WSOP has begun!

I'm starting to really get excited about heading to Vegas. The preliminary events have started and I've been reading almost everything that has to do with the WSOP. Live coverage, player's blogs, threads on 2+2 and CPF, etc.... Especially exciting so far was that two of the most respected posters in the MTT forum on 2+2 have already made final tables. Rizen, whose blog is very good and linked on the right, and MLG both made 6-figure scores for finishing 3rd and 4th respectively in early events. I have no doubt there will be a lot of other well known online players breaking through for their first big scores in live events as well. I can't wait to get down there and try to join them.

As for my own play this week, my results were a little more steady for a change and I made a small profit, mostly from 2/4 NL, as my tournaments were close to breakeven. I finally stacked someone for their full $400 at 2/4 when AA>KK. Getting shipped an $800 pot feels kinda nice. One of the more interesting things that happened this week was Friday night (June 30) I got home pretty early for a change, and decided to play almost every tournament on Stars before midnight in an effort to crack the top 100 on the monthly TLB. I was hoping to qualify for the WSOP freeroll and it seemed like a fun goal. I needed to gain another 250-300 points. I made the final table of a $22 180-man tourney and accross the table from me was MrSmokey. Smokey is one of the best players online and he was in this micro-buyin tourney, compared to what he normally plays, because he was trying to win a $5000 TLB sidebet against a few other top players for June. Anyways we ended up heads up about even in chips. Premier (another top player in the bet) was sweating the final table cheering for me to bust him, as I guess the bet was pretty close going down to the wire. Really, I think my crappy TLB quest was more important, so I owned him and got the 306 TLB points for first. Only top 20 scores count so this increased my score by about 250 points, it was going to be close, I just needed one more decent (like 100 point) score to lock it up, but the only thing I was still in was the 10r 55k Guaranteed. Fortunately, I was already in the money and I picked up AA on the button and got all-in against the SB's AK. Two runners to his broadway straight later I finished the month in 104th place, a measely 12 points out of the top 100.

Today I did my normal Sunday thing. I even decided to drop the $615 and take a shot at the one rebuy one add-on version of the Sunday million. I did terribly in that tournament but I made a decent run on Party again before bustng out on a pretty poor resteal for $600 in 384th. I final tabled a $100 rebuy on Dise and had lots of chips coming in but things didn't work out and I busted 7th for $1800. I also final tabled a $100 NL on Party before running the nut flush into quads and busting 5th for $2100. Overall it was a pretty good day though it's always disappointing to not make more of those final table chances, but really the cards just didn't cooperate once I got there. A belated happy CanadaDay to eveyone, I'm calling it a night. Well, maybe I'll see what's going on at the Rio first.

Mike