For the last day or so, the rumor was that day 1 of the $1500 event (Saturday) would be sold out, as every online pro picked it over playing live on Sunday. That turned out not to be true, as I was able to register 90 minutes before the start (props to the Rio - this year, everything seems to be well organized for a change.) Unfortunately, I lasted all of 90 minutes or so in the event, but I actually feel like every bustout should be like this one - very quick, with every hand basically completely standard. I played a couple of pots where I overlimp/called and open raised about 5-6 other hands, but only won 1 total pot the entire time; every hand I played wound up 3 handed to the flop and I simply only ever paired up once.

The bustout hand was the only remotely interesting decision; with about 1700 behind at 50/100, I raised KK in EP and got called by a pretty loose/bad middle aged Asian player on the button. The flop came down AJT; rather than bet out (never folding out an ace in a million years) or check/shoving (eh...nah, he's never folding either) I check/called a pretty standard 2/3 pot bet that basically told me he had some kind of hand, then decided I may as well induce a bluff again and check/called the last 1K all in on an A turn vs. what turned out to be A6. Not getting there on the river kinda sucked, but oh well, standard.

It appears almost everybody else is also busto already (that's what happens when you start with 60 BB/it turns to 15 BB 2 hours in), but Vivek is still in during hand for hand in the 10K pot limit event. Hopefully, he can win this thing and unbusto WC; even if he just manages to FT it, it looks like we're set for a while.

Tomorrow's Sunday, i.e. playing online day; I might also sit out Monday because neither the 1500 PLHE or the 5K mixed NL/limit donkament particularly appeal to me (I may just grind sats), but there's a 1500 6 max on Tuesday that I definitely want to go for. That'll probably be my next event and my next update here, unless, that is, Vivek wins the whole thing.

PS: Vivek's haircut makes my occasional 'too lazy to go one block' 3 month old Jewfro look seem totally hot, imo.

After an uneventful trip, I got to Vegas the night before last and have been chilling with SirWatts and grafyx ever since. Aside from fixing a bad router, listening to Watts recount his busto hand and winning a few hundred bucks at midstakes limit (lol), not much has happened so far, but for some reason, I'm really looking forward to the 2 day 1500 (whether I play it tomorrow or Sunday is gonna depend on whether tomorrow stays sold out.) Actually, scratch 'for some reason'; we all know a 4000 person live event can't possibly be tough to play :)

Nothing else to report so far other than sweating various wafflecrushers on pokernews, but I've also been sweating this thread. Whether or not this guy can actually reach his goal, let's just say that even coming close to it is good enough for me; the fact that a Chinese gold farmer team can make six figures playing this game at microstakes two years after UIGEA is hysterical.

Full writeup of event #2 and all the other events coming up as soon as I actually play them :)

Last week was pretty gruesome, culminating with today, when, in addition to playing my B or C game most of the time, I managed to take my first 3%'er beat of the month and had about 5 sets/overpairs cracked in big pots. To be honest, I didn't even really care and was mostly playing on autopilot - leaving in 3 days has me thinking about other stuff too much. There are 2 videos I want to make for CR before Wednesday, and I still need to get some cash from the bank, check in with my backers, etc. etc. etc. In fact, I haven't even started packing. Yeah, standard.

To psych myself up, I've been looking at other people's blogs. It's surprising how much I can forget about running well until it happens, how bad other people's streaks can be and for how long, and, for that matter, that I'm still playing tourneys. I've said it about a dozen times by now, but this might be it; after the WSOP is over, I want to switch to MSNL full time. It's just not worth it to continually run bad when Cake and other sites still have the kind of games that they do, and on top of that, tourneys often tie me to the computer late at night when cash games, even if I only play them when they're good, basically run 18/7.

Of course, if I win something, that'll probably immediately change. But I do feel like waiting around for bi-yearly scores is just not that much fun compared to booking steady wins and watching the bankroll line go upward relatively steadily day after day. I might not be able to play 20K hands in a day, but I can certainly book longer sessions in cash than tourneys. So what's stopping me? Thus far, basically some laziness + feeling that cash has gotten tougher faster...except, just by checking out the MSNL regs that frequent tourneys, I know I still easily beat those games. Even my lazy ass has gotten to the point where I think I have to switch.

Meh.

After my last entry, I wound up only playing a handful more events - the razzament (made it deep, but to no avail), a few other midstakes NL tourneys, and the ME, which I just busted in an hour or so ago. It wasn't one of the best tourneys I've ever played, but for how card dead I was, clawing as deep ITM as I did (300-something after not seeing a PP for the last 2 hours and restealing every hand I played) seems pretty reasonable/made my FTOPS profitable. I also took fifth in the Cake 75K for 3700 while I was at it [running like the sun to get there], which makes today an actually profitable Sunday, too/includes my second Sunday major FT in a month.

More impressively, congrats to cking on what I'm pretty sure is his first 100K score (6'th in the $2500 FTOPS) and another chip in the WC unbusto fund. They've run so bad at staking for so long that this isn't gonna get them *that* far, but at least it's a good start and a nice lead up to the ME.

Also, P5'er Halfrek won his second FTOPS event and is up 850K...incredibly sick. I don't know the guy, but I've always been impressed by his play and I think I learned a little bit from watching that FT. Nice job.

Rather than slog through FTOPS, most of which wasn't stuff I really wanted to play anyway, I just caught up with some friends on Monday and otherwise relaxed this weekend. The only day I played was Sunday, when I put up some nice volume but didn't get anything to show for it other than a couple of deep runs.

I *am* playing a bunch today, though, probably from the afternoon shift on. In addition, FTP came through and sent me the entire hand history from FTOPS 1, which features me playing in a totally different style that's going to make some awesome videos.

Oh, and I also finally bought the plane tickets for Vegas...meaning I officially leave in 15 days. wheeeee.