Phelps, Foxwoods and Hustled by an Old Lady

Flew out to Vegas for some Caesars prelims and Bellagio satellites, which I didn't play for some reason. This was the first time all year I went somewhere and played in a series of tournaments and didn't cash one time.

I had a great time in Vegas but the results were just not there. Hung with Cliff and Rock for a few nights before moving over to MGM Signature, which was really nice.

I was really disappointed with the tournaments because I really felt like I was playing well; I just ran into a couple coolers and couldn't turn things around.

The two losses that I really could have done without were flopping the nuts when I raised in late position with 6-7 suited and the flop came 3-4-5.

The big blind led out; I overpopped, he shoved, I laughed while calling, and when the board paired on the turn and he hit one of his four outs with his two pair to beat me, I thought that at least I'd got the worst beat of the trip out of the way.

That wasn't the case, as I went deep in two other tournies. I made a bad read in the $2k that basically crippled me and I couldn't do anything but grind the short stack for a while before bowing out just shy of the money.

The bad beat was in the $1k, I believe when we were down to four tables. I was playing really well and reraised with aces from the cut-off. The under-the-gun raiser called. Flop fell Q-T-4 rainbow, which was really not that bad of a flop for me.

He checked and I bet out about three-quarters of the pot, which meant I had about 60% of my chips in the pot. In other words I was committed, so when my opponent shoved, I shook my head in disgust as I pushed the rest of my chips into the middle and said that a set was good but I had too many chips in to lay it down now.

Phelps: Completely normal. With the exception of the pterodactyl wingspan.

I was surprised by his response when he said he didn't think I was that strong and he was just trying to push me off a hand. He rolled over the A-K off and I knew I was doomed.

When another four came on the turn I actually started thinking about how many chips I was about to be stacking and how I could really make a run at this thing. When the J fell on the river I knew it was not meant to be.

I hung with Michael Phelps a little bit, and we actually sat at the same table for a while in one of the tournaments. I was shocked by what kind of person he was. Completely normal.

There were some people out there that were saying he was cocky and this and that, and that he had a bad attitude, and that couldn't be further from the truth.

For a kid that has had so much happen to him over the past year, he could not have been more accommodating to the nonstop flow of people that would come up to him. He never said no to a picture, and he actually knows how to play poker pretty well.

He is really a good kid, and I wish nothing but the best for him.

There were a few good nights out, a few great dinners, somehow I ended up buying most of them! ha. I chilled with Matt V. a lot, he is another good kid and we had a pretty good time together.

Will the Thrill is on fire; he just took down the Caesars Heads-Up Championship, and if I had to bet on it I'd say he is due to pop a major tournament or a bracelet by the end of next year.

I have some funny pics from being out - once I figure out how to put them up they are going up. (Rock passed out at the table, Will being Will making everyone laugh, Matt doing some big pimpin'; it was a blast).

I pwned Devo in bar bowling and was immediately repwned in rock/paper/scissors. When Jena lost a best-of-seven to Shelly for the bill I really knew things weren't going my way! Capo's was definitely worth it though; the food kicked ass!

Will the Thrill: On fire.

On to Foxwoods ... ugh. Foxwoods is about a two-hour ride from my house, and I've only been there about three times in my life. Simply, I hate it there.

Nothing changed after this trip. The tournaments there may be run as poorly as I've ever seen in any cardroom anywhere! Depending on the floor person or the dealer, the rules can change up to three times per tournament, which is just not right.

They start at 10 a.m., which was difficult since I was just getting back from Vegas. Nobody seemed to like that though. I crashed with Al R. (aka Wounded Bear), who is going to do big things on the circuit over the next year.

My first tournament was a $600 on Tuesday, and for $600 I learned a lot of valuable lessons.

1) It is normal at Foxwoods to raise in the $25/$50 level to $700, and more importantly than that, you will probably get two calls.

I have played the majority of my poker in Atlantic City over the past few years and I have grown accustomed to how the play is there. Now that I've been to Vegas a bunch I've learned that it's different out there.

