Tough break with the JJ > AA there.

I’m not sure about the AJs blind vs blind. If you 3bet, I think you’re priced in to call vs a ship…. But it might be a little light against what’s presumably a strong range.

BTN vs SB I don't think it's terrible given they started around 30 bb. As long as 'DogFace' isn't a 70 year old OMC that looks as confused as Joe Biden (unlikely), then I assume 'ToughPlayer' might find some jams here with worse (A4s/A5s? KQs?) and/or enough flips.

I would have made it way more than 5000 over a 2000 open for what it's worth, but I'll admit I am not really used to tournament sizings and generally go a bit bigger than what I have seen others do.

I've had a few borderline blind vs. btn spots with AJ over the years.

#1 - 2019 Colossus, nearing the bubble. I open AJo from the BTN. Euro in the SB 3-bets. I opt to 4-bet jam for about 25 BB. He tank-calls AQ and wins.

#2 - Final 12 @ Venetian $600 in 2023. I open AJ from the BTN. Strong reg in SB rips for >20BB. I tank-fold.

#3 - Calling it off yesterday with AJs vs. the BTN 4-bet.

All the spots felt borderline and it's possible that I made the wrong decision in every single case. AJ is right on the cusp where you feel like you have a good hand, but you're also in a world of trouble against the elite hands. That makes it hard to play against strong action. I lean towards the call off last night being an objective mistake, but I had the suited AJ and there was a decent chunk of dead money in the pot. I understand why I called, but probably just needed to save the chips and lay it down. I would've had plenty of chips to keep fighting if I had folded. What spot #1 and spot #3 have in common is assuming that your opponent could be wide because of the blind vs. button dynamic, when maybe the ranges here for 3-bets and 4-bets are tighter than we might expect. A good rule of thumb is that if you don't know that a player has a tendency to get out of line, maybe don't give them credit for having bluffs that most people don't have. Often times they simply have the goods.

Don’t beat yourself up over it. You’re flipping plenty of times, and you’re moderately ahead vs Kx or worse A’s plenty of other times.

A few assorted loose ends before today's action kicks off at noon:

- I don't focus much on the food side of Vegas in my TRs, but I'll give you a quick rundown of yesterday's choices. I mentioned Urth Cafe and did eventually make it over there, except it's actually called Urth Caffe with two Fs. The extra F is how you know they're premium quality. That's Vegas for you. We don't have shops here. We have shoppes. After a moderate wait in line at Urth, I ordered the breakfast sandwich: an egg and bread monstrosity with avocado and some veggies. I was hoping it would be the best egg sandwich I've ever had, maybe even worthy of a third F. Ultimately, it was solid, but not up to an Urth Cafffe standard.

- Dinner last night was a veggie slice at Mulberry Street Pizza in Resorts World. I've never been super impressed with the pizza options I've tried in Vegas, but this slice actually hit the spot and was the perfect blend of spicy, greasy, and fresh. Maybe I just got a good runout.

- Shortly after taking the bad beat at the tables, I took a second bad beat on the basketball court. The Timberwolves dumped another winnable home game to the Mavs, putting themselves in a likely insurmountable 0-2 hole for the series. I was not quite counting my winnings yet when they came back to eliminate Denver, but that $760 would've been a nice boost to the summer trip budget. Now it's looking like we need a 4-outer on the river to survive. If only Dallas played their home games at the Wynn.

- I don't know which genius designed the showers at Harrah's, but having open glass frames with no sliding door that you can actually close means half the bathroom is exposed to the elements, inviting water to splash anywhere and everywhere nearby. My bathroom floor has been a swamp and I am the Swamp Thing. I've already run through my full towel allotment trying to clean up the messes. A cynical theory would be that they make their showers intentionally uncomfortable to minimize your time (aka water use). Alternatively, maybe it's just style-over-function gone bad.

- Sleep remains elusive. I'm a coffee in the morning guy. When I'm making a decent run in a tourney, I'll typically have a second coffee around 5 PM to keep me at max alert through the rest of the session. The second coffee probably affected my sleep last night, though I still cobbled together 6-7 hours.

- I didn't spend too much time talking about my overall experience in the Wynn event yesterday. Given that it's early in the summer schedule, ahead of most of the WSOP stuff, I expected a somewhat tough field with a lower concentration of pure dead money. My starting table certainly conformed to that expectation. Most people were pretty good. Nobody was out there just giving it away. If you want to test yourself and improve your game, these multi-days at Wynn are a good option.

- The Wynn event is up over 700 entries after two days and will surely exceed 1000 players when all is said and done, perhaps landing closer to 1200. There were lots of strong players about yesterday and lots of them didn't bag, so we're likely looking at tough sledding again today. The goal is obviously to bag so that we can play day two tomorrow. If I brick out again, I'll have to decide whether to play Wynn $500 single-day Sunday or perhaps explore the Venetian multi-day $1100, a deep/slow event that should be extremely tough. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now the plan is to play goot in this $600, get lucky, and bag piles tonight.

See you again with another bad beat story in 10 hours.

Dogface: "...this slice actually hit the spot and was the perfect blend of spicy, greasy, and fresh."

Me: That is exactly my wheelhouse of what I want in a piece of pizza. Especially the greasy part. I am not a healthy eater.

Dogface: "See you again with another bad beat story in 10 hours."

Me: I have to disagree. I am feeling some major rungood on the horizon for you.

Good luck today!