Yep, I got here Thursday night. Thought about playing some cash to spend a couple of hours Thursday but the wait list at Venetian was like 40 people, and I wanted to try to get some sleep, so I didn’t bother waiting until midnight to sit down.
Yesterday we started a bit after 10 am. While there were 2,000 Golden Passports given out, only about 1,450 people sat down at the tables. (Which we all expected to happen.)
My first table had some people who were playing pretty good and one blowhard, kept blathering about random stuff and complaining that he had to win his seat by winning some smaller tournament online and there were a bunch of randoms who just “signed up on a list somewhere”. But people apparently knew him, various people called him by name a couple of times. “Mike”. It wasn’t until the director started making announcements of ‘notable’ players that he called out Mike Matusow and it was the same blowhard! And apparently last year’s champion (Dan Sepiol) was also at my table. [I had to look him up later, but yeah, he won that seat by winning last year’s 10k WPT championship main event]
Phil Ivey got knocked out within the first 100 eliminations. That was kind of surprising.
Played well, I thought. I took a sizeable pot from Matusow with a Kh6h flush in the BB. KK three times in the first several orbits at that table, and managed to accumulate a chip lead at the table. Knocked out the guy to my left with AK over his AQ.
We move tables and I get sat at Brad Owen’s table! Nice. He’s and several people have short stacks with about 14-15 BB, I’m big stack with about 120 BB. He goes all in against another small stack at something like 16 BB, the other wins and Brad goes down to 2.
He subsequently manages to win 3 all-in flips over the next 2 orbits and run it back up to something reasonable, then can play a little bit more.
I’ve got AA, guy to my right has a short stack, maybe 15 BB. He raises small, and I make it 3x his bet, hoping he’ll go all-in. It’s a good price, but he lays it down. If I’d made it 2x I think he would have done it.
Twice a short stack goes all-in and I cover, and they end up winning the flip. One was A4 for them versus A6 for me, a 4 came on the flop. The other I think I was a little tilted and called lighter than I should, should have just let him have the blinds.
I overplayed JJ once, going all-in pre, thinking, “I’m the big stack, I’m just going to steal these blinds and if one of those short stacks wants to gamble, I’m covering them by a lot.” Turns out, Brad had AA and ripped it in. I couldn’t crack them, so he basically took all my chips, leaving me with just enough to hang on through three more hands to get into the money.
Ended up busting out soon after the bubble burst, along with a couple hundred others for a $1k payout. Not what I planned for, pays for the trip and some good learning experience.
They also have a consolation drum for everyone who gets in the money (503 players) and busts before the final table (9). There are 100 seats to the $10k main event, so you pull an envelope and open it on camera. While waiting in line for that with all the rest of the first losers, some dude pulls a ticket. Yay! Applause all around. Next guy doesn’t get one. Then the dude after him, right in front of me, pulls one. Yay! Applause all around. Then me, and I actually pull one too! So now I’m playing in the $10k Main Event. TODAY.
