Busto

Well that sucked.  Went into the day with 136k.  Second hand of the day I lose 80k all in preflop with 99 vs qj, then chip back up to about 120k in the next half hour without a showdown, then get it all in with AK v JJ and I'm out short of the $.

Day 1B

Well today went better than the first day.  Hung around the starting stack of 20k for the first 4 hours, then at the 600/1200 level there was a late position raise and a call and I was in the big blind with about 25k with JTs and figured I had a lot of fold equity so I shoved, the raiser called and the other guy folded AQo, flop came AA7, turn Q and I think I need a K to stay alive, and I start walking away when the river comes a Q, but then like 2 seconds later I realize it's a chopped pot since we both have 2 pair with a J kicker, so obviously I come back to the table.

In the next half hour or so I win a couple flips and steal some pots to get my stack to around 80k at 1k/2k, when a mid position younger player limps in, the small blind make it 5500, I make it 14k from the big bilnd with JJ and now the limper makes it like 40k and he has me covered.  I think he is obviously pretty strong here a lot of the time but I just got the feeling that he had some weak hands in his range possibly, I'm not sure, so anyway after thinking for a minute or 2, I get it in with him and he has KK, but luckily I hit a J on the turn and double up to 160k.  I chipped up to like 190k at one point but then lost a flip for about 50k towards the end of the day and ended day 1 with 136,500.  Average stack should be around 100k with maybe about 150-170 people left when we start day 2 at 11am on Monday.

I would have blogged sooner but I was dead tired when I got home after going to dinner with my wife and fell asleep at 9pm within 5 minutes of getting home.  So now obviously it's 3am and I can't sleep.

Day 1A Busto

Not much else to say really, never had more than double the starting stack and really never had any great hands, but my all ins were barely ever called.  Finally shoved with QJ with about 20k at 1k/2k and got called by AJ and busted.  The structure is pretty fast, we started with 20k and were at 1k/2k blinds about 6 hours into the tourney, but the tourney is about as soft as you can find for a 1k+ buyin tourney, so that easily makes up for it.

I'll probably show up at 10am instead of 9am tomorrow because I think I'll need the extra sleep, plus the first hour is 25/50 and 50/100 with 20k chips so it's kind of pointless anyway.  It might cost me like $20 worth of chips to miss the first hour, and the extra sleep I get will probably be worth more than that anyway, plus not having to drive an hour thru rush hour traffic.

Arizona State Poker Championship

So the AZ State Poker Championship starts tomorrow.  It's held at Casino Arizona and it's a $1k buyin with 3 starting days, but a nice little thing about it is that you can buy in for all 3 starting days if you don't make day 2.  Hopefully I only have to buy in once but it's nice to have that opportunity, and I really think more tournaments should do that.  They really have nothing to lose by doing it that way.

The only thing that sucks about this tourney is that it starts at 9am.  I've been on a schedule lately of waking up around noon or so, so I'll probably need to make a quick Starbucks stop before I go in.

I'll be at table 7 seat 7 (seems lucky?) on tomorrow, Friday the 13th (or maybe not so lucky?).  If any of you are attending, feel free to say hi.  I'll probably post a quick recap of the day after each day and update my twitter on each break if I remember to do so.

Miscellany

Haven't been playing much since the end of WSOP.  I think I was a bit burnt out after playing for 2+ weeks for SCOOP, then only like a week off before 6 weeks of WSOP.  I've only put in like 5 sessions online in the last 3 weeks and I've lost every time so far, which doesn't help me want to play more.  It's weird though, I haven't been this unmotivated about poker since about 2004, and that was when I basically quit playing for 3 years (I didn't really 'quit' but I played very seldom for those 3 years).  I was motivated earlier this year because I wanted to be the first to Supernova Elite and make it onto Team Online, which I ended up getting, and then after that I was motivated to try to be #1 on the SharkScope leaderboard because it would be fun to be #1, but for some reason I really don't care about that anymore.

I think the motivation will come back since WCOOP is in about a month and I really love those tournament series, but I think I'll take it easy until then.  I guess I probably deserve a little break as much as anyone in poker.

I normally go months without watching TV but my wife and I have been watching way more than our fair share the last few weeks.  We watched the first 2 seasons of Breaking Bad in a span of 2 days about a week ago, and now we're watching Mad Men and are almost through season 2 of that.  Both are absolutely amazing shows and that means a lot coming from me since I think most TV shows are downright unwatchable.  Also been watching Shark Week a little because, well, sharks are interesting.

And last but definitely not least, I'm gonna be a daddy in about 6 months.  Wish me luck.  :)