Back into the trenches finally for another Golden Nugget $350 one dayer. Closer observation shows this is actually a two dayer if you make the final, but given my next WSOP event isn't until the 22nd I'm not overly fussed. Making the second day would be a problem I'll worry about if it arises.
Mix of young and old as I sit at my first table. No one seems particularly keen to engage in any kind of chat right now, and frankly I'm not in performing mode so I'm not going to force the issue for once. I'll just let everyone be. Sal DiCarlo, a very capable U.S. player who knows me is the only slightly welcoming face at the table, and offers a hello as I sit. Everyone else is either plugged into social media sending snippets of their lives out into the ether,or busy trying to display to the rest of the table that they have no wish whatsoever to interact or be sociable. Yay.
I arrived at level 2 and thus far haven't got involved in anything of note.
Approaching midway through level 4 and I've won a couple to get me from 15k up to 18k, then find flush over flush to spiral down to 15 again. No great shakes. It's 100/200, and currently we have 210 entrants.
Back from break at level 5 and the antes have kicked in. The guy on my right is eating a hot dog with his bare hands, no napkin, so despite my stance on food constructed from animal lips, eyelids and arseholes, I volunteer to put in his blinds and antes for him, finding the thought of him touching the chips whilst eating marginally more revolting than the meal itself.
I'm definitely not without my quirks and eccentricities in life...readers of some of the crap I write here will be familiar with bits of it. I love my food with a passion as those who know me can attest, and my thinking in other areas is pretty unconventional also. We'd maybe have to ask wives and ex-girlfriends about that one. Or maybe it's better just not to. I fight a running battle to counteract the effects of the wonderful food I cook or buy versus my expanding waistline from day to day, yet I still can't bring myself to ever contemplate putting certain types of food in my mouth, namely most things involving offal or the more unsavoury bits of carcasses that are blended up into a paste then repackaged more aesthetically for consumption. Black pudding might just be my only exception, besides really good quality sausages, if such a thing really exists.
Sorry. Spiralled off on a tangent. Hot-dogs do that to me. Ugh.
Level 6 and I've bobbed and weaved, but essentially I am still on the original 15k after being up to around 20 and down to around 12. Never in real danger of going broke and just testing the waters, found a few spots I can press harder than they'd like me to when the blinds get bigger. Always good to get these guys pigeonholed for later abuse.
I guess I could have just rocked up at level 7, since I'm still on starting stack.
Plenty of play in these things, and if you get an early double up you can make it more expensive for everyone to play and run over the table. That's not happening for me today so I'm still in plod mode, taking the odd snipe. I've seen a few scabby moves at the table. A pretty (and pretty)solid French lady (sorry for anyone who finds my classification racist, sexist or typist, get over it) gets her money in with As5s on a 2s3s5h flop, after an aggro 20 something moves in and she rightly likes the spot she's in for under half her stack. He tables QJ off to be in terrible shape, and she misses half the deck while he rivers an offsuit queen to drag the pot. Vomit.
Up to 272 players so still looking good for some overlay value. People can still buy in for hours yet so no need to spazz out as a few victims on this table seem to be doing.
Sal is gone. Victim of a big AQ vs AK preflop all in coup. Not a spot I ever really want, but I understood why he played it, some guys like to play these hands hard to try to get chips, the downside being if you don't get there then of course you're out. Horses for courses.
Level 8 and I'm still rocking the 15k start stack. Smiling to myself.
Now on level 9 and on a healthier 21k at 400/800/100. Table now much more amiable so I'm more able to exercise a little magic and a few mind tricks on the unwary to grab the odd pot.
Midway into level 9 and still on 21k. People most certainly loosening up a bit now and this is probably the level where we multiply or where it turns to ashes if the play I've seen so far is anything to go by.
Bam.
Suddenly we're on 42k after finding aces (well played) and taking the top pair crap kicker calling station with the big stack to value town on the flop and turn. Still had to fade him pairing on the end but all ended well enough. My table immediately broke and now facing a new set of mutants.
