The rebuy results = pretty uneventful. I busted 370-ish out of 1000 after misplaying a hand, but in retrospect it was a pretty tough spot to avoid. I also had two major suckouts - one QQ > AA during the rebuy period that meant I was in for the minimum 4K, and one AK > KK hand to double through Marc Karam in a big pot (mind you, I already busted him in razz once) - so, once again, I can't really complain. I used a voice recorder for key hands (for both this and the 1500) and will be putting everything down as soon as I'm done with the limit shootout. Sneak preview: David Williams and Mark Seif both play weird, Shannon Elizabeth is a tiltbox, and I'm stealing so many lines from Jordan Morgan it's not even funny.

To add things up, my total this summer is 2 cashes in 13 big live tourneys with 2 to play (the main event and the shootout tomorrow), 3 day 2's, and a bunch of (probably 5 or 6) dinner breaks. It's not what I was hoping for, but on the other hand, I feel like I ran cold enough in enough critical spots [losing that gigantic coinflip in the 6 max event alone was probably worth 15-20 thousand bucks] that, if/when everything evens out long term, I'm a huge favorite in these things. When all is said and done, I get money back from my backers, and I add up the taxi rides, plane tickets, extra rent, etc., this will probably add up to be a relatively expensive vacation, but I've learned enough from this that I feel I'm a much better and more confident player for it, not to mention the contacts. It's going to be worth it in the end (unless I bubble the ME, in which case, look for me high jumping off the Luxor...just kidding), and frankly, I've made enough from poker that this stuff easily fits into the budget.

I play on day 1B (I think it's the 7'th) and Minsun, my wife, gets into Vegas for a week on the night of the 5'th, so essentially, after the LSO I'll be on a several day break from live poker. This is going to be a good time to go over all of my notes, think about hands, sit back and analyze the last month...not to mention have a bunch of fun hanging out with my lover and best friend I haven't seen in a month :) Life is good.

Step 1: Get dealt 66x1, 55x2, 22x1 and no other pairs or AT+ in 4 hours
Step 2: Drift down from 93K at 1/2K to 43K at 2/4K
Step 3: Lose a race
Step 4: Collect a 3.5 buyin payout for finishing 112'th of 3100-odd people

Honestly, I can't complain - this wasn't the worst tourney I've played this WSOP, but I caught my share of breaks on Day 1 to finish where I did. It does suck to run this cold in the important spots, however.

Full report coming when I get a chance to type it out. I'm changing plans and actually playing in the 1K rebuy tomorrow, so this may take a little while.

I skipped Friday's 2K event due largely to lack of sleep, but played in today's 1500 event. Despite starting the day as an alternate 2 hours in (meaning everyone at my table started the tournament with 15 BB) *and* playing mediocre [not that I played that bad on the whole, but a couple of plays definitely made the other guy Sklansky bucks], I actually have a 2x average 93K stack going into Day 2 with 250/3100 or so left. Play bad, get there, I guess.

Big update if/when I busto since I have a ton of hands to post.

Unfortunately, my PC ate the first version of this, so, a quick recap: after not playing yesterday, I decided to play the 5K 6max today. I got from 10K to 4K by winning 2 pots in the first 2 hours, went from 4K to 45K by seeing 2 showdowns and otherwise playing really well for the next 8, then lost a flip for a 70K (ie, top 10 with 180-ish left) stack at 300/600 when the other guy played bad and busted. Sigh.

Vital details: A pretty big nit/calling station mix old guy raises UTG, I reraise AK from the CO (my third reraise in around 3 hours), and the SB, a LAG that I previously thought wasn't that bad, instashoves JJ for 4/5 of my stack and a huge pot. Kxx flop, J turn (though giving me a flush draw), brick river. Exactly one orbit later, a different player raises UTG, MP (a tilting LAG that was clearly looking for a place to shove) shoves 15K, and the same guy, now in the cutoff with a 65K stack, tanks and folds...JJ. Everyone folds and the 15K shovee, of course, shows 98o. Obviously, I must have a looser range than he does, or maybe the smell of losing coinflips is all over me lately. Meh.

I don't want to make this solely into a bad beat post because I had a bunch of other stuff written up, so here's a fun live hand: We're playing 4 handed at 200/400. With a 35K stack, I have a *very* tight image for 6 max and open to 1200 in the SB with K4o. The BB is a middle aged executive who knows a bunch of poker pros and plays ABC, but on the weak tight side. He calls and we see a K Q 8 flop. I bet; he puts in a small raise, something like 2K into a 6K pot. I feel this is a king around 60-80% of the time, but it's hard to fold top pair 4 handed - he can probably have a big draw, and I'm pretty much always seeing a turn regardless. Anyway, I call, check to him on the 5 turn, and he fires out 4.5K into around a 10K pot.

I ask him how much he has left while making sure I'm folding, because now I'm 100% sure I have 3 outs...until he says "8K". When he does, I instantly understand 3 things - he doesn't like his hand vs. me at all because he thinks I'm a nit and is terrified by my flop call, he's leaving himself room to fold, and if I shove right now he is folding things that he has absolutely no business folding. I think about it for a while and go with my read; he takes no more than 10 seconds to fold KJ [yes, TPGK, 4 handed, getting something like 2.5:1.] He asks me what I had for the next half hour, with me always replying I had him beat. If you're reading this, sorry, but there's no way I would ever tell the table I'm capable of turning top pair into a bluff*.

