A Down and Up Week

I had the losing Sunday as I reported in the last post. I then got my ass handed to me Monday and Tuesday before finally letting out an ol desk punch on Wednesday which scared the crap outta my gf in the other room.

I've noticed there's a pattern I go through. As I've gotten older, more mature, and more experienced in being a professional, it's taken longer and longer for one cycle of the pattern to complete. The first phase of the cycle is the good times. I'm playing well / running well, or at least breaking even or losing but feeling good about my game and relaxed, and I'm happy with how poker is going. Eventually, I hit a downswing and enter phase 2. Sometimes it's a few big losing days in a row. Sometimes it's a monthlong burn of breakeven or slightly losing days. Sometimes I hit the downswing and manage it well to transition right back into phase 1 of the cycle. But oftentimes the downswing leads to phase 3.

Phase 3 occurs when I start feeling awful. I'm upset about results, I'm upset about how I'm reacting to results, I'm more bothered than I usually would be about non-poker things, etc. In the past, phase 3 would last weeks, sometimes months. In the past year or so phase 3 rarely lasts more than a couple days. When I punched my desk Wednesday I realized I was in phase 3 and it was time to get out of it. On Thursday I got up and took care of a couple of non-poker things that had been bothering me. Friday I went on a run for the first time in a month. My leg didn't hurt and that was encouraging. Saturday I spent the day with my friend in NYC. Sunday I did a bunch of chores around the house and made sure I started my session at the time I had planned.

And just like that I was out of phase 3. I could've had awful results yesterday and I would've been fine because my focus had shifted from "wanting to win" to "wanting to play well and react appropriately Monday regardless of results." I ended up being in for over 4k in MTTs, re-entering a ton, yet I felt very at ease while playing, enjoying myself for the most part. The day ended in disappointment. I finished 6th and 5th in 2 tournaments that I'd been chip leading with 10 left. Financially, however, I was compensated nicely, with a $2100 score in the $100 6 max for the 6th place finish, and a $11k+ score in the $525 circuit event for 5th. I'd really like to run well at one of those FTs and get a ring someday but with my focus being on the right things it was a much easier pill to swallow.

The goal for this upcoming week will be to focus on the right things regardless of how poker is going. The way I can elongate phases 1 and 2 to hold off phase 3 for as long as possible is to better concentrate on the right things during phase 1. It's all too easy to start neglecting exercise and eating well when poker is going well. That is the recipe for feeling like crap when poker stops going well. This week's focus will involve getting to bed on time, waking up at the right time, exercising, eating well, and taking care of any other non-poker issues that might leak out into frustration while playing poker if they aren't taken care of. And this will be all the more important if I'm doing a lot of winning!

Great attitude and self awareness. Obviously extremely important for long term success.

Hey man! Really impressive to see your consistancy at poker and in your blog throughout all this years. I am starting this new habit of journaling now and hope to reach this constancy one day. Wishing you the best of luck! Cheers!

Thanks man, really appreciate you popping in with a word of encouragement once in a while. Nice to see people following along!

Thanks! I think the key is to realize that there will be times you don't feel like writing and that's okay. Just make sure not to completely give up on it when you go through those stretches.

One Week til I'm Outta Here!

Not the best week, not the worst. I had a good Tuesday with a HU chop for ICM w CL in the Party 535 for 7.4k, a 5th in the Party 109 for 1.8k, a 5th in the Stars 100 for 600 and a mincash in the Party 215 series event. Only played 1 other tourney that day. Curious what you guys think...on my sheet it looks like I played 5 MTTs, but I fired a total of 13 bullets in those 5. Is that 13 MTTs or just 5? Like when I bust the Party 109 I could play another tourney but I just choose to play the same one again because it's the best one available.

Couldn't sleep that night and ended up staying up all the way through then grinding Wednesday trying to make it to nighttime. I eventually fell asleep at 9pm and woke up at noon the next day lol. Played very little poker until Sunday where I had a disappointing day, firing a lot of bullets and only cashing 2 events. Stars had a 300 100k with overlay that I fired 6 times and mincashed. I was down to just the Party 215 but was 1/12 with a top 3 finish representing a daysaver. Lost a couple small pots then A9<K8 to double a guy, then 99<AQ to double him again (cash reg funny enough), and eventually busted 8th. That's how tournaments go sometimes!

I've booked my flight for Halloween to head out to Vegas. I can't imagine I'll ever make a bigger jump in terms of "being ready" to play the main since I have from my last one. The other 2 times I've played I remember always thinking "wish I had some idea of how to play deeper stacked," but then I'd get there and remember that some of these people didn't know if a flush or a straight was better.

