All good in the hood and I've got my happy face back on again for today's WSOP event. My table was immediately broken and I've shifted to the Brasilia room so at least I'm getting exercise.
New table and two young guys already look to have doubled up and also lost any sense of humour. Ho hum.
Level one and I've lost 250 of 7500 with JJ. My life is over.
I open early with AK and it gets immediately popped to 450 and called. With me it's not all about the WSOP "experience" at all, so I'm never terrified of an early exit. However I'm also risk-averse early on when it comes to playing oversize pots when I'm likely in bad shape. I fold for the 450, the two big stacks have a cock-measuring contest on a 10 high flop and one goes all in and wins a pot of about 5000. Young kids and their testosterone fuelled table image, and scabby min-bets. It does make me smile.
Level 2 and save the AK and JJ hands nothing really has happened. Down to 6k just seeing a few flops. Not overly fussed. The two testosterone kids seem to have a mission to win 8/10 pots or go broke whilst there are still 1200 people or so in the event. All good, I'll let them get on with it.
Testosterone kid on my left is now down from10,000 to 2200 after hero calling with 33 on a 4J669 board. The other guy showed AA. Well played sonny.
We're approaching first break and it's not been a great two levels, 7500 is 5300. Meh.
Now on break. Out to the benches for some sunshine.
Back from the break. Two bracelet ceremonies mean we don't start for another 10 minutes or so. One Italian and one Brazilian get awards, and both national anthems are rowdy and loud as the supporters pretend they're at a football match and try to out-volume each other with singing and shouting. Good luck to the winners, it's nice to see them have they're moment, even when the audience seem to be living it vicariously though the guys who won the bracelets.
Anyways, we're off again at 75/150. Still happy to plod right now. A few guys look a little weak and a few others look overly aggro for this stage, but we'll wait and see.
Phew. 20 minutes into level three and I finally won my first pot. Back to 6100.
It's pretty amazing to me even to this day how predictable some people's play is, even when they're quite clearly thinking that what they're doing is mysterious and unusual because they're wearing a hood up whilst indoors. One guy at the table opens every pot with a smelly min-raise to 350 if no one else has come in yet. If he gets re-raised he calls. And if the raiser checks to him he bets. It's happened about 15 times so far this level. Every time he gets raised, he asks "how much are you playing behind?" Even if it's totally obvious how much it is. Every time he gets asked the question properly he stands and looks anguished and eventually folds like he just go unlucky. The funny thing is that against weak minded players this retarded strategy often works and they just muck. To me he may as well be playing his cards face up most of the time. I find the way that so many players try to do this at the table in tournaments both hilarious and pathetic at once.
A bit frustrating. The table isn't bad. Standard young lagtards on each side of me and the rest of the line up is pretty soft. One guy sat down late and got AA first hand, then AA again 3 hands after that and got paid both times. The guy on my right who is nice enough was super short when I started on this table has got them twice also, plus QQ,KK and AK. The young kids keep trying to push him around but it's not working out too well for them.
Level 4, and my stack is more like 3700 after finding about 4 small pairs and not improving on flops into anything workable. Not wanting to bleed down to nothing especially with the blinds still quite small but if the hand comes up I'll play it as hard as I can to either get paid or win the pot.
fml
The other option of course is I could get AK in the big blind and everyone folds to the nice guy who's had aces twice in the small blind who makes it 425. Out of my stack I make it 1300 leaving about 2900 and he shoves. I HATE calling for the rest and if I'm on 5-8k I most likely don't. However I need to go with it and hope I'm in ok shape.
I'm not. He has...AA. Lovely. AK vs AA blind on blind.
Flop K1010, so I wasn't folding the flip if he flatted the 1200. Blanks on turn and river and I'm out. Ugh.
Just told a pal and he said it was a cooler. Most people will agree but maybe like everything I over analyse stuff and I'm thinking I could have folded once he shoved on me. My reasoning being that he hadn't spazzed out at all and would probably only shove with the hand he had or maybe KK. Who knows. Maybe a 5 second think up and I'd have let it go, but I didn't. I'm sure most people are calling but then most people don't fold KK or QQ preflop either when they feel their up against AA. Such is life.
Out after just under 4 hours. Wasn't a great morning for me today.
Oh well. Suck it up and move on. I'm on the strip already and reg is open for the 4pm flight, so it's onto...