Back in The Money, Heading back at 4 with 47 others.

Finally!

Shaved off the goatee. Put on my lucky 'slump busting' T-shirt that Squirrel hates....the one with the 'Mad Monkey' on it. That shirt was actually given to me by a fellow poker player.

Got to the Venetian ALMOST on time...a little late. Faded the Table 60 draw. And sit down at a table of complete strangers. Yikes! Literally not ONE person I have ever seen in my life. Win the first hand I'm in, a decent one that got me up to about 15k...then it was all downhill from there...for about 7 hours!

It was one of those tables where every time you raised it was called in 5 or 6 places. So post flop, you were kind of just lettin her rip every time. If I hit the flop and bet...there was always a floater...floating SOMEthing...flush draw, straight draw, middle pair looking to improve. SOMETHING. Or miss the flop and try to C-bet in last position and get re-popped huge. It was a brutal 5 hours. And meanwhile, I am watching some of the stupidest plays taking place. People flopping the nuts, check-raising WAY too much, but STILL getting action. I had two or three players at my table who got stacked when they managed SOMEHOW to get all their chips in with (a)top pair with only a 'decent' kicker (b) middle pair! (c) over pair with a obvious flush and/or straight on the board.

Favorite hand of the day. I get moved (for the 3rd time) to this table of (again) total strangers. This lady has about 90k when the average was only 22k. The blinds are 600/1200. She raises to 3500. It comes around to the guy on my right, and he makes it 12,000. Back to her. She puts 1200 out. Dealer looks at her like, UM....Ma'am? Its 12k!!?? She flips out! "You said 1200!" Well, lets review here. Since her raise was 2300, the MINIMUM he could have put out there was 4800. So how 1200 is even possible is beyond anyone with half a brain, let alone a full one. So she insists on having the floor called. Floor comes over, it gets explained, floor does a fabulous job of NOT calling her a retard...then she has the option of either leaving the 1200 out and folding (best option for her at this juncture) or calling the remaining 10,800. So she tells the dealer "I am going to call, but only because I am mad at you!" Good reason lady. Very smart. I mean, we are only playing for $68,000 here. No biggie.

Flop comes all rags. And this guy to my left, I have to give him a lot of credit, he played three hands yesterday VERY well. Hands that saw him get chipped up BIG through bad players. On this flop he checks to her. She also checks. THe turn is an 8. Board is now 2-4-6-8, no flush draw. He says "ALL IN" for I shit you not, 32k! SHE SNAP CALLS. He turns over QQ...she has, ahem....ya ready? AJ offsuit. No ace on the river. She then donks off the rest of her chips with AQ vs. AA. And poof she was gone.

At level 7 I was sitting on 4500. It was looking like one of those days where I just sat there getting NO cards, and the ones I did get lose with. Then it started. I get AK, I have Glenn "Ratchet" on my right. UTG and with him in the BB I go all in with it and get no callers. Okay, that helps. Get a walk in my BB for a back to back pull. Then two orbits later, and with 5800 I get AK UTG again. This table is maniacal, so I figure a raise will be stupid. I would rather just shove and hope for only ONE caller max. I shove with it. Guy with 88 calls and another guy with 99 folds. (dammit) I turn a K and have my first double up of the day.

Later, at the 4th table of the day, a guy would shove all in for 9k and I would look down at KK. He had 99. I flop a K and somehow fade whatever outs he needed to clip me. Then with about 58k in chips I pick up KK UTG. Yeah, Kings were kind of 'my hand' yesterday. Sitting on my right, in the BB was a guy from Ireland who, if I'm not mistaken, would have liked to see me hanging from the doorway of the Venetian. I was about half way into my Aderol XR, chatting my brains out, and had this guy ready to claw my tongue out of my face and eat it. At one point he called the floor over. They arrived....

Yes sir what is it? "This guy will NOT stop talking! He's loud, and just nonstop and its driving me CRAZY!" Floor: Has he done anything offensive? Said anything offensive? Berated you in any way? "No, hes been perfectly fine, friendly in fact to everyone, but he just wont stop talking! Can't you make him be quiet?!!!" Floor: Sorry sir, unless he is breaking rules or offending people he is entitled to talk all he wants. Even after that I attempted to befriend him. We were both drinking Perrier, at one point I even got him to 'toast me' with our Perriers. I don't think the guy was a jerk at all, in fact we knew a lot of the same people and even discussed strategy at one juncture. Pretty sure he respected my game. He was just one of those players who was very easy to unnerve, and I decided it was a good ploy to get him rattled.