Foxwoods is just a whole new world of poker, and I was warned that I would encounter some of the worst poker I had ever seen. I can't really disagree.

Anyway I was down to $1,500 from my starting stack of $5k early in Level 2. I try not to just get the rest of my chips in to get them in and to never give up, but it is hard sometimes.

I told myself that this was going to be a big test to see if I've grown at all.

2) Well I have - I grinded a stack between $1,500/$2,500 for almost four hours. I got the last of my $1,100 in on the last hand of Level 5 and doubled, so I came back from the break with $2,400. By the end of Level 6 I was sitting on $32k!

I was thrilled, and although the accolades from the people at the table that made it through with me were great, I did this for me, to show myself it's never over and I can always come back.

Foxwoods: Home of the 14BB pre-flop raise.

Seventy people got paid in this tournament and we were approaching 100 to go. I know a lot of people think they play perfect or strive to play perfect; well I know I am not even close to perfect. I don't think anyone can play a perfect tournament, but you do your best to minimize mistakes.

Well I made a really bad play, and stacked off with K 7 after I had been playing great, and this was all my fault. At $400/$800 I raised for some reason in early position to $1,950. The big blind reraised to $4,800 and the hand should have been over.

At the time it made sense to call, as there were a variety of flops or situations that I was looking for where I was going to try and steal the pot on the flop, being in position. It made sense at the time, but I do need to work on analyzing the entire situation a little better.

To be clear ... I was not trying to make a hand. My reads have been pretty good lately so I was going to go with it. The K-4-5 two diamonds was not exactly what I was looking for on the flop, and when the blind led out for $5k, I read his bet completely wrong.

It looked to me like a defensive bet that he was making with TT, JJ, QQ, A-Qd. Long story short, I shoved, trying to take down the nice pot there; he had A-K, GG me.

I sat right next to my friend Joe Cutler in the Limit event and we were having some fun betting on every flop, had some surrounding tables laughing, drinking beers at 12:05. It was a fun table, but that eventually came to an end.

Then there was Thursday ... potentially my last day at Foxwoods forever. It all started with a 15-man last-shorter bet. 10 a.m. tourneys require breakfast, and the first person out had to go and take orders, get their car out of valet and drive 15 minutes down the road to Dunkin Donuts.

Not only did I lose with TT to J-9, to be the first person out, but J-9 was in the bet, so I had to take his breakfast order after he knocked me out! I was a pretty good sport about everything even though I was not happy.

Don't sleep on the old ladies - they'll fleece you in a heartbeat.

I took a quick lap around the casino after I got knocked out before I left, when I was approached by a sweet nice little old lady that must have been 75 years old. She wanted to know if I could do her a favor and buy $50 worth of match plays for $20. Sure, why not?

I look at them while I'm going back to take everyone's breakfast order, they expired the day before, LMAO. So I was robbed by a little old lady. That was special.

Stout and a few others were loving the rant I had going telling everyone of my misfortune. It was all in good fun though.

After I got back with breakfast there were like nine of the people in the bet on the rail, which was weird. We knew something good was about to possibly go down because well there is nothing to do at Foxwoods except go to the bar and drink, so a few of us hit the bar, and I lost the first round of credit card roulette.

What a bad day. I was too drunk and tired to drive home that night, so I waited until the morning and got out of there as fast as I could for some Halloween festivities over the weekend. I was a vampire.

I really feel like playing, so there is a good chance I'm going to shoot down to the worst place in the world and play a satellite to get into the main event on Tuesday. We'll see what happens ...

-- Jason Young

Editor's Note: Jason Young came out of nowhere to win a bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker and has taken his newfound bankroll and hit the pro circuit in hopes of building poker into a full-time career.

He'll be posting on his progress in an exclusive series of blogs for PokerListings.com over the next few months.

More blogs from Jason Young:

• Respect, Aruba and Thoughts on Hellmuth
• Lesson Learned
• Life-Changing Year Part 1
• Life-Changing Year Part 2