I’m back. I’m actually typing my first 2012 WSOP blog post
on the flight out – I love on-board WiFi.
So, where to begin? In short, my wonderful girlfriend is in
Orlando at her cousin’s wedding… my dog is with my wonderful parents in the
suburbs… my boss is covering my e-mail at work and I am 100% checked out. So,
without a wife, girlfriend, children, dog, or professional responsibilities, I’m
on my way to Vegas to blow $15,000 over the next 10 days playing blackjack and
in the greatest poker tournament known to man. That’s pretty much my only
responsibility for the next week and a half.
And I’m blogging about it.
Again.
So, a bit of a recap – last year I got second in that
Memorial Day tourney for $15,000, which turned into my $10,000 entry fee for
WSOP Main Event. I cashed when I got 573rd out of 6,865 and vowed to
come back this year. A couple months later I played in a WSOP Circuit Event at
the Horseshoe when the WSOP tour came to Chicagoland – I got 15th
out of 3,001 – top half percent is pretty cool I think. I actually finished the year as
the 4,863rd best poker player, as ranked by Bluff Magazine... for whatever that's worth:
And here’s a link to last year’s blog if you’re interested:
Of course, since that glorious 5 month stretch, it’s been
pretty rough going. I did a Poker League with 9 other guys this year – every month
the ten of us had a poker tournament with $150 entry fee. $50 from each player was
allocated to the top 3 winners of that night’s tournament and $100 from each
player at each tournament went into a fund to send the league winner to the
main event and pay the $10,000 entry fee (We had an elaborate point system to
determine who was the league winner at the end of the 12 tournaments). I was
not the winner and in fact, I was pretty awful. Any which way, about a half
dozen of those guys are going to be out here with one of our group playing in
the main event today and another two playing in satellites to try to get in.
In early 2012, I played in the Chicago Poker Classic, which
was simply a disaster. I lost and lost bad, most of the time simply playing
terrible poker. I did get a nice reminder on why I am not supposed to chase Ace
high flushes and then bluff on the river when I miss though – hopefully I’ll keep
that in mind for Monday.
Then there was the WSOP Circuit Tour in St. Louis in April –
I played in one two day event, not that I even sniffed the second day. 5 hours
of just awful, terrible cards – not a single premium hand. No Aces, Kings,
Queens, Jacks, or even Tens – once I had a pair of Nines (I lost). I had a
couple pairs in the twos to sixes range, and once even got an Ace – Nine
suited, but in five hours, those were my best hands and I had no chance.
I actually thought about not playing again until this
tournament theorizing that I was due for a stretch of phenomenal cards and I
wanted to save that stretch for the Main Event… but at the last minute I went
to the Horseshoe for a tune-up. I did get my stretch of good cards in the first
2 hours – I couldn’t miss. A-K’s, A-Q’s, and I think every pocket pair turned
into trips… I doubled up quickly through some good hands, but then got chip
drunk and gave it all back when the cards ran cold. I ended up making a great
move with A-Q when I was getting short stacked, but some donkey called me with
K-J suited and caught a king on the river right after the guy next to me said “You’ve
got this” when turn ruled out his flush and didn’t give either of us a pair. C’est
la vie…
That was a couple weeks ago and just about brings us up to
today. Yesterday I hit the racetrack in the heat to bet on the ponies… and
lost. Then we went to the casino, where evidently you have to wait in line for
a chance to play $50 minimum hands of blackjack. Stupid Rivers. Yep, lost there too.
So, I’m not exactly riding a winning streak, and I’m a
little rusty, but I couldn’t be more excited to be heading back out for this.
10 days… no responsibilities… poker… Vegas…
I start play on Monday and should have more updates then,
but might check out Rio today or tomorrow, so I’ll just keep the updates coming
as they happen.
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