Aside from the fact that this will most likely be the only time there's 2 years in between main events, I don't see myself making as big of a jump as I have between mains ever again. I still think back to the day I fell on my run last year as the day that everything started to turn in the right direction for me. I think it was in April of 2020. My work ethic shot straight up from that point on when I decided to stop feeling bad for myself and to start doing everything in my power to focus on what I could control. I went on a nice heater in the summer and then began playing cash in the fall.

I know I have a lot of work to do when it comes to cash. My game is a bit "vanilla" in all honesty. I don't incorporate overbets very often, I just use a catch-all half pot sizing a lot of the time, and I probably don't put other regs in terribly tricky spots as often as I could be. But I think I do the most important things pretty well. I work hard at finding bluffs in spots where it's hard to have them. I try to make sure my fundamentals are as good as they can be, c-betting the right %, opening my ranges properly, adjusting to the fish in the game the right way, not chasing losses, etc. Compared to the other regs, who knows where I'm at skillwise. But compared to other poker players in general, I'm very good at cash and I'm proud of that.

Now add in the fact that I'm also quite good at tournaments. I began focusing primarily on cash about a year ago. I'd play tournaments on Sundays, sometimes on Tuesdays, and May and September were the 2 months I grinded tournaments for competitions. I didn't play many bracelet events. I'm ranked 281 in the world on P5s for MTTs nonetheless! My 5 biggest scores of the year are 22k, 15k, 11k, 11k, 11k. Nothing else 5 figures. These were 4th, 7th, 2nd, 5th, and 2nd place finishes respectively. Some more rungood could've left me with some huge results. I've focused primarily on cash (I've played 172k cash hands this year!) And I'm still having way the best year of my life as far as profit in MTTs goes!

The point of this bragging rant is to say that I am built for the main event. I now have the confidence to play deeper stacked. If I think a hand just has to be bluffed I'm going to run it with confidence and stack off my 150bbs or w/e on day 1 and live with the result. If I make day 6 and have a hand that just has to be a river call even though it doesn't feel great, I'll make the call. I imagine I'll be way more comfortable playing a short stack than most cash guys are. I'm excited to play the main!

Good luck! Don’t forget to have fun and take some pictures for us who are stuck at home

Hey Dan just caught up with the blog from the past month or so. Seems like you're in the zone and playing well. It's great to see you hitting those volume goals, that's pretty huge.

Just got back from Vegas was out there for a week. Made day two in event #26, had a chance for glory but came up short. Anyway, games are amazing out there. Super excited to hear you're playing the main. Very smart decision on your part. Nice and easy, one spot at a time, I like your chances. Good luck.

Thanks, will do!

Thanks man, hope you had a good time!

Got to Las Vegas last night. The house is nice and I went on a 3 mile run this morning. It was just starting to get cold in NJ (had a few days not reach the 60s) so to get back to weather in the high 70s was a treat.

I mentioned last post that I don't think I'll ever make a bigger jump between main events in terms of being ready. I wanna amend that because while I do feel confident, I haven't played live in over 1.5 years. I could see myself being very bored, or rusty on how to deal with the randomness that live poker often involves, compared to the past. I doubt it'll be much of an issue and I plan on playing a few tourneys before the main, but not being used to the long grind of live MTTs could be a factor for me.

Something came over me last night as my plane landed and then again today when I was sitting in the backyard after my run. I felt this wave of gratitude and appreciation at being able to call this my job. I'm having by far my best year and as money continually becomes less and less of a stressor, I find myself improving, playing better, and enjoying the grind. I often look forward to playing poker and it's exactly the job I was born to do. Last night I consciously thought about the fact that I will never take any of this for granted. The idea of playing the WSOP Main Event was beyond imagination when I was younger, and now it's more or less just a job requirement. I'll really never stop feeling appreciative that I get to play poker for a living.

First Week in Las Vegas

Played the Venetian $1100 Tuesday after relaxing and playing online Monday. Long line of alternates but eventually got in at 500bb with 40k starting so no problem. My time studying cash over the last year has helped immensely. I'm comfortable at all stack depths and it seems like you get that initial deep starting stack for longer in these live tourneys than you do online. I'm also way more comfortable exploiting fish. I ran the 40k to 120k before dipping back to around 80k at 3kbb. EP opens to 6.5k off a lot and I have AKhh in the SB. This felt close between shove and 3b/c in game. The more solver oriented guys would probably be appalled with shoving here with a hand with so much value, but I've found a lot of peace of mind with just shoving in these spots and taking the guaranteed EV as opposed to potentially losing chips and creeping back into the sub 20bb range. Looking back I think I still like a 3b to 25k a bit more where I can now shove 55k into 56k on most flops even if he peels, or go smaller/check good flops (as an exploit ofc). In game I shoved and as it turned out it didn't matter either way as he snapped then waited for me to turn my hand over before turning over his AA. Flop comes KQJhh lol. Board bricks out and it's on to Wednesday.

