First Full Week of the 2011 WSOP = 1 Final Table

I arrived in Vegas last Tues night with plans to see Hangover 2 and a nice dinner with about 50 poker players at Maggianos organized by Annie LePage, Mike Matusows girlfriend. I went with my friends Matt Stout and Jason Young. We had a great time and afterwards, the 3 of us and Tony Dunst went to Palms to see Hangover 2. I really enjoyed it and was a huge fan of the first one as well. I was pretty exhausted after flying 5 hours and hanging out, so I just went back to relax and get unpacked. Then I used Wednesday to get some things done. I went to Rio to get my wire and get a safety deposit box before they ran out. Jason and I then went grocery shopping and I filled up my kitchen and its already saved me tons of $.

My 2011 WSOP started on Thursday with the rather large buyin of $5k. I seemed to never really get anything going in this, as I never had over starting stack and busted well before dinner break. What a great turnout though and I have to congratulate my friend Allen Bari on a very well deserved Bracelet in that event! I decided a few months back that I was gonna learn and brush up on some of the non hold em games and play alot of them this summer, so I jumped right into the 5pm $1500 Stud Event and played my first ever Stud Tourney. However, it didn’t go very well and I was out rather quickly. Fri morning was the $1500 Limit Hold em event which I decided to play as well. I busted this as well and contemplated playing the $10k PLH for a few hours, in fact to the last possible minute after selling out about half, I still decided I wasn’t gonna play it. 0 for 3 at this point and full intentions of playing the 2-7 Single Draw No Limit at 5pm saturday, skipping the $1k. I have played a reasonable amount of SD online and really I think its my favorite game. I have never played it live, so I went to Rio early to play a sitngo and try it out, although I was playing no matter what. It wasn’t much of a structure and I busted in like 4th of 6. But it gave me what I wanted, the experience of playing some live hands and knowing what is going on. I then jumped into a $1k sitngo w a few familiar faces and I went on to chop it heads up and made a nice profit with the last longers as well.

Now it is 5pm and I am onto the 2-7 SD NL $1500 WSOP Event #9. I was really comfortable early and managed to win some nice pots and chip up. On day 1 I had Matt Affleck, Mickey Appleman, Fabrice Soulier and a few others to deal with. I stayed at a steady 15k thru dinner break and beyond, bagging 15,700 I think it was. Day 2 I played with Chris Bjorn, Paulgees, Greg Mueller, Jason Mercier, DJK, and a bunch of others. It went really well early on Day 2 as I was able to chip up nice without showdown a few times. We got to the $ rather quickly and I was up and down until I squeezed from the BB when Mercier flatted an UTG raise and he called drawing to an 86 and I was drawing to a T5…he paired and I won a nice pot. From this point on I managed a nice stack and made the final table! I was really excited to be going to Day 3 and my 3rd Final Table in 3 years at the WSOP. The bracelet means so much to me and also the $102k for first is huge right now. The amazing setup they have for this year for the final table was exciting to be a part of. I lost a bunch of small pots early and was immediately down to the short stack until I picked up like 3 rounds in a row and Jason got short. He then shoved at 3k/6k 65k and i reshoved the button with a 97 pat and he debated before patting a 98 and he busted 7th. Wow at this point I am up to 165k and feeling a bracelet coming my way. The kid Matt who just learned the game before the event played well but not anywhere close to as well as he ran for the last 2 days. I watched him hit draw after draw for 2 days. And unfortunately for me it didn’t stop when he opened to 16k on my bb from early position and I 3bet the nut draw 2357J and he stuffed on me, I snap called and decided to draw 1 as did he, he showed a worse draw with 7653 but I paired and he hit a J to knock me out in 6th and win what would have been the Chip Lead pot of 345k or so. $14k for me and 6th place to start the summer. Hard to be anywhere near happy with that, but I can’t really complain as it was my first ever 2-7 tourney and I final tabled another event at the Rio.

I played the $1500 triple chance today and was 2.5 hours late and had 750 left of my first 1500 bullet. Antonio brought up Lodden thinks and a few of us played it and had alot of fun with it. I instantly rebought and after losing a few small pots, Esfandiari limped at 50/100 as did the next guy, I raise w AA to 500, back to Antonio who asked what I had left and shoved, I called and he had 55 and I won a nice pot. I picked up AA again a little later and busted a guy and was feeling great. I ran my stack to about 14k before losing with AQ and 88. I opened with AK to have the sb call and the bb 3bet I stuff, he folded and I was at around 10k before the next hand that I was in the BB for the last hand before dinner break. UTG raises to 525, UTG+1 to 1600, button flats the 1600 and I look down at KcKh, I shove, UTG+1 tanks and folds, and button calls quickly with AcKd and the pot was 24k or so at 100/200 25. 2 diamonds, turn diamond, river diamond, and I was out just like that.

I am regged for the $1500 NL shootout tomorrow and I am def. playing the 2-7 $10k Thursday. I take it day by day and just plan on playing every day and as many events as possible.

I want to thank all of you for reading and for following me on twitter and facebook. I have picked up almost 200 followers just this week. Thanks for reading,I look forward to blogging about another final table soon!