I can hear players dropping like flies all around me, which is good news. The screens haven't been updated from the original 614 players who started day 2 yet, but I'd estimate we have lost 50 players in about 15 minutes. I made one small raise with a suited A 10, but gave it up to a shove of around 170k from some kid. Pick your battles, etc.
Well, even with picking my battles, the day has gotten off to a pretty shitty start for me. My 221k starting stack is down to 120k, after I put in a chunky raise with KK, got called preflop and on the flop, and on the turn, the board shows 6789... pretty horrible for my hand. Now he wants to jam all-in for 190k. Sigh. It could be a move, but conserving chips and picking the right moments is the key for me early on in a day 2. I'm not loving being 100k down so quickly, but there's not a lot I could have done to avoid it, unless I made a dipshit move like simply going all-in preflop with it.
They've updated the screens, and we've lost over 120 players already in about 35 minutes. I'm not really interested in laddering, but I'm also not keen on being a short stack with almost 500 entrants still remaining.
Another huge pot with a 3 way all-in. the hands are 44, AQ, and AQ. The lot went in preflop and the AQ's chop and bust the 44. Madness. Ali G is holding court and explaining why the first AQ was supposed to go all-in, but the second one wasn't. Let me get a pen.
The blinds and antes go through me again, and I find myself on 90k. The guy who busted with 44 was three spots to my left, and his seat has just been filled by a guy with over 750k in chips. My day is just getting better and better...
We've gone from 614 players to 441 in under an hour. It doesn't really do much to help my cause, but it's good to see so many people spannering it all off with any two cards, I guess. I'd hope that when my chips go in shortly, I'll have the best of it, and my decent run continues.
The blinds were just about to hit 6k/12k/12k, and I decide that I'm not going down to matchsticks without a fight. I jam once with AJ offsuit with my 90k stack, and everyone folds. The second time, I'm under the gun, and about to lay out 30k in blinds, so I squeeze out an ace as the first card, and ship it all in again without looking at the second one. Again, everyone mucks. I'm on 115k, with another round of the table to work with. 405 players are left.
The theatrics and bad TV table talk continue in earnest. We're down to 360 players, and there are 20 minutes of level 17 remaining.
Poker players really are the dumbest of the dumb. The floor staff have clearly said about 20 times "when you get a pay out ticket, it's good for the whole of the WPT", meaning you effectively can cash it in at the cage for your money anytime, day or night during the next few weeks. No. They'd rather all stand in line for about an hour to get the money right now, and tell one another bad beat stories. There must be 140 people now standing in the line, which is snaking out right across the casino floor. If they came back in an hour, or tomorrow, they could get paid out immediately. Nope. Let's stand around and wait. Ali G and his ugly watch just busted with AA vs 10 10 on my table, and then managed to get two stories about how bad he's running out before he actually left the table. Meanwhile, 324 players are left as we reach the first break. By some superhuman effort, or maybe the power of prayer (unlikely for an agnostic admittedly), I've managed to remain on 95k after getting my kings shredded earlier. We still have a shot.
Down to 298/4,960, and I jam no look and get it through. It's now 10k/15k/15k, so 40k per orbit just to pay the blinds. I'm on 125k
I had 85k left, of which 30k of it was already in the pot in blinds. All folded to the small blind, who moved all-in for about 350k, basically just asking me the question for all my money. This actually is one of those situations where I just have to roll the dice, so I call without looking at my cards, deciding that he's likely full of shit, but not really doing anything wrong by putting the pressure on me. I'm right, and he flips over K6 offsuit, versus what transpires to be 10 5 offsuit for me. I'm live, and there's little in it, which for this scenario is just fine.
The board runs out, and when the dust settles, despite me picking up a straight draw, king high wins the pot, and I'm eliminated in 261st out of just under 5,000 players. I don't think the day could have gone another way once I lost the biggish pot early on, but that's just the way it goes. I'm happy with how I played for two days, so let's get onto the next one, and try to do better.