really what I wanted to hear, he flips up AK and I sheepishly turn over my KQ. He stands up and yells for nothing funny to happen, to keep it clean, I'm thinking jesus dude you have 60k and triple average if you lose this pot why the hell are you getting so animated? The river blanks, I shake his hand and tell him he played well (He really did, not just on that hand, but in many hands... I liked his game) and I walk off.

I found out later Rainkhan ends up finishing 6th in the main event for close to a million, I guess he ran well for a few more days. Props to him though, he plays a very good tournament game and I really think he is gonna go far in future tournaments.

So that is the wrap up, I would give my play a 4/10 and I don't regret my bustout hand I strongly felt my decision was right at the time, I regret a dozen hands I played up until the point of the bustout hand and I really wish the next time I play the main event I can go home thinking I played my best and did my best, even if I bust on day 1 next time.

How to summarize a month in one single blog

I don't know why I'm the biggest procrastinator in the history of the world when it comes to writing my blogs. I usually enjoy writing them and yet I always end up doing something else all night long and then forget to update with all the fun tidbits that happen during the day, and after enough time of stuff piling up I don't even want to start writing a blog because too much has happened!

It just pretty much describes my work ethic, if I ever feel like I "should" or "have to" do something I won't. A spoiled life-style has really led to some serious character flaws that's for sure.

Nevertheless, here we go! Me and Donald left to go New Orleans to play the WSOP Circuit, I didn't do great but won a few thousand in cashgames and me and Jessica (she came down there too) went to see a lot of touristy things. We rode the totally awesome airboats in the swamps and petted little crocodiles, it was fun. I picked up a little money, nothing huge and then we left to go back to Tunica.

We only stayed in Tunica for a couple of days when we spur of the moment ride up to Oklahoma where I finished 7th in the 1k NLHE event for 7k and then we rode back to Tunica again. We only stayed a few days again, then me, John L and Donald packed up all our things and drove back down to New Orleans and played some cashgames for about two days and then started out trek to Vegas.

We went up to Shreveport, Louisiana spent two nights at the Horseshoe in Shreveport which was surprisingly nice and comfortable. It felt very much like "home" (Horseshoe, Tunica). Me and Donald final tabled some tournament there, we both had a lot of chips with 8 left but after I make three terrible plays we bust out in 6th and 5th (we busted on the same hand, the third party in the hand busted us both) and off we were on the road again.

Next stop was the Winstar Casino close to Dallas, Texas. It is in Oklahoma but it is on the border between Texas and Oklahoma, another nice little casino and me and D both picked up a little change here and then it was off on the road again. This time it was a long way through the desert towards Vegas.

Originally, John wanted us to ride his station wagon without any air conditioning because... well, I have no fucking idea why because it would be ridiculously hot riding through the desert with vultures hovering over our car just waiting for us to either pass out and die from heat exhaustion or until the station wagon decided to throw in the towel so they could eat our bodies. I managed to talk D into taking his car instead so we were riding in the pimpin' Honda Accord equipped with PLENTY of cold air to take us down to the Sin City itself. The ride wasn't so bad, we had plenty of interesting conversations. John and Donald are both very intelligent guys and I always have a good time discussing various topics with them. Towards the end of the trip, we were all deliriously tired (the whole ride took about 16 hours I think from Winstar, but none of us had slept for the day before since we didn't have a room at the Winstar) so we started this trivia game. John would ask us trivia questions, some of them would be capitals of countries in the world and others would be state capitals.

Of course, Donald had the edge in the state capitals, we were about even when it came to capitals of South American countries but whenever he asked anything about a European country Donald had absolutely no idea so I picked up many valuable points there! This might sound like a simple trivia game to pass the time to you, my loyal readers, but this was not so. I was fighting and clawing for every point I could get, and when we were racing to 50 points (but you had to win by two) I was really dead set on kicking that redhead-inbred-bumfuckTennessee-clowns ass and secure the trivia title. I had him 51-50 after correctly saying that the capital of Guatemala was Guatemala City (which to Donalds protest he said it was bullshit, until we looked it up and I WAS INDEED RIGHT!) and it came down to the final question.

What is the state capital of New Hampshire? I remember about two years ago, a friend of mine from New Hampshire came down to Tunica to hang out and play poker for about 10 days. He flew in to Huntsville, AL and me and him drove to Tunica and in the car he said, "Do you know the capital of New Hampshire?". I said, of course I don't. Why the fuck would I know the capital of New Hampshire? He said, "It is Concord, just remember the word opposite to 'discord', now you'll never forget it."

Sure enough, I haven't forgot it still. CONCORD, I yell out so loud I almost swerve into the incoming 18-wheeler in the middle of New Mexico and Donald was stunned. He was defeated. The swedish guy emerges victorious once again. It was great.

Another thing, us degenerate gamblers would bet on would be simple prop bets that we'd come up with at random. At one restaurant, we had quite a complicated order and John ordered dry wheat toast. He said they always butter his toast no matter what if he orders it that way or not, and we had a couple steaks one being well done one being medium well and a bunch of little side items. John said there's no way she's going to get everything right, I bet $20 that she would. Donald took the bet and sure enough the waitress had it all right.

