Off and running for day 2. New table and bust outs all around me in the first 10 minutes. It seems like so many people have lemming syndrome. They play for 14 hours then return and want to bust out in 14 minutes. Wonderful stuff.
Raised 3 hands with decent holdings, got reraised 3 times. OK. Let's rethink. 25k.
Big stack on my left seems to want to play every pot with me if I open. I politely inform him that if he keeps doing it then we're either going to have a very short day or he's going to be playing some pots with me for everything. How we all laughed.
Down to 20k after I played a pot with 77, it comes K93 and the opponent goes all in. Wonderful.
3 women on the table and most people are chatting occasionally and having a bit of a laugh with me. One guy looks like he spends about 18 hours a day in gym, and has a wristwatch on the size of a small dinner plate. Without genaralising (too late) performance so far indicates he doesn't like the idea of the girls raising his blinds. He just shoved 35,000 with A2 preflop against one, who calmly called with 66 and chopped him down to matchsticks. Ego is a weird thing in this game.
Drifting rapidly as blinds and antes bite. I find myself down to 9 (yes NINE) thousand, after missing and getting repopped repeatedly.
I find 99 and get it in vs the guy with the world's biggest watch. He shoved with A2...I hold, back into it.
Shortly after he shoves again and I find JJ and reraised all in to isolate. This time he's got A3. Again I hold I seem to be fading aces for once today. Migle the lovely Lithuanian dealer can't understand why my giraffe has turned from orange to blue. I explain patiently that it changes to blue whenever there's a cute girl within 10 feet. It's always fun to make people blush.
She might be my favourite dealer ever based on recent performance. Well, for this event anyway. Everyone folds round to me on the button, and I make it 4100 vs the single big blind which is 1600. We'd just been joking about the one big blind not really being worth stealing. He assumes I've decided to try and jams for over 20k. Luckily I've raised with two kings so in it all goes. Again I'm up against A3. What a table!
No nightmares and suddenly I'm looking at a 55k stack. That's what I'm talking about!
Suddenly I have a bit of freedom to open up and actually play properly. As a result of this I'm now bang on the average on 66k as we approach the break at end of level 13. The tournament clock shows 1629 players left from over 2000 starters today, with around 700 spots getting paid. Long way to go but very happy with the turn of events.
On break and getting a bit of sunshine. Weaved my way through the throng of unbearable poker stories in the lobby and stuck my headphones on at the benches as the guy sitting next to me is sky ping his girlfriend and basically replaying every hand he's been in since the beginning of the day. That's how to treat a lady. She's "yes'ing" and "wow'ing" but the tone of her voice before I put on my music suggests she's either going to take her own life, or look for a new boyfriend very shortly. The things we do for love eh? :o0
Back from the break and the blinds are 1000/2000/300. It's about to escalate into a shovefest again. This point is proved first hand on return when the button shoves with A10, and the woman in the big blind CALLS all in with Q9 after playing pretty well all morning. It's doesn't end well for her and we lose another one.
A few bustouts and 3 or 4 new players arrive in the table. The vibe chatty and happy but suddenly far more aggressive and shove happy. Of course there's nothing wrong with selective aggression, on the contrary I advocate it, however it seems like a ton of people WANT to bust out now, so at this time I think I'll just let them. 1400 players left.
A few players on this table know me, and the poker is aggressive but the mood is very genial and talkative with all of us having fun. How poker really should be.
Level 15 1200/2400/400 and I'm on about 70k. 1026 players remain. Lots of 3 betting on my table and maybe I just made a questionable fold to a shove in a 3 way pot. Can't really discuss it here but I think it was the right fold at the time and it was going to be for my tournament life. Still going.
Just about to go on break at end of level 15. The last few orbits haven't been kind and I'm back to 50k. Frustrating but still grinding it out. We come back at 1500/3000/500 so still all to play for.
We're back from the break, then we all stand outside the playing area for another 15-20 minutes because they screwed up something in the colour up and had to do a ton of extra tables. Not only that the players remaining just jumped back up to 1300 again by some miracle, then again down to 1065. Go Caesars.
Lost the second pot of the session with AQ when I miss the flop and get put all in. Next move isn't going to be check-calling or folding. Down to 39k.
Took a shot at a micro stack with 2 suited connected pictures. He had ace rag. I flopped the queen and he rivered the ace. Having visions of bleeding to death now and busting just shy of the money. Down to 25k... Screen says 891 players left and I've got 8 bigs. Sigh.
And there it is. Out around 860th from over 7000. My A5 vs A10, I hit an ace, he makes two pair. Sometimes I think I should play worse and just stack off with the QQ.
Never mind. Onto the next one. Let's stay positive. Anyone who knows me will appreciate the irony of that statement. Off to do something else for a while.