On an earlier hand this player who kept shoving all in would shove again...and I looked down at 10-10. Those damn tens again. I called his 14k shove, sitting on 38k in chips and the blinds at 500/1000 it seemed like an okay call there. I had earlier laid down A10 and KJ to the same clown, just not liking the price I was paying on a coinflip. This time he would turn over A3. Nothing on the flop. Nothing on the turn. And when a damn A hit the river I got a little silent and went into my Ipod wearing 'zone' to which the guy on my left accused me of going on tilt. Pffft. Not at all. In fact, I just re-centered myself and dug in for a comeback.

So when I raised to 5500 (from 800/1600) from UTG with KK, I got a re-raise to 15k from the guy in 4th Position, a guy who had been re-raising a lot with bad aces and middle pairs. My buddy in the BB, now sporting earplugs, went all in for his last 13k. Betting was still open, and I re-raised another 25k. Now this might have told this other guy I had AA or KK...but he didn't care, because he had the ALWAYS AUTOMATIC (online at least) AK. Offsuit. All in boy had A-10. I had to KIND of like my chances. This is where the ten seat announces "I folded a K." Thanks partner. Always love THAT. The flop produced no help. The turn actually gave me a CLUB draw...so no they were drawing to ONE out. NOPE! HUGE pot for the Monkey, put me up to around 100k.

The time it took to get from 100 players to 81 was long and excruciating, made all the more long and painful by one player in particular. This old guy who was doing the 'delay of game' tactic to attempt to get in the money. It was ridiculous. On the break I worked out various saves with guys, would end up having 5% with three guys, and then entered a 15% POOL save with a couple others. Could create a few headaches if I go back and win today, but I'm actually more excited about it since of the four in the 15% save pool I think we are ALL still alive, with me having the most chips.

This Human Rain Delay was making us ALL nuts. He makes perhaps the stupidest play I think I've ever seen, three from the money. Blinds are 2k/4k. He has like 22k. He raises to 12k. The BB calls him. The flop comes 10-high. BB bets out 10k. The guy folds! WTF? And here I am (and everyone else at the table) thinking he had AA. Nice play sir. We are hand-for-hand and he is about to be in the BB. I have already announced that I am raising him with ATC. But before I can do that, someone on another table busted out on the bubble. SHIT! So that signaled the re-draw. Old moron not only makes the money but is spared the Big Blind. What a joke. How do some people get SO lucky?

We re-draw. I get a pretty good table draw. I am on my 5th glass of Pinot Noir. I now order the ceremonial In the Money Red Snappers, about ten of them. I get the tip. The nice guys at Venetian let me do a little ceremonial toast on the microphone, where we drink our Red Snappers and wish everyone luck. It was pretty cool. And they got the recipe correct (of course I DID write it on the waitress' notepad!) so we were able to ENJOY them this time! Made a few new Snapper buddies I think! And the snappers were on, would end up having about 4 before we broke for the night. Towards the end of the night I would make a big play with 77. I noticed our table wasn't doing a lot of raising, just jamming. I am in 2nd position, and sitting there with 115k. The blinds were 5k/10k. The guy on the button had already made plays where he was re-popping early position raisers, so the last thing I wanted to do was raise to 30 or 35k and then have him drill me with a re-raise. So what? I fold and leave 75k behind?

The weird spot here is the money. They still haven't flattened out the payouts, so litereally, if you cashed ($340 buy in) you made $397. That is a joke. The next three pay tiers also sucked. You really have to make the Final Table to realize ANY kind of satisfaction in this tourney. I REALLY hope they get this fixed ASAP. All the players are disgusted about it. It continues to be THE ONLY bad thing about the Venetian tourneys. So I am in a spot where I really don't care if I bust, I mean I CARE...but if I have to bust, let it be last night, when I can come back and play at noon. I prefer to try and get a NICE stack so when I DO come back I actually have a legit chance at Final Tabling. So I make the decision to go ahead and shove it all in.

Well, re-raise boy decides to tank for awhile. I do a little posturing. He has around 475k. I am telling him he has to call. I really don't know if I want him to or not. But with as much time as he is taking I am now putting him on like AQ. He DOES finally call, and has, well AJ, off suit. Interesting call for a third of his stack. I manage to fade the overs, and now my railbird posse gets quite excited. I rake a huge pot. I win a couple small ones to close out the night with 251k in chips. We have 47 players remaining and the average is now around 213k, so I am in decent shape heading back.

I am going to go spend a few hours at the pool, read my almost concluded book, and head back at 4pm to hopefully finally make a decent score on this trip. I have to win something good! These Main Event megas are coming up, and I have to either win one of those or find someone who wants to put up 10k to back me in the Main Event. I HAVE GOT TO PLAY the Main Event. That structure is amazing. If it means playing for 30 or 35% through someone, so be it. But win today and I won't even have to worry about it.

Hopefully things break right for me today.

Married Monkey (Day 3)