Our other standing bet was at In and Out burger, every time we'd order we'd bet on how long it would take. John would set the line at say... 6 minutes. Me and D would have to call over and under if it'd be over (take more than six minutes) or under (take less than six minutes) and of course we'd gamble on that too. We're such fucking degenerates, but it is all fun.

Another thing that we've gambled a lot on lately is Roshambo, for you simpletons that aren't experts of the art it would be normally be referred to as Rock-Paper-Scissors. This sounds like another simple game but oh no, do not be fooled. The mental trickery and the jedi mind-trick like abilities you have to possess is more than I thought. I've never lost so consistently at a game as I'm losing in this one to Donald. Somehow he fucking owns me at this game. I've lost 20 bucks twice, I've lost a gazebo (we're in some home improvement store when we see a gazebo for 300 bucks and we decide to Roshambo for it, and I fucking lose.) and then we had a double or nothing bet for $90 bucks from a previous prop bet that I actually managed to win. I'm gonna get his ass consistently some day in it though.

We finally get to Vegas and we stay a couple nights at Golden Nugget downtown, a couple nights at the Palms (which was very, very nice) where we had a really nice room at the 53rd floor with an amazing view. I had been doing real well so far on the trip but after a few bad sessions at $10/20 NL at the Bellagio I had a "swede blowup" where I went and dropped a hefty sum at the blackjack tables of the Palms and this sent me way back in the red for the trip. I almost had to go back after this because that blackjack session hurt me so bad but I decided to get my own room at the Stratosphere, play some online and try to gather my thoughts on why I'm such a fucking idiot sometimes.

So John and D moved over to a nice suite at the Rio while I got my room all the way down the end of the Strip at the Stratosphere. I spent a couple of nights playing and trying to get myself back together and after about four days of solitude at the Stratosphere Jessica came out to visit. The first day she was there, I was playing the WSOP super satellite on Stars that was giving away a lot of seats. I was able to win a seat after about 9 hours and they credited me with $11,000 into my account to be used towards the main event. But since I had such a horrific trip so far I decided to keep the money to recoup some of the blackjack money I had blown.


The Stratosphere




We went and did a lot of fun stuff, Donald came with us too for most of them and we went up to the top of the Stratosphere to do these three rides. They're called X-Scream, Insanity and Big Shot. The naming of the first two rides were no coincidence, oh no. It sure made me fucking scream and it was indeed pure insanity, they were aptly named indeed. The first one we went on was X-Scream. All these rides take place 110 floors up in the air, which is right around 1000 feet (Big Shot was 1100 feet up) and it is fucking high up in the air. X-Scream sits you down into this rocket looking thing with 8 seats, two by two and then it shoots you off this rail in 40mph only to suddenly brake when you are hanging off the side of the building terrified like no other and screaming and praying for your life. I'm not a religious man but I could be found saying at least three different prayers before, during and after the ride. I have never in my entire life been so scared from a ride. Ever.

Insanity

Big Shot

The infamous X-Scream

Next one up was Big Shot. The ride can be found on various amusement parks as it is this tower where it shoots you straight up in the air and then lets you feel the feeling of a freefall as you come back down. It is like the greatest excillerating feeling when you get shot up and you're coming down. The view is also amazing from up there, you can see the entire Las Vegas valley and it was absolutely gorgeous. We had a great picture from this one, from the automated cameras when Donald and Jessica look so totally frightened and I'm laughing my ass off. It was so cool. I'd love to do it again. We probably rode this one four or five times in a row. This one was much more enjoyable than the X-Scream, I didn't have that "oh my god I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm really gonna die" feeling but instead it was just fun instead of pure terror.

The last, but not least was "Insanity". It spins you around while you are suspended in the air in these chairs hanging off the side of the building. It was quite the shock at first as when you look down on your side you are seeing 1000 feet straight down to the Las Vegas strip, but once the initial shock had settled down it was pretty sweet.

Then all three of us went to see the Cirque de Soleil show "Ka" which was totally amazing. It was a super cool production and I had never seen any Cirque show or anything like it, infact, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. All three of us had a good time.

A little while later, we went to see Blueman Group. It was also an amazing time. Jess is apparently a huge fan of the Blueman Group and I didn't know much about them but it was so totally cool. She also got a Blueman Kiss at the end of the thing so that made her day.

Right after getting a kiss on the cheek!

I basically was doing everything I can just to have fun and not play poker and clear my head since I'd been performing so poorly. I met up with Shawn (from last years blogs) and Tim Burt, my old roommate, and we went up a few nights to the Voodoo Lounge at the top of the Rio which is an incredibly cool lounge. It is outside on a deck up on the 52nd floor and you have an amazing view there too, it was two floors with VIP booths at the side of the rails and two bars. There were poles for "exotic" dancers and plenty of people dancing all over the place, it was pretty sweet.

Shawn on the left, me in the middle, Tim on the right and Jessica infront

That's about it. I'm trying to get geared up to play the Main Event now on Monday (It started Friday, but with four "Day Ones") and hopefully I'll be able to get in it. Whether it is through buying in, getting put in or having someone buy a significant portion of my action I'd love to play it one way or another. It is the pinnacle event of all poker tournaments and it only happens once a year so I'm going to do everything in my power to get in it. Jessica left to go home quite a while ago and now it's just me and Donald staying in an apartment about five minutes from the strip. He's scheduled to play on Monday and hopefully I'll be able to play then too. I'll try to keep my blog updated more frequently.