DAY THREE - 5/25
Listen, here's the thing. Poker is an easy game. You just run really good and Wynn.
When I was in the process of planning this trip, I deliberately targeted deep/slow events with a modest price point. This Wynn tournament certainly fits the bill. It's a slow event. The dinner break comes after level 9, after six hours of play. It's easy to think you're close to the bubble at this stage of the event, but you're not. That will take another 4-5 hours of play. Overall, when you factor in break time, you're looking at a 12-13 hour shift to bag this thing. You'll be there in the early afternoon when the Beach Club crowd is traipsing around in their bikinis, and you'll be there after midnight when the nightclub crowd is packing the halls in their priciest outfits. It's a long, long day. Surviving this gauntlet requires some skill, patience, and discipline; but mostly a whole lot of rungood.
We've all heard the saying, "Luck, be a lady." I hit numerous big hands today and smashed boards with a variety of holdings, but above all it was the ladies that were lucky for me. Several of my huge spots involved QQ. I'll give you a brief rundown:
HAND #1
At the 200/300 blind level, I open QhQd to 800. 3 callers. Flop comes 8s7s6c. Not the worst flop for our hand, but full of dangerous possibilities. We could be up against sets or any number of draws. No slow-playing here. I lead for 2k. The player two seats behind me raises to 6k. It folds back around. I don't love being raised here on such a scary board, but folding a strong overpair here to a single raise seems way too nitty. Raising seems too spewy. We're strictly in the call-and-reevaluate business. Luckily the turn solves most of our problems by delivering the beautiful Qc, giving us top set. I check to the raiser, who blasts again. With top set on a draw-heavy board, it's time to channel our inner Bob Marley. "All right, we're jamming." Opponent snap-calls and tables a very sneaky KK. That's not one of the hands I put him on, given the lack of a pre-flop 3-bet. I knew I might be in trouble on that flop, but had no idea just how fortunate the turn was. A pure 2-outer. The river bricks out and the trapper has officially been trapped. His misfortune is our gain. We vault up over 53k from 30k starting. A solid start to the day.
HAND #2
After getting up as high as 70k, some slow orbits have knocked me back down to 50k when the following spot comes up (at what I believe was 1k/2k blind level). I open QhQd from early position and pick up two callers, MP and BTN. The board comes QsTs9c. You're never angry to hit top set, but this isn't what we'd call a safe flop either. KJ has already made a straight. Flush draws are out there. Any Jx is open-ended. In short, we have a monster, but there are a lot of turn cards that we don't want to see. That seems to dictate a chunky sizing, so I make it almost full pot. MP (who covers us) rips. BTN folds. This is slightly scary, but we can't assume he has KJ and KJ only here. Many combo draws can take this line, as could JJ, TT, and 99. At these stack depths with top set, we're simply never folding. I slide in the call and see the gross news. Sure enough, he flopped the joint with KJo. We're in rough shape, but can pull back ahead if the board pairs. Turn is a brick. I'm ready to pack my bags, another long night at the Wynn destined to end in failure. Then the unthinkable happens: the case queen spikes the river. Is quads a good hand? I think so. We're up over 100k.
HAND #3
This is not as exciting as the other two, but it's a notable QQ spot that also demonstrates what NOT to do in tournaments. We're very close to the bubble now. 2.5k/5k blind level. Squeaky bum time. I'm new-ish to the table and haven't been playing crazy or opening too wide. I haven't shown any bluffs or given any indication that I'm getting out of line. I pick up QQ yet again in early position. I open 2x to 10k. Player to my immediate left rips for about 50k. It folds back around to me, and I of course call. He tables a mystifying K8o, a dusty holding to be 3-bet jamming a stack that has almost zero fold equity. Although I've run great in this tournament, I haven't had anyone just give away their chips until now. Sometimes pressure and frustration get to people in these tense moments, leading to baffling punts. You never want to be ripping K8o there. It's just too weak of a hand, and you're up against a presumably strong EP opening range from a random. However, there's still a sweat. He could still hit the K or otherwise suck out. Luckily for me, there's no gore this time. The board runs out clean. After that donation, we're in great shape to bag chips, which is ultimately what happens.
These aren't the only notable hands I played. I had one or two cool bluffs early in the day. I won a huge pot towards the end of the night with AK in a spot that would've been very tricky to navigate if I hadn't spiked the ace immediately. An hour or two later, I opened Ad3d in EP, got called two ways, flopped a dream 833, and was able to extract a lot of chips by trapping an aggressive opponent who had previously been punking me.
You can't play for 12 hours and not have some big hands and some big decisions, but I'm not going to list every notable spot. I've given enough of the broad strokes. The CliffsNotes is that I played pretty well, but also ran amazingly well, steadily making enough good hands to keep accumulating. Some of that gruesome Wynn runbad from years past finally came back to me in reverse, just as I'd hoped it might. Now we go into day 2 with a playable stack and a world of possibilities.
Looking ahead, whether I min-cash or make the final table, this was an important result for me. It guarantees that I'll be back in a net poker profit for the trip. It also creates new possibilities for the next few days. As previously stated, I have been eyeballing the Venetian $1100 MSPT, which is running day ones from Saturday-Monday. To some extent, my early Wynn events were meant to function as satellites for the MSPT. Now that I've locked up a cash at Wynn, I can fire a bullet at Venetian without having to worry about the budget for this trip spiraling out of control.
That's the working plan now. Play out day two at the Wynn. Whether I bust early or late, take the rest of the day for pure R&R (I'm still running bad on sleep). Then come back on Monday and fire flight 1C of the Venetian, another quality event that offers the possibility of the mega-bink.
It was a strange feeling last night, walking out of the Wynn with a positive result in the bag. I could maybe get used to it.
That's all I've got before day two starts. Payouts for this thing are going to be insanely flat, so now that we're in the money, it's all about running DEEP.