I woke up Wednesday feeling exhausted and once again elected to play online over playing live. I'm enjoying playing cash here where I know everyone's on the same field of not having a HUD (well hopefully anyway). I've never played WSOP.com cash in NJ because it's always felt strange playing on 2 sites with huds and 1 without but that might change going forward. If you've been playing any of the WSOP 2/5 in the past week you might've ran into me under my WSOP NV screenname . The games probably are a bit tougher but there's something nice about closing your eyes and clicking call on river with a bluff catcher and actually winning the pot sometimes. (Long HH incoming):



Thursday I went to see Eternals with a few guys and had a great time relaxing before playing the Main Event on Friday (1b). After waiting in a long line I got in an hour through level 1 with 60k at 100/200. Very smooth first level had me at 66.8k going to 200/300. Then the table shifted as the 1 seat got moved and refilled and the 9 seat was eliminated by the new 1 seat. Faraz Jaka then took the 9 seat and my table was easily the toughest I've had in a Main Event before, albeit this is only my 3rd one. Seat 1 young Aussie reg, seat 2 young English reg, seat 3 older guy who played tightish and didn't give anything away, seat 4 young Spanish reg, seat 5 me, seat 6 young American guy who won some WPT but was clearly kinda nervous cuz it was his first Main lol, seat 7 probably only fish who might've punted but unfortunately when he was ready to blast he won a decent sized pot off me and settled back in, seat 8 older guy probably fish but didn't do anything all that bad, seat 9 Faraz. Ended up with 58k after 200/300 and 46.7k on dinner. Back to 400bb where I continued losing pots and found myself in the same position I did in 2019 with 1 25k chip and change.

English guy opens to 1300 at 500bb in MP, HJ older guy calls, I squeeze AJo to 5200, MP calls HJ folds. J43r, 13k in the pot with 20k back, hooray time to bet flop shove turn. He x/c's 4k. When I play live and action is on my opponent I look at their hands usually. I just want them to know I'm aware of what they're doing but I'm also not really in the business of staring daggers at them. So as turn is peeling I'm looking over at him and see it's a paint card out of the corner of my eye. Uh oh. He checks and I check back the K turn. River comes and I once again see paint. If it's a queen I'm probably losing this pot and down to 16k, if it's a king I may have a decision, and if it's a jack verry nice (borat voice). He thinks for a while then puts me all in. I look at river and see it is a jack, call, and beat KQ.

The hand before break I defend A8hh, flop a flush, and get 7200 of value on river to get back over starting for the first time in quite a while with 65k going to 300/600. I lose some small ones throughout the level and eventually bag 51.6k. English kid was insanely active all day and took a lot of my opens. Faraz was in there a ton so my opens were often met with resistance. I was probably heads up against one of the weaker players like 3 times all day. I was also relatively card dead, getting TT+ once in 9 hours, but I did have some playable hands that weren't premiums so I'm not complaining, just reminding myself that I would've 3b English guy to death if I'd had much to work with. Instead it was mostly 3b'ing AJo and KQs and trying to navigate post against a sticky opponent. Day 2 is tomorrow and I'm excited! I've busted in level 7 or 8 both times I've played this tournament so that wouldn't be anything new, but hopefully I get some traction this year. I think this year I'll also be much more ready and content to grind like 20k at 1kbb if something goes bad early on than I would've been in the past. This is probably the tournament where it's most important to understand that even though that guy across the table from you has 15x as many chips, there's no rush to chip up and your tourney life is valuable, even if you're sitting there with 1 green chip.

Yesterday I played the Wynn $1100 200k 1 day and it was very soft. I had 42k from 25k at 1200bb when this hand came up. I open KK utg to 2500, utg1 flats off 25k. Old guy who's been very tight and passive snap shoves 25k in mp. Next seat snap shoves 40k. Next seat waits about 10 seconds then shoves 80k. Folds back to me. Do we EVER fold KK pre??? Only 35bb but surely one of these guys has AA right? Let me know what you think (if you've made it this far in the post lol).

I'm gonna hop in the shower then go play another one of these Wynn $1100s. The value seems amazing the tourney moves along quickly (that hand was at 4pm in a tourney that started at noon...I know someone mincashed it at 9:30 so I don't expect it to go all night or anything and if it does at least there's 100k up top). I'm having a great time out here so far!

If it is the reg I am thinking of (BS) who is active and 4bets like crazy, then river would be a call lol. Definitely tough nontheless, some regulars will not have any bluffs by this river.