Another new table, this time with Jerome Bradpiece, a good guy and competent player from the UK on my left with a big stack. We're into level 10 now, registration is closed and the clock says 140/290 left, with $24,000 up top for the winner. That'd help the bankroll a bit.
Just found one of those dream tournament spots...nut flush vs 2nd nut flush. Up to 80k. Finally got a decent stack to work with in one of these. I flex my muscles a bit for an orbit or two and it now looks like 90k. Fun poker for once.
Little to report on the last level before dinner. A little jostling and I'm back in a healthy 80k or so. A few new guys have joined the table. One has chronic B.O. Gross. Dinner in 15 minutes.
Nice pain, just before the break in true poker fashion.
A guy loses a huge pot and gets chopped down to almost nothing. He jams repeatedly and builds back up. They we get it in with his KcQc in pretty bad shape vs my AsQh. He looks crestfallen when the cards go over, so obviously I ask him if he wants his king on the flop or on the turn.
The flop comes 9c 6s 2c, so he now has a flush draw.
The turn is the 10d giving him a gutshot as well.
The river is the Jc to give him everything and lose me a 45k pot. Nice. The table then immediately breaks for maximum pain.
Dinner break and I'm still OK but less than I was and now on 50k or so. Sigh. Off for a happy hour pizza and a Lemon Drop,or maybe a Kinky Italiana. Screw it. I'm having one of each to cushion the blow of being robbed of being on over 100k.
We're back. 800/1600/200. 81/290 left and 30 get paid. I'm one of the Middle/shorter stacks in my table because of that earlier car crash. Still feeling fine so we'll see what fate brings my way.
Back to 68k. Played AK pretty hard vs some old robot when an ace flopped, and jammed in a biggish pot once the scare card came and my spidey-sense told me he didn't like it. He grumbled a bit and then went away. I wasn't in the mood to piss around.
72 left. Still a ways to go.
In answer to John Kittle's earlier question... THIS is violation.
An older English guy with about 35-40k makes it 10k preflop at 1000/2000/300. I am 100% sure he gets it all in preflop if I raise when I look down at QQ, so I decide to flat call the 10 and let him hang himself on the flop instead once I check to him. Everyone else folds and the flop is 68J. Lovely. I check and he bets another 10k, I move him in for the rest.
He calls and shows JJ.
The guy next to him exclaims "wow, I folded QJ preflop. That's the case Jack".
Don't you just love days like these?
I'm on 18k and nowhere near the now 150k I expected to be on. Crushed dreams and all that.
I don't really have time or inclination to fuck around now. The same English guy raises and I jam with 88. He calls with AJ and I hold. Back to 42k but pretty pissed. 63 left. Whichever way this goes, it won't be with a whimper, I guarantee that.
Back to 60 when I brute-force it on the flop vs two huge stacks and they both fold. I'm reminded of Arnie in the good old days. Screen shows average is 69,000...I drop back to 55.
And out. The standard bullshit play you see in tournaments. A 120k pot at 1k 2k.
The English guy who one outed me earlier makes it 10k in the hijack. I jam about 55k from the small blind with 22, knowing he doesn't have a hand he can call with as he only just has me covered.
He then calls, and shows...10h 8h, and says "I thought you were at it".OK....
Either way it's probably going to be pretty tough to get me to fold, since all my money is in the middle already, but hey, nice call anyway buddy. Here comes the pain.
He flops both a flush and straight draw.
Brick on the turn. Just once it'd be nice to get a bit of karma.put another brick down...
Nope. Heart on the river to bust me about 25 off the money. I can't even look disgusted. Good luck everyone I say and that's me done hurst like that. Off I go after 9 hours down the crapper.
Next. The life of a poker player. Maybe it's easy to see why you guys buy shares instead of going through this yourselves day in day out. I must be a masochist. Thanks for the comments, more to come x