WPT Foxwoods Main Event Day 1 and 2

Despite the fact that I've played played 4,327,981 tournaments at Foxwoods and cashed in exactly one, I decided to make the trek across country to grind out one more stupid donkament.

After my run in such a tough field at Bellagio and being so close to my first WPT main event final table that I could taste it, I just couldn't talk myself out of playing one of the softest WPT events of the season.

The structure of the event is pretty good when it matters, even though it's a bit fast early on. We start with 30k chips at 50/100 and it's 200/400 (50) by level four, but they don't skip the 2400, 5k, or 10k big blind levels.

My table draw for day one wasn't exactly what I was hoping for in a Foxwoods tournament. It would be a great draw at Bellagio, don't get me wrong, but the field is a LOT different here.

Here's the lineup...

Seat 1 "Miami John" Cernuto/random

Seat 2 Curt Kohlberg

Seat 3 random satelliter/random young kid w lots of chips

Seat 4 Festively Plump Stoner

Seat 5 Adam "Roothlus" Levy

Seat 6 random satelliter/Chad "lilholdem954" Batista

Seat 7 Gordon Eng

Seat 8 "DontBluffMePLZZZ"

Seat 9 Scott "dorinvandy" Dorin (WCOOP $10k winner)

I got up to 35k early when I flopped an ace holding A K against Seat 3's K K, but spent a while slipping afterwards while I couldn't get much going. I slipped down to 20k through a series of second-best hands, which is what I started the last level of the day with (300/600).

During that level I finally started to get it going and picking up a bunch of pots.

Then Seat 3 minraised UTG and flatted my 3.6k three-bet from UTG+1. He overbet jammed nearly 30k on a Q 8 3 flop holding A Q, and I happily accommodated his desire to play a huge pot with my A A.

My chanting for a Queen failed, and I doubled up to ~65k to end day one headed to the 400/800 level.

Poorya loves the booty!

I was pretty happy when I saw my day two table draw, except for Poorya "isuckoutonyou" Nazari (2009 PCA winner) being directly on my left. He's a really nice guy who I've become buddies with, but is also a sicko LAG player who I really didn't want to have position on me.

Little did I know, it wouldn't be him that would be screwing with me at the table. A kid named Matthew Milliken was two seats to my left and wanted to play every pot I entered ... even though I was opening fairly infrequently.

After watching him try to run people over for hours, it made it pretty easy to four-bet jam A Q on him about 50 big blinds deep. A tougher spot came up when I had the exact same hand about 80 big blinds deep against him a level later, and I ended up flatting the three-bet and check-shoving on a A 9 3 flop.

Milliken: I only bet because I thought I had the K with it.

Me: So you're trying to pretend you had a big hand? What...K T?

::he continues to pretend he's not completely full of it::

Eventually they made the table a bit worse by adding Chris Moore three seats to my left and Kathy Liebert to my right. Kathy didn't give me much trouble...except for the part of me that loves occasional silence!

We ended up making a fun prop bet though...Foxwoods puts out miniature (key word!) sandwiches in the afternoon for the players since there's no dinner break. I grabbed one of each; tuna, turkey, and ham.

Silly Kat.

Upon arriving back at the table, Kathy did her normal job of breaking my balls, and bet me that I couldn't finish all three sandwiches before she busted (she had ~25 big blinds). She started the bidding at $1 but I talked her up to $20, which was obviously mine.

Bet a fat man he can't eat three miniature sandwiches? What a fish!!!

It did lead to some interesting situations though...like when someone put her all in and I had to start hounding down that ham and cheese! She folded though, giving me more time to eat and take her money.

Chris played pretty well, but I run too good. He raise-folded on the flop when I had a set of sixes on a A 6 3 in a multi-way raised pot, even though he had almost half of his stack in the pot.

I ended up busting him when my A Q made a full house against his 7 7 after we got it in pre-flop for his last 40k.

I finished the day with 174k going to 1200/2400 (300). The average stack is 156k, 36 places pay, and first place is $910k. It looks like I have a pretty good table draw for tomorrow as well, with Lee Markholt somehow being the only player at the table whose name I recognize.

Hopefully I can find my big jar of rungoodsauce for tomorrow...

Matt Stout