Hello gentle people. Let's pick it up where I left you: with my 13th-place finish in the Festa al Lago $5,000 event at Bellagio.

There was not a lot of time to grieve about the disappointment of the $5,000 event, because there was another big event I was really looking forward to: the $15k Festa al Lago main event.

I wanted to win this event so bad that I wasn't playing my best game. In fact, I was disgusted by my own play: I was limping when I should have been raising, I was calling when I should have been folding. So I busted out on Day 1.

There is absolutely nothing or nobody other than myself to blame for this poor performance in the Festa al Lago main event. I just think I focused too much on winning, while I should have been focusing on just playing my A game.

But the good thing in poker is: There is always tomorrow.

At Caesars Palace the annual Caesars Classic was being held, so I decided to have a look and see if there were any events to my liking. To my surprise, there was a Heads-Up event. I consider myself a not too bad heads-up player, so I coughed up the $1,000 buy-in along with 127 others.

Again, this field of players was packed with pros as well - I saw almost all the players that busted out at the Bellagio playing this event :-).

There were two matches per table, so the dealers took seat three and seat eight. The players in one match took seats one and four and the players in the other took seats seven and 10.

I played my first match against an unknown player - I assumed it was an amateur player, because nobody knew him. That first match was not very special - I just won well before the others had finished, so I had some time to relax.

Round 1 had started at 12 o'clock, and round 2 would start at 3 o'clock. So that gave me sufficient time to wander a bit and grab a bite and be on time for my next match.

In my next round I saw the guy that just played Jeff Madsen, so apparently he busted him. The tournament was reasonably deep-stacked (we started with 100 big blinds and 30-minute levels), so it wasn't a crapshoot or anything.

I knew my next opponent could play a fair deal of cards or just have a sick run of cards, so I approached with caution. As we started our match he was talking and chatting that he liked playing so much etc. etc. (By the way, his name was Daniel Pentelute).

Early on in the match I took a small chip lead. Pretty soon he raised from the button, I reraised, he shoved and I had the easiest call possible: I held pocket aces.

The board brought no help to my opponent, so I eliminated him and secured my position in the last 32 players. (Last 32 players were in the money.)

So I was guaranteed a payout. I finished my match within the hour, and the next match would not start before 6 p.m. Luckily I knew of a friend who had a room there. He was kind enough to lend me his room, so I could kick my legs up and watch some TV and rest a bit.

In my next match I had to play Luke Staudenmaier (third-place finisher in the Bellagio Cup WPT, held earlier this year). This match was set to be my toughest match of the day so far.

At the $200/$400 blind level though, Luke got a bit impatient and started pushing his hands. I just remained calm and picked my spots carefully.

When he had $4,000 in chips left he moved in and I made the call with A♣ 8♣; Luke held Q-8 and caught a queen on the flop, so he doubled up. I still had a chip lead over him, so there was no reason to start panicking yet.

No reason to panic.

Soon thereafter I made top pair on a board with two hearts when Luke moved all-in on me. I figured him to be on a flush draw and I was right. He got no help and I progressed to the "Sweet 16."

My next match was against a gentleman named Gerhard Scheiber. I had watched him play because in my match against Luke we had sat at the same table as him.

I noticed that he was pushing pretty liberally, and I decided to take advantage of that as soon as I could. That worked like a charm - I eliminated him in about 15 minutes.

The next few matches, the "Elite 8," would be played the next day (Oct. 25). I will tell about the conclusion of this whole adventure in my next blog, so I leave you with a cliffhanger here :-P.

Take care ...

-- Steve Wong

More blogs from Steve Wong:

• WPT Festa al Lago: Just Cruel
• Don't Be the Table Professor
• Automated Tables: Huge Upside for Players
• Egg-Shaped Losers Driving Women from Poker