Festa al Lago WPT Day 1b

Not a very successful day 1 today unfortunately. I finished the day with 25K of my 45K starting stack. My starting table was very soft, the only other players I recognized were shaniac and gobbo. Unfortunately I then got moved to some crazy table with Shawn Sheikhan, Brad Booth, Minh Ly and some other people I recognized. Here are two interesting hands I played today, the latter being the key hand of my day.

Hand 1: 200/400 a50. The player on my right opens to 1400 in MP and I flat KK next to act hoping for a squeeze from Sheikhan or Brad Booth or to just trap the raiser. One player calls behind me in position and Booth calls from the BB. The flop comes AT6hh and checks around. Turn T checks around. River 5 checks to me and I figure I almost always have the best hand and I may be able to get value from a hand like JJ or QQ so I bet 2800 and Brad calls with JJ.

Hand 2: Brad has been very active making a lot of really big preflop raises and reraises. In thish and Minh Ly open to 900 in early-middle position and Booth makes it 3800 next to act. I find KK on the button and make it 14K which is probably a bit too big. Booth calls pretty quickly which is really strange. The flop comes Q65hh and he checks. I think for a bit and was going to just jam it in and hope to get hero called but eventually I decided his preflop call seemed so strong that I was actually pretty worried about him having AA or QQ and I could induce bluffs or something by checking anyways. The turn is an 8 and he bets 8K which I call. The river is an A and he bets 22K. I think for a bit and mutter about how I must be the only nit in the world who plays this hand so weak and I'm either an idiot or a genius before accepting that I just can't imagine how he could be bluffing and fold. He said he flopped three queens and kept muttering about how if he played the hand differently he could have busted me so it seemed pretty legitimate that he actually had the hand.

I was down to 30K after that hand and finished the day with 25K after a boring level where I didn't do too much other than steal the blinds a few times. Hopefully I can turn things around and get something going tomorrow.

Mike