Took me long enough.

Fortunately, the main reason that I've been too busy to blog is that I've been spending a lot of long days at the Rio ... even though the final tables and bracelets haven't quite materialized yet.

Here's a quick recap of my first few events:

Event #3: $1,000 NL

Doubled up through my good friend Amanda "Mandy B" Baker early with #KdKs>#JcJ#d, but ended up grinding the shortstack until late in day one.  

Busted during the last level of the day a few hundred short of the money after Joe Sebok ruined my mojo by showing up with a big stack a couple seats to my left and taking over the table.

Event #5: $1,500 NL

Sucked out on my buddy Clint Schaefer A♥ T♦<A♣ Q♠ after I hadn't chipped up from starting stack a few levels into the day, and it started to seem that the only all in pots I was going to win were from my friends!

Stout at the WSOP

 

Went on a huge heater and busted a guy who had A♥ 7♥ against my K♣ K♥ on an A♣ K♠ 4♥ and another who shoved K♦ T♦ against my A♥ K♠ for a ton of chips.  Had 36k at 200/400 from the 4,500 starting stack, and didn't win another significant pot for several hours.

Busted at the tail end of the day relatively close to the money once again.

Event #8: $1,500 NL

Lost a giant pot with KK to a set of 9's early and was down to 1,200 of 4,500 starting chips at 50-100, but as usual refused to give up.

Got lucky a couple times on the short stack and coolered a few people until I had a stack again.

Managed to squeeze into day two with just 17k at 600-1200, but went back and went on a superheater.  

Had over 100k just an hour and forty minutes later after getting up to ~50k and check/insta-calling off my entire stack on the river with A♥ Q♣ on a A♦ 8♠ 6♦ 5♠ 7♣ against a young French-Canadian psycho who I actually thought was European at the time, making the call even easier. Weeeeeeeeee it's fun to be right when you're bluffcatching!

However, the Europeans giveth and the Europeans taketh away.  I ended up having about 130k at 3/6k with 53 players left.  I opened the hijack with A♦ T♦ to 15k and an aggressive British player shoved from the small blind, slightly covering me.
This is probably a fold against most, but a few factors eventually convinced me to make the call. I was *wrong* since he showed J♦ J♠. They held, and I hit the rail 53rd with $9,070 to add to the WSOP buy in fund.

Event #11: $1,500 NL

Yes, really, another $1,500 no limit.  I know, I was getting a little bored with the $1k-1500 NLs at this point, but the schedule is what it is.  Stuff got fun soon after, don't worry.  But for this one I ended up grinding out the almost ubiquitous short stack for most of the day before busting late in the day with A♦ A♠ against a set of 8's.

Event #13: $1,000 NL (::yawn::)

After five days over four events and making dinner break in every one of them, I finally got to go home early on this day! Yea, it's usually supposed to suck in poker when you get an early exit, but I was so tired that I almost didn't mind this one. lol

I'd also like to say RIP to Paul Kitsos, one of the kindest gentlemen ever to grace Atlantic City's poker tables with his presence. You were a true friend, a good man, and will be missed deeply.  ;-(