Nice write up. Always fun get some HH from the main. Last hand is absolutely ridiculous lol. I'd be shocked if someone doesn't have AA. Never ran a mtt solve so not sure what the optimal play is. I would think a call is still +ev chip wise. Guess it depends on how important cashing means as opposed to gambling and going for the Haymaker knockout to quadruple up.

Hmm not sure who BS is. Yeah agree some aren't bluffing, felt good that this one would have some at least!

First guy had AKs, 2nd guy had 88 (already feel good about calling it off), and 3rd guy had AA. Think 3rd guy will stick QQ and AK in there too so I called KK l8r me.

Quietly in the hunt at 206/291 let's ****ing gooooo

What a sickening bust out hand

Ran amazing to get there too of course so can't be too mad.

Cliffs: Finished 79th in the Main Event for $81,000. Most fun I've ever had playing poker.

Will probably make a very long post at some point in the upcoming week.

Tomorrow I plan on playing WSOP $1500 freezeout so if I'm out of that early the update may come tomorrow. Otherwise it'll be later.

Yeah, I did see some other hh’s that were incredibly lucky too. I was rooting hard for you, congrats on a great run - looking forward to the write-up if and when you do one!

Wow grats! Double digit Main Event finish is an impressive feat

Solid, nice work!

Great run! Although, I'm not too surprised after having followed your more recent updates in the thread. I was rooting for you from afar. Looking forward to the recap.

[B]WSOP Main Event[, Part One/B]

Day 1

I chose to play day 1B for a few reasons. One, I do not want to play day 2B and have to play again the next day for day 3 so that rules out days 1C, 1E, and 1F. Two, I wasn't around for 1A. Three, that only leaves 1B or 1D. 1D is Sunday so I'd miss online. It also is a zoo at the Rio that day so I opt for 1B. I arrive at 11AM but have to wait online for about an hour and eventually get seated at noon, halfway through level 1. 60K starting stack, 100/200/200. I think I drew one of the tougher tables in the room. Seat 1, Australian pro Sean Ragozzini. He's currently 13/36 in the tournament. He was very friendly throughout the day and talked about being in for 50k each summer and hoping that eventually the bink comes that makes it all worth it. I'll be rooting for him the rest of the way. Seat 2, English pro. Seat 3, older tight rec. Seat 4, Spanish pro. Me in seat 5. Seat 6, American who won a WPT 2 years ago. I think he was the 6th best player at our table. Seats 7 and 8 both recs, but only 1 had flashes of wanting to give it away, and I promptly lost a sizeable pot to him that settled him back down. And seat 9, a very willing to go for it Faraz Jaka.

I was down to 25k when English pro opens to 1300 at 600bb in LJ, last level of the day. Rec calls HJ, I squeeze AJo btn to 5200, only Englishman calls. J43r I bet 4k into 13.2k ready to shove turn, he calls. Turn K, check check. I could still shove here but this lad was quite aggressive and I could see him turning AQ or small pairs or maybe even 76s,65s into a bluff on river. River J, he shoves for my 16k into 21k, I call and beat KQ.

Stacks after each level (the bb antes the bb amount every level in the main event):

Starting Stack: 60,000
Level 1 (100/200): 66,800
Level 2 (200/300): 58,000
Level 3 (200/400): 46,700
Level 4 (300/500): 65,000
Level 5 (300/600): 51,600



Day 2

My table draw might somehow be worse than day 1. I'm in the 1 seat. Jared Jaffee, $5.3m in live earnings, seat 2. Seat 3 rec. Seat 4, Gabor Szabo, took 2nd to Jason Koon in the WSOP 25k heads up this year. Seat 5 is a rec but I thought he held his own and had a good table presence. Seat 6, Alexander Theologis, currently ranked #4 worldwide on PocketFives. He's been grinding the WSOP the whole series and is clearly a crusher. Seat 7, David Flood, Canadian pro who would go on to finish 143rd. Seat 8, fish who promptly busted and was replaced by a young Dutch pro. Seat 9, Brian Hu, an American I hadn't heard of but who played very well and would go on to finish 564th.

Throughout the day we busted the 3 and 8 seats 3 times each, and I finally busted the 5 seat in the last level. Seven eliminations and the 6 best players at the table remained at the end of the day. There was an absurd amount of preflop 3 bets and 4 bets at this table and there were really no opportunities for me to get fish HU. At one point I 3b back to back hands and got cold 4b back to back hands. It was quite the grind but I had 110k going to 1k/2k, the last level of the day.

