Venetian 5k Day Three

I lost a crushing hand shortly into the money and busted in 23rd place. However, this was a fun, exciting, encouraging finish to a disappointing WSOP. I feel okay about my game right now and think I can get back to a high level soon with a few tweaks and airbrushes.

Gamblegambel made the final table of ten and I have a nice piece of his action.

Venetian 5k Day Two

I lost the very last hand of the night to fall to 53bb, which is a disappointment because I felt before that hand I played pretty close to perfect on the day. There are now 37 players left with 27 getting paid. We play down to the final table tomorrow.

The last stand continues at 2 PM.

Venetian 5k

I am on to day two of this well-structured tournament with a slightly above average stack. There are about 100 players left.

This is it. The last stand. Let's do this.

The Last Bullet

I am playing the $5k at the Venetian tomorrow. I have a lifetime ROI of 2880% in Venetian $5ks so I thought I should play this one.

Wise Words From Cake/Retro Settlers of Catan Life Analogy of the Week

"If you want to have cities, you've got to build roads."

Venetian 1k

A hand came up today where I had flopped top pair, a guy turned a set, and I wound up paying him off because the line didn't make much sense. Even though there weren't many hands I thought he could have that beat me, it was still a standard fold considering the opponent. But I didn't fold.

It has been a long time since I ran hot in a poker tournament. That one run is keeping me afloat on the year, allowing me to keep firing bullets without dipping into the red. All the others are slowly weighing on me, and sometimes I make poor decisions. It's a psychological challenge to let go of top pair when it's the best hand you've seen in the last ten hours of play. It's hard to play your best after walking through the muck for the last three months. I am caught in an ugly cycle of running bad and playing bad, and it seems like the better I play, the worse I run. But at the end of the day, I have to face it that I have blown a few tournaments on mistakes.

The idea of winning or even final-tabling a poker tournament is inconceivable to me right now, but I will be playing at least one more before leaving town.

Event #57 10k World Championship

This was the second-worst day of my career, bottomed only by a similar main event two years ago. I wish I could share some interesting hands, talk about some tough spots, or even tell a bad beat story. I can't. It seemed like my opponents were playing with three cards, and I failed to connect on a single hand all afternoon.