Limped into Day 2 of WPT Five Diamond

Sigh. The day went awful. I limped into day 2 with 15475 in chips. We started the day with 30000 chips. I didn't love my starting table when I sat down. There was a hyper aggressive young Russian to my direct left. I'd played with him earlier on in this series. To his left was John Kranyak. JK is the dude who put the AQ vs AK beat on me at Borgata. Both of said players have no fold buttons and prefer playing almost every pot, so they're not the guys you want on your left. Good online player Mike "Martine23" Martin was two to my left, and my friends Thomas "gnightmoon" Fuller and John Myung were across the table. Beth Shak was three to my left, an old calling station fish (OCS) to her left, a very inexperienced, nitty, young Californian three to my right and a Canadian named Bert to my direct right. I wanted to avoid almost everyone except Shak, the OCS, and the young Californian. Unfortunately, they all played too nitty so I had to mix it up some with the others. Early on OCS raised in EP to 300, two players called, and I called in the SB 250 more with A5hh. The BB called and five of us saw As Tc 5d. We all checked. The turn was the 4h. I bet 1000 and the OCS played with chips and acted like he wanted to raise. He finally just called. The river was a black 3. I bet 2300 for value. He thought and then slammed in about 9000 worth of chips, lol. Easy fold, but so sick that he hits an offsuit gutter (if he had a deuce) or an offsuit open ender if he had 76. You just expect to win this pot with top and middle pair and the nut flush draw on the turn when you bet and are called. I found myself muttering at the table after this one for the first time in a long, long time. I took 26000 to the first break. The second level went ok and I was back to around 28500 at that break. In level three my biggest pot of the day came up. A few players limped, I limped KTdd, the World Champion Bridge player, Kranyak completed in the SB and Shak checked. The flop came 7h6d5d. JK bet out 1200. They folded to me, and I raised to a tiny 2700, leaving JK 8100 more. I decided I was going to call if he shoved, even though I didn't necessarily lay myself the right price with this raise if I only have diamonds for outs. JK loves, loves, loves to gamble, so I expected he'd shove hands like 87, all flush draws, and even hands like T8 or 54.I thought it would look much stronger to him and he might correctly fold a two pair hand. Unfortunately he shoved, and I was shown 7d5h. I missed and was down to 16000. I got down to 13000ish but doubled against the Russian maniac with KQ vs his AK when we got in on KQ3. I just folded and folded for a couple hours because I was so, so card dead. I did raise a few pots but couldn't flop a pair for the life of me. It was so sick. In the fourth level I did have the poker Gods shine on me. It was folded to me on the button and I found red 99. I raised to 1100. This is the stone nut against the Russian and Kranyak's blinds, because they will 3bet me so light and I can go with it. The Russian only had 600ish, and thought 20 seconds before shoving. JK folded, and I called. He showed AA. Wow. The flop brought the magic 9 of spades, and I held from there. This was actually the best hand I made all day. There was one other interesting hand. Shak limped up front, Martine limped the button for 400, the Canadian to my right completed, and I checked A6hh. The flop came As Kh 9c. Checked around. Turn Qh. The SB bet out 1500 into 1800. I called. The river was a black 2. The SB checked, and I thought and bet 3050 for value. The SB went into the tank for a full minute, muttering that he put me on a missed flush draw. I was very happy now because I thought he was going to call me. Then, as he grabbed a 10000 chip (he didn't have the change to make the exact call), he flipped the chip into the pot and announced "9500". Looooooooooooool. The same exact thing happened to me in Biloxi where a guy checkraised me on the river after giving me a speech. I knew he had the nuts and I had an easy fold, but just as I did in Tunica, I decided I was going to punish him for his speech. I lied and said I'd made Aces up, because I wanted him to think I was going to call. I sat there two minutes and folded. I told him that what he did is very much frowned upon, he apologized and told me he had the nuts. He didn't mean anything by it and was a really nice guy, so there's no hard feelings. Nothing else happened and I limped in with my 15475. There's a day off, and I'll play again Friday when we all meet to play day 2. Blinds will be 4/800 (100) on Friday, so I don't have a whole lot of room to maneuver. Anything can happen though, and I can assure you I won't go down without a fight. I'm gonna try to go to the Tool concert tomorrow night if I can get tickets from my host at Palms. I'm a life fish when it comes to stuff like planning, so I haven't spoken with her yet.

Also, congrats to my friend Cody "Thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh and his now-fiance Renee Black on their recent engagement!

SS