WSOP 2007 – Day 2

Yesterday was day 2B of the World Series of Poker main event, which was day 1C and 1D combined.  My account of what happened follows.

Well, I’m starting the day with only 32,300 in chips. The average is supposed to be around 51,000. That means I have a lot of work in front of me.

We started at noon again and I managed to get a table with no recognizable pro players. There were a few soft spots and an Asian guy across from me that was the most aggressive at the table.  I played solid today and increased my chips all the way to over 80,000.

I look around and Carlos Mortensen is playing on the table to my right with a bunch of chips. Behind me is Allen Cunningham at the next table. He doesn’t have a lot of chips. I know Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen are also still here somewhere.

One one hand, I was trying to trap the agressive player across from me with pocket Jacks. In hind sight, I was in the small blind and should have just re-raised after his usual raise and probably taken down the pot. Instead, I saw the flop with a King and check raised him for 12,000 and he called. On the turn, nothing changed and if I had the balls, I should have bet or even gone all-in and taken down the pot. Instead, I checked and he went all-in, and of course, I couldn’t call. I lost over 15,500 chips on that hand. I totally misplayed this hand badly. Sucks.

Round 7 ended with 68,400 chips for me. A good round even after losing all those chips.

Round 8 started with me having established a really good tight player image. That’s important if you want to steal. One one key hand, the guy on my right raised in early position and I woke up with pocket 9s. Normally, I would put him on a big hand and muck. But because of my image, I re-raised him and he asked, “Do you have Jacks?” This told me that he probably had pocket 10s. Eventually, he folded his hand but he kept asking about it.

The lesson here is the 2 most important things in poker are position and table image. You have to know what the other players think of your table image.

Round 8 ended with 83,100. A very good round for me.

In round 9, I was involved in some big hands.

One big hand was A-K <club> under the gun (first to act after the button). I had established myself enough to the players at the table to create the illusion that I had a huge hand by just limping in. Of course, A-K is big but normally, I would not limp with it. Basically, I was representing pocket rockets (Aces) or Kings.

Everybody folds to the button who raises. This guy was a loud guy from Miami. At first, I was going to re-pop him right there, but since he knew where I was limping from, he might actually have a big hand so I just called 16,000.

The flop brought nothing for me. Just a Q and rags on the board. I check, and Miami only bets 10,000.  If this guy was a pro, I would throw this hand away immediately. But I felt Miami was playing badly all night so I raised it to 30,000 and he showed me his pocket 10s and folded.  Nice.

Soon after, Miami busted out on tilt.

At 10:06pm, I have 84,700. Doing fairly well.

Next, the player on my right was getting short stacked and I knew he was getting ready to go all-in.  On the first try, he goes all-in for 10,000 and had A-4 offsuit and I had A-8 offsuit. I’m 54% against his 24% with a 21% chance of a tie. He flops a 4 and wins. I’m not very happy about that suck out.

The second time, he goes all-in again with about 10,000 with A-5 offsuit against my pocket 8s. It’s not like I’m targeting this guy for a knockout but I kept getting hands exactly when he went all-in.  This time, it’s 69% to 30% in my favor.  But he flops the Ace and he’s still alive. I just couldn’t knock this guy out.

After these failed attempts at knocking out my first player, I end the round with only 66,300.  Those attempted knockouts hurt me but that’s the point of a tournament. You have to get rid of players or they will come back like bugs.

Round 10 was relatively uneventful, as I accumulated chips the old fasioned way. I stole the blinds. I ended the round at 76,100.

This day, we are only doing 1 hour 20 minutes of round 11 and ending the session because day 2A (which was the combination of day 1A and day 1B) fell to 350 people so they stopped their round 11 in the middle yesterday.

This last round was bad for me. First, I get moved to a new table and poker pro and WPT Player of the Year, J.C. Tran is the table captain there. Not only that, there is only one soft spot on my right and everybody has chips, except for one guy who is the short stack.

Because of the short stack, it’s very difficult to try to steal. Not only that but Tran is raising every other hand. Boy, this is going to be hard. The table that you get by random chance can make or break your tournament.

On one hand, I get A-J and raise. One of the tightest player at the table makes it 30,000 to go. A crazy overbet. Of course, I fold and he shows his Aces. I guess he didn’t want to play the hand.

On one big hand that I wasn’t involved in, Tran raises and the guy on my right re-raise and Tran just calls. The flop is all low cards and they both end up all-in. Actually, Tran is all-in because he has less chips. They turn over their cards and Tran trapped with pocket Aces and the other guy has pocket Kings and the Aces hold up and Tran doubles up to nearly 200,000. He’s the last guy I want to have chips.

I steadily lose chips to the blinds and ante which are 1,200-2400 and 300 and end the round at only 66,400. Thank goodness they cut the round short because I don’t think I could have lasted much longer there.

Day 3 is on Thursday with both 2A and 2B combining to one. I really need to do well on day 3.