Theologis opens the HJ to 4500 and I defend J6ss. Flop T65dds he bets 9k into 12k I call. Turn J he bets 31k into 30k I have 95k back. I'm really on the fence here about whether to shove or call. A big part of me wants to shove for two reasons. One, this is the main event and being alive is very valuable. I think shoving is the lower variance route because it sometimes elicits folds and it sometimes allows me to avoid difficult river decisions where I might make an incorrect fold and be left with 65k. However, I'm playing against one of the best players in the world so I clearly want to be leaning on theory here and making sure I'm not exploitable. If I shove this hand, what hands do I call turn and still call river with? Unblocking the J is probably best in this spot for a shove since we want him to have the AJ KJ QJ that can call off against a range that includes combo draws. So the 66,55,T6s,T5s, and 65 combos that I didn't xr flop with might play better as shoves here, while the JT,J6s,J5s might want to call so that we have easy river calls vs shove. I supposed we'd also have to call down Tx that unblocks bluffs. Maybe I'll run this hand when I get home. I think call is probably best here but I didn't have the balls to do it in game. I'm also used to these polar turn sizings being heavily weighted toward nutted hands in the games I play, so I wanted full value from QQ+ before he got a bad river that'd make him want to check back. This logic is flawed though because being a good player he'd still be all in with QQ+ on a vast majority of rivers for value. I go all in and he tanks for quite some time before calling J9. The river is a brick and I double to 220k. The next hand the 5 seat opens off 50K, I 3b JJ in the SB, he shoves and I beat AJs to jump to 275k. I win another good pot right before the end of the day to bag a lot.

Start of Day 2: 51,600
Level 6 (400/800): 37,700
Level 7 (500/1000): 57,900
Level 8 (600/1200): 69,800
Level 9 (800/1600): 109,900
Level 10 (1000/2000): 312,900



Day 3

Another day, another bad table. Seat 1, Marty Mathis, $1.7m in live earnings including an $873k win in a Party Poker 10k 2 years ago. Me in seat 2. Seat 3, David Flood again, the Canadian pro from my day 2 table. Nice random draw. Seat 4, rec. Seat 5, rec who got 21st in the main in 2007. Seat 6, some Nebraska guy with $500k in earnings. Seat 7, Anton Wigg, long time Swedish crusher with $3m in live earnings. He has 500k to start the day. Seat 8, Carlos Guerrero, he finished 110th last time this event was run in 2019. Seat 9, rec.

Definitely my softest table of the tournament so far despite having several pros and a crazy Swede with a huge stack. Anton opens UTG to 5200 at 2400bb, I call KJss in HJ, BB defends. J54r flop Anton bets 6k into 20k I call. Turn 8d brings bdfd, Anton bets 22.5k into 32k I call. River 2d completes backdoor flush Anton bets 48k into 79k. I tanked for quite a while here. Completed board is J54r8d2d. We know he's capable but I don't think he's gonna just blast off every time he doesn't have a made hand. I also kinda felt like he'd bet bigger if he was bluffing and use this size for value but I didn't want to level myself with these kinds of assumptions. I assume he has AJ+ for value here. So he has maybe 8 combos of flushes? 3 x 76s, 1 x JJ (if he cb flop with that), 3 x 88 (if he cb that), 3 x 55, 3 x 44, maybe give him like 1 combo of 22 that wanted to bet twice? idk. 6 x AA, 3 x KK, 6 x QQ, 8 x AJ, for a total of 45 value combos if all of these assumptions are correct. We're getting something like 13:5 on a call here, so we need to think of about 18 bluffs he can have to make this profitable. I assume he has 3 QTs almost always. Let's also give him 3 x Q9s. Is he cb'ing T9s? How often is he going for it with KQ? AQ? AK? If we think we can get this number of combos up to 18 then we should call. If he only used AK,AQ,KQ when he has the high card diamond, then there'd be 3 combos each of those for 9 total. Add that to the 6 combos of QT and Q9 and we're already up to 15. Add some random stuff we might not think of like A3s A2s and I think this call gets more and more reasonable. There's also the fact that he might sometimes have KJ for value that we chop with, and possibly QJ that we beat? Those seem kinda unlikely but possible at least. I asked some very good players about the hand on break and they seemed pretty up in the air about it too, citing things like how he views me as being important in this spot since it's so close in a vaccum. In the end I called and lost to 88.

