|  Vegas November 2007 | | Day One (Thursday) | | As I begin typing it's now 26 hours since I last slept. Typical start to Vegas.
| | The flight was uneventful, no turbulence and clear skies. Got to the hotel around 10PM, checked in and headed over to Caesars for the 11pm, $120 buy-in tournament. Good format, half-hour rounds and good blind structure. My table was fairly straightforward but I didn't get a lot of playable hands and I got little action when I did get them so I hovered between about 3500 chips and 4500 chips after starting with about 4000.
| | We did have one guy at the table that was constantly making large overbets and then showing his garbage hands. He was building up a stack, but eventually got caught (unfortunately not by me). His plan was now all-in or fold. So I get A-Q, one of my few playable hands, and I raise out for 400 (blinds 50/100). Knucklehead goes all in over the top, it's 1400 for me to call a wild player in about a 2200-2600 pot (don't remember how many limpers). I have to call with those odds against a guy who is pushing with almost any two cards...of course he has pocket 10s and they hold up. That hurt me, later with pocket 10s I make it 500 to go with only another 1500 behind it. Three very reluctant callers. Flop comes A-rag-rag. So over 2000 in the pot and I'm not going to have enough chips to play so I push and try and represent the A. Everyone buys my ploy, but a different knucklehead decided to call even though he was convinced he was beat and turned over A-3, begging the dealer for a 3 before I turn over the pocket 10s...
| | So that was it for me, Matt by this time though was chip leader at another table. I headed over to TI and Planet Hollywood to check out the 2am tourneys thinking it's 1:30. I was disappointed to find there was nobody getting ready for a tournament at either place so I decided to head back to see how Matt was doing thinking 2am tourneys weren't going to happen. Then, halfway back to Caesars I look at my phone...DUH, never set my watch back. Even with all the walking I've done it's not even 1am yet. So now I have time to kill, check on Matt (still has a very good size stack), then I head back to PH.
| | Same story through the early part of this tourney. Had a long stretch of not so much as a single face card. But I limp along and I manage to have 3800 chips when the blinds get to 300/600. I'm going to have to push at some point, and here I go again. Three limpers in the pot and I'm in the big blind, I decide to push with 8-7 off and hope I can steal the pot best case or get down to a heads up for a big pot with at least a 40% chance of winning. But I get TWO callers. Flop comes 5-7-Q. First caller makes big bet, second player folds, first player turns up A-J (bet the other guy out in a takeout with nothing). My 7's hold up and I more than triple up, I go from short stack to big stack at my table.
| | A few hands later, I'm up to about 17,000 in chips (above average stack) and a short stack goes all in for 2600. I call with big slick and another short stack with exactly 2600 as well also calls. First in turns over pocket 10's, other all-in turns over aces. I've got easily the worst hand. But Q-J on the flop and the 10 on the river to give me a straight and a two-person takeout.
| | Alas I don't think I won more than 2-3 pots after that and I ended up busting out 8th with 6 places paying. Matt called me about 5 minutes before I busted out to tell me that he just took 4th (6 also paid) in his tournament which had started three hours earlier than the one I was about to bust out of.
| | So I met Matt back at the hotel for a little craps, Matt played a little blackjack and here I am about ready to call it a night....er morning, since I see the sun is now up...
| | Plan for day 2 is probably sleep 'til "lunch-ish" then to get into the Omaha High tourney at Binions at 5pm. Other than that, no specific plans. | | Post a comment |
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