My first week of WSOP events ended up being fairly eventful. The first event I played was a $1k and I grinded it out the entire day. My first table had my old roommate from Gainesville at it, which is about as random as it gets. He texted me beforehand to not even acknowledge his existence at the table so he could protect his crazy image. I thought it was funny and I obliged. My peak for the tournament was $10k and I lasted until the last level of the day, 400/800 but unlike last year I was running fairly well in all ins and made a dinner break in my first event which I felt was a good omen for the entire series.
The next tournament was the first $1500 of the year and after the first break I had $14k at 50/100 from my $4500 starting stack. I got Aces all in on the flop of 1084ss against a guy’s AJo no spade. Needless to say, he was dead on the turn. The action went as follows: he overbet pot, I 3bet about 2.5x and he jammed for a little more. It was a pretty nice gift. By 100/200 I had $20k after winning some nice flips. Then I got moved to a pretty tough table for a $1500. Yes, there were soft spots but they weren’t that soft. Combine that with playing 10-handed and it wasn’t an enjoyable table. I ran trip kings into a full house, lost some other small pots, and found myself down to $8k on dinner break. Once I got back from dinner break our table broke within 15 minutes and I loved that. Sometimes, the worst thing that can happen to you in a tournament is a table change. New faces, no reads, and the cards can just turn on you sometimes. But conversely, the opposite can happen so it’s a love/hate relationship. Anyways, I grinded for a little bit at my new, easier table and then got it all in A10o vs KQss and the flop was 237ss. Somehow he bricked and I was up to 15k. Then our table broke again a couple minutes after I dubbed. The next table I was pretty carddead and raise/folded once. A couple orbits later I found myself at $9k and shoved KJss at 400/800 utg 8-handed and got snapped off by the guy next to me with KQo. Was a bit surprised with his call but that’s the way it goes. The dealer flipped over the flop and the door card was the Qh. So I’m like uh oh, I gotta start calling for cards. He moves the other two cards out from under the door card and I see they are spades so I start calling for more spades. As soon as I do it dawns on me that they are the 10 and 9 of spades and I basically flopped the immortal nuts. Nut straight with a straight flush redraw. It was a good chuckle afterwards. Everyone was like, this guy (me), yea he’s a realll professional. It was all in good fun. Even the guy who got 3 outed wasn’t in too bad of spirits. Shortly after my table broke yet again. This time I got moved to a decent table with some good players but a lot of soft spots. Within the first orbit I picked up Queens and shoved in 18k, got called by Nines and swiftly doubled up. At the tail end of 400/800 I played a really sick hand. I raised Q9dd to 2300. Mark Seif flatted on the button and the big blind who seemed really spewy flatted as well. The flop came K3K one diamond. The big blind checked and I bet 3200 into about 7500. A pretty small bet but for that board I can expect to take down the pot a fair amount. Mark quickly folded but the big blind instantly check-raised to 12k. Now, earlier that day I felt like my thinking was right but I wasn’t going with gut instinct. This time, I just decided he didn’t have it and that I was going to go with my read. I decided to call the bet because he had to think I had a king if I called here with only 20k behind as well. The turn brought the Q. He thought for a bit, checked and I did the same. It was funny though because while I had a plan to shove the turn or check and shove the river, my plan immediately changed once I hit my queen. The river brought a brick 2. He checked again and I checked. He flipped over A4o high and I scooped the sizeable pot. I maybe should’ve value shoved the river but I thought maybe he could have a better queen every so often and would’ve reraised JJ, 1010, and 99 preflop. By the end of the day I had $64k and was pretty satisfied with my play.
Day 2 I started with Dwyte Pilgrim on my left with mountains of chips. I think 202k to be exact at 600/1200. I had to be tight with him to my left and tons of chips. After a while I got it in with AKo vs 99 and rivered the Ace to get up to 100k. Then I won a nice pot against Dwyte Pilgrim by value raising top pair on the river and it was good. I was up to 170k at 1k/2k. But unfortunately that was my peak. Im not really sure how I lost a lot of my chips but a couple raise/folds here, one ill-fated 3bet and I found myself at 100k. With 51 left I decided to ship 44 after someone limped from 3rd position at 3k 6k. He tank-called with 1010 and I was out of the tournament. I cashed for $8500 which was a solid start to the WSOP.
The next two tourneys I was out before the dinner breaks. One I was out in 40 minutes wit Q8ss on the 882 board against deuces. The other I built to $20k rather quickly and then played a massive pot against a super fish with QJo vs his K5dd on the Q23Jddd board. It really sucked but I knew that he was incapable of folding a lot of hands so I had to get it in in that spot.
Well, I hope you guys liked a very poker-oriented blog this time. Oh, and if you want to follow my WSOP progress, I’m Roothlus on Twitter. Peace.