*this move is guaranteed to miserably fail anywhere except live poker. I love live poker. If I could only win coinflips live, I'd be rich.

Today's also known as "the day I played the best hand of my live poker career and have nothing to show for it". Sigh.

There won't be any good tournaments at the Rio until Thursday, but I made it out there anyway to play some satellites. I jumped into a 1K, wound up making it to third place playing 3 hands (and doubling up on one of them), pushbotted 1 hand as the short stack and ran into AK. It's a shame, because the play was even worse than the average 525 has been lately - we made it to 3 handed at 300/600. Wow.

After busting, I was going to just go home but got a phone call from Vivek (Psyduck on 2+2) inviting me to play at the nightly Bellagio 1K at 8 PM. It's not their typical Bellagio Cup-type awesome structure (actually, this one's pretty terrible, with 40 minute levels and some big jumps), but the field turned out to be pretty soft, and except for Iweargoggles from 2+2 (whom I brought along*) one to my left, I felt that this was pretty much the ideal table/tournament for its size [getting ~112 runners for a 40K first place prize.]

*Warning: It turns out the Bellagio seats people sequentially in the order they sign up. This is a very bad thing if your friends are good at poker :(

So, on to the best hand of live poker I've ever played:

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With about 6K at 100/200, I raised 9 8 to 550 in EMP. It folded around to the BB, a 35-ish American guy wearing a beret and looking like an extra from the set of a war movie, who had a penchant for slowplaying big hands - he'd already coldcalled AA twice and bet 300 into a pot of 2000 with a set once. He called, and with 1200 chips in the pot, we saw a Q T 7 flop. As soon as the cards were dealt, he instantly bet 800 into me.

I considered my options. Folding wasn't. Shoving briefly seemed good, but this was the first strong bet from him I'd seen all night, and I felt like he had a big, but vulnerable hand that probably wasn't folding. After about fifteen seconds, I decided I was going to call and mentally chant "jack".

Turn: J . Bingo! He checked, I thought about the pot size/bet size and wound up settling on betting 1500 of my now 4500 chip stack.

He clearly knew he was in trouble and tanked...and tanked...and tanked. For about two minutes, the guy basically thought throuh his options and spoke out loud. "This will be a monster laydown if I make it"..."I can't really call, I have to push or fold"..."This is such a bad board, you can have AK, AQ..."

At this point, he was clearly leaning towards folding and desperate measures were called for. Normally, I try to be as stone faced as possible during a hand, but it was time to Hollywood. "I can tell you don't have AK", I said - "I'll show my hand to the security cams if you want, they'll back me up". If he was thinking on the right level, he would have seen right through this (c'mon, how bad do I want him to call here?), but that just wasn't where he was at, and he...tanked some more.

"Will you show if I fold? I'll show mine." "I'll be honest - no, sorry."

At this point, he called the tournament clock on himself and spent the next minute playing with his chips while I was mentally willing them over the all in line. With exactly 4 seconds to go he...just called. What?

River A. Before I had time to twitch, he instashoved.

@%(@%(@(%(*@%.

As the table cracked up since, of course, it was obvious I didn't have a king and it was now my turn to tank, I thought this through. How could he have gotten there with a king? It could've been the greatest Hollywood job of all time if he had AK, but then the flop bet would be hugely out of character. KQ seemed like the most likely candidate...but would he have spent 5 minutes and called the clock on himself deciding on an action with top pair and a draw? Would he have done this with some kind of K + heart draw combo? Nothing K-related made sense. But why the hell did he love this river so much?

After a minute of this, I made a decision to go with my gut, turned to Iweargoggles, said 'this will either be the greatest or the worst call of all time' and called. Immediately, BB triumphantly spiked his cards on the table as I waited ready to wince and say 'good game'...but wait, no picture on either? What? Aces??? The confused, crushed expression on his face as he saw I actually did have a straight was priceless.

Iweargoggles immediately said "this hand confuses me more than anything I've ever seen." Nobody else at the table could believe it, either. But the fact that nobody even remotely put me on 98, coupled with the fact that I made the right call on an incredibly brutal river, pretty much makes it the best hand I've ever played live.

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So, of course, after being handed a 12K stack at 100/200, I was out half an hour later.

Hand 1: A3o raises UTG+1 for 600 of his 2500 chips, I reraise TT, he instashoves and the first card on the flop is an ace (hmm, I've seen this before). Fine, easy "nice hand" comment/move on, I still have 10K.

Hand 2: I lose 1800 more chips in a blind battle, putting me at 8K.

Hand 3: 10 minutes later, I raise AK to 600 in EP. The BB, the same guy from the A3o hand, makes it 1600 and I, of course, instashove. He could not call any faster with...TT (keep in mind that he is something like 30% against my range in that spot), I brick, and as it turns out, he has me covered by 25 chips.

Yeah, I run really hot these days (in opposite land.)

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On the bright side...when I finally put together a run good streak and play like this, it'll be a really, really easy tournament win.