Later in the level UTG opens to 5200, Anton 3b's to 17,500 from UTG1. Flood makes it 40k on the btn off 240k. UTG folds, Anton takes his time before announcing all in for Flood's 100bb effective. Flood hates it and tanks before folding. Anton casually flicks the 5 of spades across the table and collects the pot. If we weren't sure if he was capable of going for it we certainly are now! Flood later said he folded QQ. During the 2nd level of the day my table broke for the first and only time the entire tournament for me and what a welcome change it was. Not only was I moved from the Pavilion to the Amazon room, I was placed at my first real juicy Main Event table. Finally a table where I could do what I wanted and get away with it! I had a blast at this table. Not only did I get to open with impunity but I made a bunch of hands and got value quite often. At one point I opened 33, BB defended, flop 532 and bb x/shoves for 100k total. I call and lose to 44 and it didn't phase me 1%, for perspective on how great it was being at this table. The only downside was the guy on my left busted and was replaced by a Spaniard who somehow had more chips than me. I quickly realized this Spaniard was not a reg but he was aggressive enough to make me have to calm down a little bit.

We got to the bubble and it took absolutely forever. There was an older French guy at my table who told me he is famous in France as an actor and singer and now he mostly just plays poker. A few times a French media guy approached him so I believe it. With 1001 players left and 1000 paying he opens to 22k from EP at 8kbb (we'd moved from 6kbb to 8kbb during h4h play). Guy on my right flats and I squeeze AKo to 88k. It gets back to the opener who sits and stares at me for what I would guess was a full 5 minutes. Tanking forever and is clearly in agony. FINALLY he folds, guy on my right folds, French guy grabs his cards back and begs me to show my hand. I tell him if he shows his I'll show mine. He turns over QQ, I show my AK, and the bubble continues. It finally bursts around 1:30am and while I'm glad I got to chip up a bit during it, I'm exhausted from the long day. We're in the money going to day 4 with 1000 players left.

Start of Day 3: 312,900
Level 11 (1200/2400): 238,500
Level 12 (1500/3000): 417,500
Level 13 (2000/4000): 547,500
Level 14 (2500/5000): 748,000
Level 15 (3000/6000): 917,000



To be continued...

WSOP Main Event (Part 2)

Day 4

My table didn't look too bad to start the day other than my direct left having 1.4m according to the WSOP report. When I sat down I was pleased to learn this was not the case and he only had 250k or so. To say the day started well would be quite the understatement. After winning some small pots we have a hand where EP opens, 2 flats, I squeeze KQo pretty big in the SB, and the BB cold shoves for about 2x my 3b. No choice but to call now, but I do have some peace of mind about the call given he tanked and seemed to be in actual agony before shoving, which seems to eliminate AA,KK,QQ,AK. We still run into AQ some but are clearly getting the price. I call and beat TT.

A few orbits later there's an open, a flat, and I once again squeeze pretty large from the SB, this time with AKs. Once again the BB cold 4b shoves and this time I have an easier call and am up against QQ for a pretty large pot. K in the window and things couldn't be going better. I get A8 in vs a shorty's JT and win. 44 in vs a shorty's AJ and win. KK in vs a shorty's TT and win. At this point I have 2.5m chips at 6k/12k and have busted the guy on my left 3 different times in 2 levels. The 1 seat who is two to my right, who I learn later's name is Alex Goulder, jokes that the next guy to sit there is going to have 1.6m so it'll be harder for me to bust him. Instead, Norbert Koh sits down with something like 2.8m. At one point a guy on a nearby table asked me if I had the chip lead after seeing my stack. "No," I replied, "given I'm covered by this guy." When the button gets to the seat on my right I ask Koh, "Okay, if it folds to me I'll close my eyes and go all in, and you call without looking, and one of us will have 5 million. Deal?" He responds, "I did not fly 28 hours to do such a thing," which got me laughing pretty hard.

Later at 12kbb Alex opens the button to 26k off 1.1m, I 3b to 105k in the BB with AJcc, he calls. Flop 965cc, I check, he bets 75k into 228k, and I elect to x/r to 250k. I really seemed to lean on the aggressive action on days 3, 4, and 5 when I had a lot of chips in this tournament. I think x/c is totally fine in this spot but people do not want to bust the World Series of Poker Main Event and I wanted to capitalize on that any chance I got. I think there's a world where button peels hands like 88,77,T9s,98s,76s, and maybe even some other stuff here on the flop that then folds to a shove on turn. I would've been shoving about 720k into 720k on the turn if called here. However, the button went all in, and getting 2:1 with at least 8 outs, and potentially 12-15 outs, and maaaaaaaaaaaaybe seeing KQcc once in a while, makes this a call, so I chucked a bunch of green 25k chips and was shown QQ.

We're now flipping for a 2.2m chip pot that would see me playing 3.6m at 12kbb if I were to win it. I'd also eliminate a tough opponent and while having Koh on my left with heaps would be a bit annoying, I think I could've still gotten away with quite a bit. As it played out, the board bricked out and I was down to 1.4m. The Main Event is a crazy tournament. After starting the day with 917k at 4k/8k, I felt pretty disappointed at having 1.4m 2 levels later. I did a very good job throughout this tournament of resetting my mentality and ensuring that these illogical negative thoughts left my head quickly after they entered it.

