So I'm finally ready to stop writing about poker and actually start playing poker. The schedule is cleared, the reservations have been made and the bags are almost packed. I am scheduled to take the wife and kids to the airport tomorrow am (they are going to North Carolina to visit some old friends), drop the big car back off at the house and take my car to Vegas. I just downloaded a month's worth of podcasts for pokerwire and rounders to get me in the mood while I spend 5 hours or so in the car from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The first WSOP tournament I plan on playing is Thursday's NL tournament which leaves me one night and one full day to play some warm-up events. Haven't played any poker in a few months so I probably need to work off the rust. I'll head over to the Rio once I get into town and check out the differences between this year and last year. I'll probably play a few sats and try to hook up with Adanthar, Nate, Shaniac, Rizen and some other guys.

On Wednesday I'm planning on playing the deep stack tournament at the Venetian. I think it's a $330 buy-in which should be a nice, no-pressure environment to test a few new changes to my game that I intend on implementing. More on that later.

Okay, off to bed, but I promise to keep detailed accounts over the next week or so of my journey!

- S

There was an interesting post over at 2plus2 discussing a laydown by Chris Moneymaker in Event #3. The action goes like this:

"Chris Moneymaker makes it 1,500 under the gun. Mike Banducci in late position re-raises to 6,200. The small blind goes all in for 24,000 and the big blind also goes all in for his last 8,100. Moneymaker and Banducci both fold. The small blind has 5d5s and the big blind has AdKd and the board is Js 7s 8h 2h 3s. Moneymaker said after the hand that he folded kings. "

The thread can be found here.

Some people could not believe that there is ever a reason to lay down KK PF. Others were not as sure and felt it was a reasonable laydown. I can see folding this hand. I think it all comes down to your read on the BB. Banducci's range is fairly large here -- let's say AQ/AK, most pairs and perhaps even other big cards. Now the SB can also have many hands that KK would like to see like AK, 88-QQ. This is especially true if he's an aggressive player and is putting on a squeeze.

So it all comes down to the read on the BB. Given the action in front of him, what hand does he need to have to make this move. Definitely AA, likely KK. Does he do it with anything less? If he wants to gamble perhaps he does it with AK. I doubt it if he does it will QQ/JJ but maybe some guys do. He likely doesn't have KK given that CM had it. So the question is does he have AK or QQ or does he have AA? It's a tough call. he almost definitely has one of those 3 hands... right? So you are counting on him not having AA and instead having AK or QQ. Hmmm....