On to Day Three!!!!

I regret to inform you guys that there will be no pictures today. I know, I know...a lot of you beasts are very 'picture oriented' and I have tried to be a lot better about plugging in lots of photos lately. But (a) I just don't have any today and (b) its a day off and I really want to just update you guys real quick then hit the pool for about three hours and try to reclaim my Vegas tan!

What we have here is a 'shot in the dark' right Duke? [Dwyte Pilgrim]

I'm coming off of 8 hrs of sleep and feeling awesome. Yesterday was as mentally draining as any tourney I've played in the last year.

Before I go any further I want to thank Matt Stroud and Scott Arents...for their incredible efforts to dig deeper into my table draw and provide me with valuable information on the players at my table on both Day 2 and coming up on Day 3. I'm pretty sure not many other players have the benefit of blog readers and/or Facebook friends providing them this information on the fly...and I really want to say a big THANK YOU to them!!!

I went into Day 2 with a goal of getting my stack from 46k to 100k. I eclipsed that...by 20k...bagging 120k...which more importantly, is 75 bb's when we go back. A lot of people get wrapped up in the amount of chips they have...looking at the leaderboard and feeling like they have to catch the guy with 500k. Screw that. The structure in the Main Event is the best on the planet...and the main reason I always felt like I could cash this tourney easier than any other tourney on Earth. Even Vanessa Rousso, who bagged only 41k yesterday, still has a great chance to cash...because she is good enough to realize that she has ZERO reason to panic. At 800/1600 when we go back, she has plenty of time (and skill) to crawl back in. 

Sure...all the guys with 400-500k will be the talk of the WSOP media and other players. That's just fine. The only time I want them talking about me is when we are down to 3 tables. I would hate to have 500k right now and have everyone penciling me in for the final table. That kind of pressure sucks. Nope...just wanna linger in the top 20 or 30% in chips...get in the money...and do work from there.

Yesterday...wow. What a day. The table I started at was so soft it was hard to believe...and filled with shortstacks. On the second hand of the day...a guy raised early...light, and with another caller, I decided to complete in the BB with 4d6d. The miracle flop came 4-4-2. By the time the turn brought a 10 and the river an ace (the money card) I had won a $30k pot of the guy with...I suspect AQ or something. Never saw his hand. Then I lose 7k right back to this nice old man on my left...me A10, him AJ on an ace board.

That first table was filled with really nice guys...we had a lot of fun banter also. Everyone was playing quickly...it was a polar opposite of my 2nd table. 

Charles Norris...another nice guy from N.C. stuck his last 10k all in at cutoff...a bit of an unnecessary over shove at that point by him..with 97o. I look down at two aces on the button. He wins. With two 9's. Ugh.

On the very next hand...a guy with $22k min raises UTG...and I look down this time at QQ. Oh no. Those damn queens. I reraise him. He thinks about it...and just calls. To his credit, he played this hand perfect. The flop came Jack high...and he checked to me. Of course I was going to bet that flop...and I did...about half his stack...so that when he went all in, I had no choice but to call. ACES. Ouch. And I was getting that all-to-familiar sinking feeling as my chip stack begin to dwindle...falling now to 35k. Oh boy.

But I would recover...picking up a few smaller pots here and there. Getting aces again and having them hold. Getting QQ again and losing...to AA again. It was a real rollercoaster ride, all day really.

Near the end of the second level I got moved to a new table in the Amazon room, taking the place of Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy who had just busted from my new seat assignment. This table was a nightmare. Lots of Euros. Lots of past winners. Very, very good players. But also devoid of ANY personality whatsoever. And lots of hoodies, and big, gigantic glasses. But the worst thing about this table was the number of 10-15 minute hands that were being played. 

The whole session after dinner break was so aggravating I wanted to claw my face off. I mean...everrrrrrry hand was taking an eternity. And it was always he same 4 guys. I was getting suggestions from people on my Facebook to start fucking with them...with some of the ideas being to start going into Tourette's Syndrome mode...spouting off indecipherable rants...or busting out into singing show tunes, or themes from sitcoms and/or gameshows. All great ideas. But the truth of the matter was...I was sitting there...blinding down from 54k all the way to 38k...and slowly getting very tired, from the abundance of shitty cards, to the painstakingly slow play of the table.

I was sitting there cursing Tom Dwan for creating these mutants. With their stupid posturing...and their robotic lifting of the chips...and its slowwwwwwww delivery onto the felt. I think I committed mental homicide about 37 times last night. I will be doing mental life in prison now.