The rest of the day continued to go a bit south. My table ended up being pretty old school with the 7/8/9 seats being filled by Ken "Teach" Aldridge, Steve Zolotow, and Andre Akkari. At one point Steve opens to 40k, Andre calls, I squeeze AJo to 150k over the 35k open, Steve takes a while and shoves 800k and gets it through. Just a ton of putting chips in and not winning the pots. However, this is the tournament where you can afford for that kind of stuff to happen so long as you can ride that yoyo of losing chips then snapping back up. I lost 150k chips or so on the last hand of the night and was glad to make it out of the day alive.

Start of Day 4: 917,000
Level 16 (4000/8000): 1,043,000
Level 17 (5000/10,000): 2,181,000
Level 18 (6000/12,000): 1,265,000
Level 19 (8000/16,000): 872,000
Level 20 (10,000/20,000): 755,000

Amazing start to the day, stack after level 17:



Day 5

292 players remain and I get the sense that if I get through this day then things will start to get very real. I start the day with 30bb and a lot of Euros at my table. I recognize the youtube guy Betondrew when I sit down, as well as Dave Stefanski, who made the final 2 tables with me when I got 11th in the Borgata Main. It appears that everyone else is foreign. The guy on my left was a friendly Aussie who quickly proved to be a bit of a rec player. He had a lot of chips and wasn't afraid to gamble though so I buckled up ready to go. Early in the day I open JJ utg at our 8 handed table to 52k at 24kbb. Drew 3b's to 141k from the HJ and it's back to me with 30bb and a decision. I think calling has merit but shoving does better. He sighs, sits back in his seat, takes out his phone, calls, turns over QQ and stands up to film. It was a pretty gutting feeling and I pushed my chair out as the flop came down without even looking at it. I hear the Aussie go "wow, right in the window" and look up to see a J high flop. Clean runout leads to me doubling to 1.5m. What a rush!

My spin up to 2.5m is a bit of a blur. I played one hand where I might've made a mistake with AA pre, which seemed to be a theme this main event. Three different times over the course of the tourney I could've flatted or used a non-all in sizing with AA and chose to shove instead. UTG is new to the table and opens to 65k at 30kbb. I 3b to 210k with AA in the HJ. He 4b's to 485k and we are about 1.8m deep. My read was that he was an American (that proved to be incorrect) and that he simply wasn't going to 4b a hand UTG that he wasn't willing to go with. In hindsight I wish I'd just flatted as he snap folded to the shove.

I ran a bvb bluff against the Aussie that was a bit nervewracking since he wasn't a big folder. I limp 65hh in the sb, he checks, AQ7r one heart, I bet 1bb 40k he calls. Turn Ah I bet 200k into 200k he calls. River 2 I bet 450k into 600k he tanks. Stares at me, back at his chips, grabs calling chips, puts them back, grabs raising chips, puts them back, stares at me, uncaps his cards, double checks them, recaps them, stares back at me, grabs calling chips, puts them back, uncaps his cards, folds. Phew.

I was sitting around 2.5m with 5 minutes left before dinner. It folds to the player to my right who is a very young looking Korean player who's had several Korean media members following him very closely the entire day. He open limps the SB at 40kbb. I have 52o in the bb and raise to 160k. My strat vs limps is to be quite polar with the hands I isolate, using the top x% of the deck along with the bottom y% to 4x. 52o is certainly in that bottom chunk so I iso, he calls, and we take the AT4cc flop. He checks and I continue for 1/3, 120k into 360k, which he calls. The turn is a K and after he checks I feel pretty committed to firing this off. I've got a gutshot to go along with a hand that cannot win at showdown and is incredibly far down in my range. This board should be quite good for my uncapped range and I think I'm just gonna have to fire this off. There's always the temptation to try to avoid these spots since it's the main event, but as you get deeper and deeper there are fewer and fewer weak players and you really need to just be playing your ranges and doing what you thinks makes money. I barrel 450k into 600k and he calls again.

The river is a 4, not a great card but I don't expect him to have much 4x at all so it's still pretty much a blank. It does however allow all Ax to now chop with my AQ and AJ which isn't great. He checks and has about 900k back with 1.5m in the pot. I think if I give up here I'd really regret it. Sure, I might get called and lose a big chunk of my stack with 52o. It'll look like an unnecessary punt and like I've just had a blowup or something deep in the main. But this is a line I'd take in cash. It's a line I'd take in other tournaments. There are tons of KQ,KJ,QT,JT, and possibly even some Ax hands that would take this line and then consider folding river. If he somehow has a 98cc type of hand that decided to call turn and I let that showdown it's a disaster. I say all in, he immediately says call, and I lose to QJ. The kid shows the most emotion he's shown all day. The media, which is basically just a fanclub for him, almost hits me in the head with one of their cameras. It was a bit overwhelming but I think I stayed quite calm as I paid him. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see I still had 800k left. I thought I was going to be decimated after that one. I fold my SB and head off to dinner with 830k.

