|
So day one of the NAPC was yesterday. I had been quite bored here in canada by myself, there is only so much you can do here in niagara and I was trying to stay away from gambling in the casino, as that could be an expensive passtime. I spent all day tuesday trying to get focused/pumped for the event, when I woke up like at 9 am I booked a massage at the spa. I then went downstairs swam a few laps and excersised a bit. I ordered a healthy breakfast, and watched my first of three movies that _ALWAYS_ get me in the mood for winning, Karate Kid part 1. After Daniel cranekicked the shit out of Kobra Kai dude's face I walked down the hill to the falls, I stared at them for like an hour, it's unbelievable how much you can clear your head just looking at these things, next year I'm going to make sure I get a "fallsview" room at the hotel I stay at.
I then went to the fallsview casino for my massage, I started to recognize faces all over the place, people I've played with a ton in other events, and big pro's just hanging out. I had severe back pain, mostly due to stress/sitting all day/ cold weather and the therapist did an awesome job of releaving that pain, I'm big on massages and had never had a hot stone massage, I recommened it. she kind of combined that with swedish massage and it worked wonders. After that I had use of the spa all day so I stayed an extra hour and a half or so in the steam room, hot tub, sauna, etc....great for relaxing, I might even go do everything again today.
After that I came to the hotel and watched my second movie, "Rudy", this movie gets me every time. I ordered a nice steak dinner, ate, and then went to the Paradise Poker party at the Planet Hollywood. I was only there for like 5 minutes as I picked up my voucher to play the event and some "gear" that I'm probably not going to wear during the tourney.
I then went to the Casino, saw more people I knew, and tried to register for the event, they told me I had to register around 7 am the next day if I wanted day one ...ugh...I decided not to set my alarm and play it by ear, if I woke up on my own in time to register for day 1 I would, if not I'd just play day 2. I went back to the hotel and fell asleep watching my 3rd movie, obviously it was "Rounders" (I've seen all of these movies AT LEAST 20-30 times each...sad....I know.)
I woke up around 7:30 AM and went to register, after I did I went back to the hotel, swam some laps, ate a very good breakfast in contrast to what I did during the wsop ME, and finished watching rounders. I got ready to go and had 1/2 an hour to kill before the even, I went into my bag of newly purchased dvd's and watched an episode of "the office" season 2 just to clear my head from poker for a bit. If there's a funnier show than this (non-cartoon), please let me know, I might be missing something.
Anyway, I started feeling the nerves as I walked into the casino, signed that all too controversial TV release and walked into the room full of tables. I was surprised I didn't see half as many pro's as I thought there would be, maybe they all got day 2.
I didn't want to make this a long blog, but I guess I failed misserably at that, so I'll take a shot at making it longer. The following is a condensed version of my extremely boring first 6 levels, and my unreal 7th level of play in the WPT, I posted this at 4 am on the FCP forums so it is poorly written and not very well thought out, I'm just too lazy to re-write it all, you'll get the picture of how my day went though:
Such a crazy day one for me...Here's kinda what happened, in a nutshell :
Start off the day at table 3 with no one I recognize, which isn't something I'm really happy about as I'd rather play a table with better opponents usually. Blinds start out at 25/25 so I figured I'd limp a bunch, but right from the start the standard raise was 200-250 (wtf?)...probably the most interesting pot of the tourney went down at the 1st level, and luckily I wasn't involved. "bodog" kid limps utg (maybe he was bb and called the raise) MP makes it 200, mp2 calls, button calls, bodog kid calls. Flop Q92r bodog checks, raisor makes it 600, MP2 makes it 1600, button calls, bodog dude makes it 4500 out of like 26k, OR calls the 4500, MP2 shoves in and has bodog dude covered, button thinks for like 2 minutes and folds, bodog kid call, OR folds...bodog flips over Q9 (I don't know how he thought he was good here, but I guess he says he put him on an over pair) other guy has 22, river Q. This kid I later found out was someone I play regularly in the 10/20 nl game, after this hand he has like 65k, by the 2nd break he was at 80k and by the third or fourth like at 120k...He's now 4th in chips overall.
