Back on the Grind

Now up to 0/15, -51.5K. I had relatively quick and painless exits in the $1500 NL and $2000 PL events last week. I skipped the $1500 NL event on Saturday and $1500 mixed holdem on Sunday to play online those days, and there was no event on Monday so I had a nice little 3 day vacation from losing real money. On Friday night we went to Treasure Island and did the drunken mixed games thing. Hilarity ensued when one usually more reserved 2+2er went a bit overboard on the Jagerbombs (see the thread on 2+2), but good times were had in general before and after we had to worry about taking care of him. On Saturday I slept in a bit and only played a few tournaments and more cash. I finished 2nd in the $50 rebuy on Stars after losing a 10:1 chip lead because I run good like that. It was only $6500 though, I forgot how small the prize pool was in that tournament since I don't usually play it. In cash games I had a lot success (read: luckboxing) in the PLO games but I've been getting killed in holdem. I've been playing the 25/50 cap PLO game on Full Tilt and find it's often pretty good, as well as some 5/10 and 10/20 on Everest and Mansion. My holdem play was mostly 10/20 on Everest and Mansion and a couple times I sat 25/50 on Stars when I saw a softish looking game but that's basically just gone terribly, though my play has been fine.

Speaking of Everest, I finished 7th in their big Sunday tournament for $3K. It is basically the softest tournament ever, like playing on Paradise 3 years ago sort of. The structure is really bad so it becomes a huge crapshoot except everyone plays way too tight waiting for big hands and you just run them over and pick up the blinds constantly. They doomswitched me at the final table though, my KK was obv no good vs AA. I also went deep in the $200 rebuy on Stars but busted on maybe a questionable shove, though given the information I had at the time I think it was definitely fine. So it ended up being a breakevenish Sunday with those 2 cashes and a min-cash in a $100 rebuy on Stars as well.

Monday night I skipped tournaments and went for a late dinner at Wing Lei, a very nice Chinsese restaurant in the Wynn, with a big group of mostly online players. After that we ended up doing some -EV gambling and playing beer pong at O'Shea's, which was pretty hilarious. I couldn't stay out too late though because I was playing the $1500 PLO8 event today. This event was my best finish in the WSOP last year when I finished 10th after getting countefeited on the river, and though I still don't consider myself especially good at the game, my expectations were still high as basically everyone in this tournament is waaaaaaaay worse. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat my performance. I chipped up a bit in some small pots and had a few semi-intersting spots that I think I played well, but in the end I played a really standard hand against Joe Hachem where I got over a third of my stack in preflop with AAQ8 double suited and lost to his AJ43 with the suited ace of spades when he flopped a low draw + flush draw and turned the flush. There is another stretch of consecutive good tournaments coming up though. Tomorrow is the $1K rebuy and the next day is the $5K 6-max. These are definitely two of my favourite events and I'm looking forward to them very much. It's actually kind of a shame I may have to miss the 6-max if I make day 2 of the rebuy. After those two there is a $2k NL on Friday and then on Sunday it's the $10K PLO which I've decided to play. It should go without saying that I would not be opposed to running good in a few of these.

Mike