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WhodeyX
Rock Star
Silver Level
I think Roundcat (she qualified by placing in the top 3 of the 2nd invade vegas event) probably has her own update of sorts but I wanted to pass on how I fared today in the event. I'll definitely go into more details tomorrow with some hand examples and what not but I'm exhausted after 12 hours of poker at the Rio.
I decided last month that I really wanted to play a wsop event when I came out to Vegas. I was hoping to qualify via the 2 Live OFC events but when that failed to come to fruition, I made the $1k buy-in myself (a bit of a stretch but looking back it was worth it for the experience).
The structure of the tournament is pretty brutal. You start off with 3,000 chips and the blinds went 25/25, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200 (25 antes), etc. Each level is an hour but with a smaller starting stack like that and antes after only 5 levels, things heated up real quick. In addition, the Rio in and of itself is a very intimidating place. Walking into a room with 300+ poker tables is crazy, it was like an industrial warehouse of poker. Besides the setting, the player field was stacked as well. Over the course of the day, I had David Sklansky/Anthony Saout one table away from me (thank god I wasn't at that table). Directly to my right, I had some really solid online player next to me whose name isn't coming to mind (his ftp name is csimmsux) but after doing some research he won 2 FTOPS events, including the main event in 2009 so he is well over 1 million in online cashes alone. He was incredibly aggressive and played real well, so it was brutal having him coming after my blinds every single round.
The field started with about ~2400, with today being day 1a. Tomorrow is day 1b and 2400+ will register then as well bringing the field right around 5000. Over the course of the day I was all over the map. I went from 3k to 6k immediately, then got brought back down to 3k when my 2 pair ran into a flush on the river (a repeating theme from my day). I managed to climb back to 8k before being moved to another table (the one with the FTOPS guy) where I got up to 10k pretty quick. For the following 2 hours, I couldn't get anything going on and dropped to 5.5k at the dinner break (6 levels and about 7 hours in so this was about 7:00PM PST). Once I got back to the table, everything was going my way. After a few pushes, I managed to climb to 9.5k without seeing any post-flop action. My last notable hand of the day was easily my biggest. I got JJ in the cutoff position and after a bunch of folds, a guy a few spots to the right of me raised and I came over the top (which I had done 3 or 4 times to this guy so I thought I was after him a bit). The flop came 4h 8c Jc and the guy to my right immediately pushes his 10k stack. This was an easy call and while his Qc 10c made me sweat a little, an 8 on the turn gave me the hand and a 20k pot.
From there, I went downhill and couldn't get much going and ended the day at about 10.5k. I'd say the average chip stack has to be near 20k but this stack is enough to work with for the first few levels of Saturday.
Now is the waiting period. I managed to make it to the final 350 of the 2400 day 1 entrants. If tomorrow goes the same way (which it should), Saturday will have 700 players with right around 500 spots getting paid. If this occurs, I only have to make it through the first 3 or 4 hours before I get in the cash area.
Roundcat, I hope you did some work today or if you are playing tomorrow, GL. Wish me luck guys and I hope I can bring it home for CC on Saturday. I will be sure to wear the CardsChat shirt I was just given (under my bengals jersey of course, it worked today and I'm superstitious so I can't jinx it). I'll go through some of the other hands tomorrow, I wouldn't mind hearing some of your thoughts to see what you think of how I played them, I'm trying to plug up any holes in my game.
WhodeyX
I decided last month that I really wanted to play a wsop event when I came out to Vegas. I was hoping to qualify via the 2 Live OFC events but when that failed to come to fruition, I made the $1k buy-in myself (a bit of a stretch but looking back it was worth it for the experience).
The structure of the tournament is pretty brutal. You start off with 3,000 chips and the blinds went 25/25, 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 100/200 (25 antes), etc. Each level is an hour but with a smaller starting stack like that and antes after only 5 levels, things heated up real quick. In addition, the Rio in and of itself is a very intimidating place. Walking into a room with 300+ poker tables is crazy, it was like an industrial warehouse of poker. Besides the setting, the player field was stacked as well. Over the course of the day, I had David Sklansky/Anthony Saout one table away from me (thank god I wasn't at that table). Directly to my right, I had some really solid online player next to me whose name isn't coming to mind (his ftp name is csimmsux) but after doing some research he won 2 FTOPS events, including the main event in 2009 so he is well over 1 million in online cashes alone. He was incredibly aggressive and played real well, so it was brutal having him coming after my blinds every single round.
The field started with about ~2400, with today being day 1a. Tomorrow is day 1b and 2400+ will register then as well bringing the field right around 5000. Over the course of the day I was all over the map. I went from 3k to 6k immediately, then got brought back down to 3k when my 2 pair ran into a flush on the river (a repeating theme from my day). I managed to climb back to 8k before being moved to another table (the one with the FTOPS guy) where I got up to 10k pretty quick. For the following 2 hours, I couldn't get anything going on and dropped to 5.5k at the dinner break (6 levels and about 7 hours in so this was about 7:00PM PST). Once I got back to the table, everything was going my way. After a few pushes, I managed to climb to 9.5k without seeing any post-flop action. My last notable hand of the day was easily my biggest. I got JJ in the cutoff position and after a bunch of folds, a guy a few spots to the right of me raised and I came over the top (which I had done 3 or 4 times to this guy so I thought I was after him a bit). The flop came 4h 8c Jc and the guy to my right immediately pushes his 10k stack. This was an easy call and while his Qc 10c made me sweat a little, an 8 on the turn gave me the hand and a 20k pot.
From there, I went downhill and couldn't get much going and ended the day at about 10.5k. I'd say the average chip stack has to be near 20k but this stack is enough to work with for the first few levels of Saturday.
Now is the waiting period. I managed to make it to the final 350 of the 2400 day 1 entrants. If tomorrow goes the same way (which it should), Saturday will have 700 players with right around 500 spots getting paid. If this occurs, I only have to make it through the first 3 or 4 hours before I get in the cash area.
Roundcat, I hope you did some work today or if you are playing tomorrow, GL. Wish me luck guys and I hope I can bring it home for CC on Saturday. I will be sure to wear the CardsChat shirt I was just given (under my bengals jersey of course, it worked today and I'm superstitious so I can't jinx it). I'll go through some of the other hands tomorrow, I wouldn't mind hearing some of your thoughts to see what you think of how I played them, I'm trying to plug up any holes in my game.
WhodeyX