I somehow break even over the course of the next level and take my 830k to 60kbb. I go from 830k to 3.5m in about 20 minutes. First I 3b shove KJo from the bb vs a co open and get it through. Then I shove AKs from the sb vs the same player's HJ open and get called by QQ. 4 bricks followed by the Ac on the river has me feeling like this really might be meant to be. The next hand a short stack shoves 415k (pokernews reported that it was the same player who I'd just doubled through; it wasn't), I call KQ and beat A8. Later I call AJ pre, call 2 bets post on a J high board before villain checks back river for me to win the pot at showdown. After being down to 14bb all of a sudden I've got almost 60 again. Unfortunately nothing went well the rest of the night. A 375k 3b with AK followed by a 300k cb on JJ7 and being forced to fold to a xr, defending bb and folding post, a few r/f's pre, and I was back to 20bb as the night came to an end, which would turn into 15bb when the level went up at the start of day 6.

Start of Day 5: 755,000
Level 21 (12,000/24,000): 1,515,000
Level 22 (15,000/30,000): 2,415,000
Level 23 (20,000/40,000): 830,000
Level 24 (25,000/50,000): 830,000
Level 25 (30,000/60,000): 1,200,000

Those sweet 100K chips...stack after level 22:



Day 6

96 players left and I've locked up my biggest score ever. There will be pay jumps every 9 players now so it'll be something to keep an eye on. I check my table draw to find myself sandwiched between David Coleman and Asher Coniff, two guys I've known for quite some time from the east coast. Coles and I have played many hands against each other online, both in tourneys and cash. I was on Asher's rail when he won $1m at Borgata in the WPT 15k. I think we may literally have been the only Americans at the table and were having a good time chatting. Given how short I was there wasn't too much intensity felt on my part. I still wanted to pay attention to what was going on in case I did manage to spin up my stack but I felt good. They'd spaced all the tables out which made the room feel emptier and it did indeed feel more intense in some ways. I defended bb 3 times, completely whiffed all 3, and folded to the 1bb cb on all 3. I got a few shoves through to make up for those. My table was playing extremely slowly which in some ways was nice, as I was more likely to get payjumps, but in other ways was not, as seeing more hands would prevent me from getting even shorter when the level went up. Eventually I shove A2s UTG, get it through, and as I'm pulling in the pot the floor comes over and moves me to another table.

I immediately am very pleased with this move as I see Rigby, the 32 diaper guy, along with a couple very chatty players. This is a very good move from the last table where the 6 Euros said almost zero words in total in an hour 45. I find myself with 755k and 5 minutes left in the level when floor comes over and tells us not to leave on break because we are going to be a feature table and he needs to get us set up. As he walks away I find AK in the hijack and go all in. Button isos all in and I'm very pleased to see he has AQ. I see the queen in the window since I'm in the 1 seat but after running like god for 5 whole days I somehow feel like I'm gonna win this pot anyway. Flop is Q65 and I'm completely unsurprised to see the K on the turn. I'm now going to have 1.7m going to 100kbb, finally am going to get to a feature table, and I'll have Rigby 4x'ing his opens 3 seats to my right, allowing me plenty of chances to 3b shove a wide array of hands.

That is, until the river comes and is another queen! I'll be honest I didn't think there was any shot in the world that card was going to hit the river. I silently stared at it for about 3 seconds before tapping the table and wishing everyone good luck. A camera followed me out for a bit but I don't think they used that footage, especially since the PokerGo coverage wasn't going to start until after the break. I did manage to get two payjumps to finish 79th for $81,000.

Couldn't even spell my name right in the bustout headline :



Off to the cage:



It's hard to describe how much fun I had along the way. Every day presented new challenges and opportunities. I think having the extremely tough table draws on days 1 and 2 really helped me to push as hard as I could on the softer tables of days 3 and 4. I was very pleased with my willingness to go for it when I thought the time was right, even when it didn't work. I never felt intimidated or out of place. There was never a reg who made me feel like I didn't belong or anything like that. I'll use this experience as motivation to continue to improve and come back stronger next year.

Great write up. Congrats on the deep run. Such a shame you busted before the feature.

+1 love the update and congrats!

Great write up and perspective. Congratulations on a great run, must’ve been such a thrill.