Last year Reno was the biggest tournament result of my life, and it remains so. Having it around the corner got me excited and ready to play. There was no way I was missing this one.

I booked my flight for Sunday night, planning on playing a satellite early on Monday, buying in if I busted and then spending the rest of the day doing some fun stuff around the hotel.

Even though Reno is not a city I look forward to spending time in, the Grand Sierra Hotel in Reno is actually a very nice hotel. It has plenty of fun stuff to do, which is great for me since I usually try not to think about poker the day before the big tournaments (unless I'm playing a satellite).

Last year I spent the day before the tournament playing miniature golf and took a dive off one of those insanely high superman swings. That helped clear my mind the day before and I think it helped me stay focused for the tournament, which eventually I would take second in for over $350,000. This year I wanted to do one better, and actually win it.

I woke up on Monday and went to the satellite area to play an $800 single-table satty. I paid for my seat and after 10 minutes five people had bought in. Out of nowhere, the tournament director gives us our money back and tells us they weren't going to wait for 10 people to sign up - apparently they really wanted to run their $100 sit-and-gos instead.

J.C. living the good life last year: A liitle mini-golf, a little superman swing, and next thing you know you're taking home $350k.

If I'm buying in for a tourney on my own I usually like to take one stab at getting in for 10% of the buy-in. Unfortunately this time the guys in charge weren't patient enough to wait for the seats to fill and I had to fork over the $7,500 buy-in.

Once I registered for the tourney I went to the golf simulators they have down stairs - those things are awesome. I've only played golf once but I decided to give this a shot with my friend.

I obviously crushed him. After playing 9 holes I ended up scoring +44 and he only had +12 or something. Turns out I'm a natural. Right?

After that we went up to a party the WPT was holding. They were airing last year's Reno final table and this year's first show of the new WPT season on GSN. I got there late and missed watching mine. I'm not going to lie: I kind of wanted to be there while I was onscreen so I could pretend to be famous for an hour or two.

When we got there the party was pretty empty. I'm sure my terrible play during that final table must have scared some people away.

I got to sleep at the time I wanted, woke up, went to the gym, showered and ate breakfast. If that's not a perfect way to start the day of a big tourney, I don't know what is.

Umm, what happened to the soft field?

The good feeling I had didn't take long to fade when I first sat down at the table and saw Jonathan Little was the only other player there. Then Chau Giang takes a seat; then David Levy.

I remember making a joke, saying something like "Well at least all the good players got seated to my right," and immediately after that I see David "The Dragon" Pham sit down on my left. I thought he was joking at first, then realized that was not the case. WTF?

The only reason I loved the Reno tourney last year was because the field was so unbelievably soft - what happened here? As play started there was still an empty seat at the table. I knew it wasn't reserved for a bad player, because the fish usually get there early.

Sure enough, Tuan Le strolls in and fills the empty seat. So out of the nine players at the table we had six WPT final-table players, and Captain Tom (I'm too lazy to look up his results, but he was there too).

It turns out the tournament staff in Reno royally screwed this one up. The seat assignments weren't random. Instead, they pretty much put all the satellite winners and early registrations on one side of the room and all of the direct buys on the other side.

When I looked at the tables surrounding mine I saw: J.C. Tran, Grinder, Greg Mueller, Matusow, Ivey and all the online names, amongst other big players. However, if I stood up and walked past my half of the room, I wouldn't recognize a face for the most part. It was a very bizarre image to take in.

Most of the tournament pros know your starting table in a tournament usually has a pretty heavy bearing on your results. So it wasn't a surprise when I took off my headphones to hear Mike and Mueller furiously arguing with the tournament director.

The Dragon: Straight-up beast.

Hypothetically, if they would have told us they were making the pros play on the same tables, a lot of us wouldn't have traveled out there and bought in - it's just not very profitable.

The funny thing about that situation is the amateurs actually want to play with the pros. But I guess we're pros and can't complain when we have to play against the best.

However, I was still pretty damn pissed I had David Pham to my left. If there was any doubt in my mind he was the best "big-buy-in" live tournament player in the world, that doubt was far gone by the end of the first two levels.

David Pham is a straight-up beast, and I don't think anyone who has played with him for over four hours can argue that; he just tortures people. He is, of course, at the final table of this tournament for the second time in a row, and I would like to congratulate him on that.

I didn't get to talk much poker in this part but stay tuned for next week. I will talk about Pham slapping me around the entire time we sat together, about my table change from one death table to the next, and I'll add some fun hands along the way.

-- J.C. (www.JCAlvarado.com)

More blogs from J.C. Alvarado:

• Reno Part 2: Exit Juan Carlos
• Traveling and Hating It
• I'm Back
• Fine Line Between Flat Busto and Filthy Rich