The Bat Cave

It’s pretty amazing that this is something I’m able to do. Play the World Series of Poker Main Event? It’s my second year playing it and I feel like I’m already taking the opportunity for granted. Today feels just like another day, but maybe that will change when I actually sit down at the table.

I’m playing Day 1A. I’m not sure what to make of that. I imagine that Day 1C is the best day to play. For one, July 4th is tomorrow and for two, Day 1C is a Friday. I imagine that people that have day jobs are far more likely to plan their trip around a Day 1 starting on a Friday than a Day 1 starting on a Wednesday. I think Day 1A is historically the smallest of the fields.

Oh well. My strategy with playing today is that if things go horribly I can book a flight home and be back in Washington instead of prolonging my trip for no good reason. If I make it to Day 2, I will be playing again on Saturday and will have the next two days off to do whatever I want.

Since busting the $1500 LHE event, I’ve played two cash game sessions with relatively breakeven results. Most notably, I finally got the Orleans out of the lifetime red, but I played my first ever session at Wynn and booked a $1k loser, which is amusingly big enough to put it in my bottom five locations of all-time!

Info on today’s structure:

We start with 60,000 in chips, or 300 big blinds, which is 10k more in chips than last year but actually smaller effective stacks. Not that it matters much. If you can maintain a starting stack all day, you’d start Day 2 with 75 big blinds.

I’ll be taking it super easy and abc for the first level or so, as I build profiles on my opponents and see what I’m dealing with, before moving on to a more exploitative approach as the day progresses.

I had really favorable table draws my first two days last year so hopefully I can continue that streak today.

Cards in the air at noon. I’ll post stack updates here on breaks and, as usual, maybe a key pot or two, but my focus is going to be on paying attention when I’m not in hands.

Jack Effel and John Cynn about to kick things off.

Names at my starting table I’ve sniped: Sergei Kislinskii, Dustin An (from Seattle!), Samuel Gagnon (I think), Austin Lewis, and Steve Gee (9th in the 2012 Main and 24th in the 2013 Main!), Jakub Wojtas

First Break

I don’t think I have a great table. Everyone seems competent and the two most active players are on my direct left.

Fortunately, I already put a dent in Steve Gee’s stack when I played a 3-bet pot in position with QJo and got the KT639 runout and he paid off a sizable river bet.

95,000

Dinner Break

75,400

Restart at 5 pm, or whenever I wake back up.

Three More Hours

Couple of dumb hands have prevented me from chipping up.

I had 33 vs 54 on 543 and he escaped with a 2-6 runout for a chop.

Then I had 86ss on 995hhs77 vs A7o. Obv he check-raised me on the flop with total air, I hit my gin card vs someone that had nothing and still can’t win at showdown.

Pretty cool.

75,000

One Hour Left

Other than the hands I noted earlier – and one I botched before that – I’ve been running pretty good today. I’ve had AA four times and I haven’t lost with them and I’ve gotten some form of action every time.

One hour left in the day before we bag for Day 2.

97,300

End of Day

Bagged up 56k. Lost a dumb one with two hands left. Probably leveled myself in a button vs blind with bags looming situation and overvalued my hand to lose the max.

Welp, I could have registered on Saturday and started with 60k. Oh well. Let’s hope my table draw on Day 2 is better because it sure sucked today.

Day 2 is not until Saturday at 11 AM.