Then it happened. Finally! My patience was rewarded. A couple of raises to 2700...and I wake up with KK in the SB. I re-raise it to 5700..and due to my incredible tightness I assume, both players snap-folded. Thats fine...I needed the 6500 back in my stack.

Then after that I get QQ. Win that one too. Shortly after that...and all of these served up by long-time circuit dealer James...I get JJ. I re-raise the raiser...which I didn't do with QQ...why? Because I run like SHIT with queens, duh! He calls me. I flop a set of jacks! I check. He checks. I bet the turn. He calls. I bet the river...he tanks...like they all did at this table...and finally folds. Dammit. Still a good pot. And so boom...I was back up to 59k and feeling a lot more optimistic.

Now arriving on table Orange 307...dude from another table...with 175k. He liked to play a LOT of hands. I get KK again...in early position. I raise to 2300. This guy re-raises me to 5700. Hmmm. I feel pretty confident from his body language that he does NOT have AA. I'm feeling either AK or QQ. Usually I would just flat the raise there...and try to fade the ace on the flop. But I didn't want to surrender position to him....so I put in a fourth raise...to 12k. Which he called. Just called...again, making AA seem unlikely.

The flop came out 2-3-6...damn good flop for me. And with 31k left in my stack and close to 40k in the pot...I wasn't dicking around. 

'ALL IN'

He tanked....for about 10 minutes...very aggravating...either he had QQ like I thought...or he was doing the biggest Hollywood slowroll ever with AA. In which case...I was probably going to walk over there...put a plastic bag over his big head that was being massaged by one of the girls from the time he sat down (and was grossing me out...as he sat there with this smug look on his face as she rubbed his scalp) and suffocate the life out of him.

He finally decides to call...and I ask if he has QQ? Yep. Queens. I show him my KK...table commends my hand...and somehow, miraculously...unlike every other two-outing fool this summer...he fails to hit a queen on the turn or river. And I had my biggest pot of the summer.

Now that I had chips...I had the freedom to get into a few hands I had been avoiding all day, so I was smooth calling raises with hands like 99, 77, KQ...missing on all of them...but the beauty of my table was that no one was doing a lot of over-raising. at 500/1000 the standard raise was 2300 or so. At 600/1200...it was not much more...2800 was pretty common. That is a sign of good players...unafraid of playing post-flop. So when this solid player from England raised light UTG...I was comfortable flatting on the button with 44. He was playing only 22k behind.

The flop came 4-4-2. Holy shit! He checked. I checked. The turn was a 10. He checked again. So did I. The river brought the money card...the A. He bet out 7500. I min-raised him to 15k. He shoved all in...and I didn't slow roll him like so many other pricks this summer, I just turned over my hand. He took it in very classy manner, and I really did feel bad for the guy. I don't like busting people from the Main Event...because I know that awful feeling of leaving the table with your dreams shattered. I would rather just keep doubling up through big stacks.

I got up to around 130k and decided to just shut it down...only playing top ten hands...which I didn't get any of. I probably could have raised with A3c, A5s and K10c...but I didn't want to run the risk of losing a big pot before the end of the night and messing with my head. I made it a goal to get to 100k by the end of Day 2...and I made it to 120k...and couldn't have left feeling any better. And getting away from that table? THANK GOD! I love my Day 3 table draw, I think. It looks real similar to the one I started with yesterday.

So there ya go. An update without pictures...or anything very funny. Kai busted out right after the first break...he had a rough day...getting his AA cracked by A7d...by what he called 'a fucking Pakistani Rug Salesman' from hell! Then getting it in with 99 vs. AK and losing a flip. But he made it over to Caeser's to play their 2nd day of their Main Event...which drew a huge field. He made it out of Day 1 with almost triple what he started with...and I picked him up right after bagging up my chips. He was over his WSOP bust out by then. We were invited to a party at the Artisan...which is a really cool place off of Sahara, by the WSOP staff...dealers, floor people and the massage girls. And I was excited to go too. But we got to the room and realized how tired we both were...and when Westside Bobby texted me that I wasn't really missing anything great, we decided to call it a night and get some sleep instead.

So that's it. Jason Young just texted me...and has reserved a cabana at the RIO pool for today. So I'm going to go pick him up at Palm's Place...and head over to Rio and hopefully have a day of fun. Back tomorrow at noon for Day 3. Will we get into the money? Tough to say...as there are still about 1800 players remaining with 693 getting paid.

Okay....I'm outa here! Thanks to everyone for your continued support!!!

MONKEY