I really couldnt see flops cheap, I never got hands and always kind of hovered around 15k-22k. I literally saw 1 showdown with AA vs Q9 in about 6 levels. At the 200/400 level I started getting crazy and chipped up from 15k to 28k without hitting a flop, raising J6s Q8o 63s etc...right before the end of the level, I get AK utg makes it 1600 utg1 calls, mp calls, I make it 6k or so, utg instashoves 30k, I muck after thinking for a while. After that hand I limped Q10 on the button flop came 10 32 and I ran into the sb's T3...I was down to 16k at the end of the 200/400 level.
The last level of the night was 300/600 100 ante. I was pretty much playing to bust or double and in the first hand TT vs 62 all in preflop I nearly doubled up. After that I saw my 2nd big pair of the night, KK in the bb, UTG raises 2200, other guy calls, cl calls in the sb, I make it 7k and they all fold.
I then got moved to a different table with victor ramdin, first hand I play I raise 1800 w/ AJ aggro kid instacalls from sb, flop comes 75Jr, he leads out 4k, I put him on a mid pair even before the flop and this just helped my read. I decided to call and most likely shove the turn, so I call 4k, turn is a 6 which sucks, he bets 9k. I figure if he turned a set of 6's he might have looked surprised and maybe raised less, so I shove hoping he has 88 99 or 44, he folds instantly and Im at like 55k.
-note (not from what I posted last night), the Victor Ramdin table was fun as hell, I watched him play for quite a while one day when I was sweating Steve in a game of Chinese Poker at the commerce, he kind of came across as a bit arrogant but that was certainly not the case here. He was a real nice guy and had the whole table laughing, he was 2 to my right so we started talking about stuff, I asked him how high stakes poker went and got some cool stories from it. Obbiously the one thing everyone wanted to hear was how bad Jamie Gold sucked in HSP, apparently he's worse than I thought, and I didnt think he was good at all. Everyone was having fun at the table, and we were all unbelievably tired, in an effort to not let my disoriented brain blow up the last 20 minutes of the day I agreed when the whole table started playing SUPER slow, one guy at the table was really pissed but no one seemed to care or listen everyone just told him "call the clock on me if you want". - back to the FCP post:
4 minutes before the end of the day I get moved (they should have just let us keep playing for 4 minutes at the same table, whatever) to Juanda's left, he had a monster stack. I thought there was still 10 or 12 minutes left, so first hand it folds to me in the CO, I raise 1800 with QJ, button calls, bb calls, flop 566r I bet 3500, button calls, bb folds. Turn K , check check (I thought I had bet but I remembered I didnt) river 10 I bet 6500, he folds a pair or something with only 12k behind. I showed figuring I could get a maniac image the last 10 minutes, but then I realize there was only like 1 min left...Juanda gave me the meanest look for showing the bluff, and so did others at the table, I felt like a jerk...pretty much just rubbed it in for no reason.... very next hand with like 30 secs before the end of the day, I get TT juanda raises, this is exactly what I DON'T want 20 seconds before the day ends, but I can't fold and I don't want to reraise so I just call, button calls..flop QQ2 ..JJ checks, I check, button checks...turn 2..JJ bets 3800, I call, button folds....river 5... JJ grabs 10k in chips, puts them down, grabs 7k in chips, puts those down, then just tosses a 5k chip in the pot...pretty obv value bet, I didnt even put him on a Q I figured he has AA or something, blah I shoulda mucked or maybe even raised to 12k, instead I called and he had KK.... I went back down to 50k when I could have had 60k or so if I muck the TT on the turn.
Anyway, overall I didnt see a showdown really until the 7th level, I was dead tired and I managed to get some chips. Blinds start at 400/800 on friday so I have quite a bit of time to just wait, I'm not going to be pushing things at all..
If this post is poorly written it's because I haven't slept in like 21 hrs, Im pretty damn tired.
-end of post-
So that's basically it for last night, today I'm going to eat healthy, excersise a bit, and maybe go to the spa again, I just want to relax...I'll stop by the casino to check out how the tourney is going and how some people I know are doing.
Tomorrow play resumes at 12pm, I'm guessing about 220-250 people will be left tomorrow and we'll play down to the money I think, I have a good shot IMO and I hope the cards come through and I can get deep. I'm going into day 2 with like 60 bb's which is more than average and more than enough for me to get a real stack going.
If you want to keep track at www.pocketfiveslive.com . |
