$10k is a LOT of money

It really is. We poker players train ourselves to disassociate the chips we play with with their actual monetary value, but I'm sorry: $10k is a LOT of money that can be used to buy a ton of awesome stuff. It was hard laying down all those benjamins to the cashier at the Rio, but I know that my entry is +EV. But even so, I realized that this was the 2nd most expensive purchase I've ever made (second only to my car), and I'm totally fine with that. I'm registered to play on Day 1-D, which is Monday.

I finally met Brian Townsend yesterday afternoon at our CardRunners booth at the gaming expo inside the Rio. We'd been trying to get together for dinner or drinks for a few weeks without success, so it was nice to finally get to talk to him about a lot of the ideas I have for CR.

We met later that night for dinner at a sushi place inside the Wynn along with a friend of his from college named Amy, and Brian introduced me to a bunch of interesting sushi/Japanese delicacies. I'm not usually a big seafood guy (I only have cravings for sushi about once per year), but I'm always open to trying new things, and most of what Brian ordered for us was pretty good. I still prefer a good steak to any type of seafood, but it was a great experience. We also had some really great discussions about the future of CR and this type of business model in general. Brian is an extremely intelligent person; there's no doubt in my mind that he would be wildly successful in any line of work outside the poker world.

After dinner, we headed over to the CR/Bluff Magazine party at the Sapphire Lounge. The whole CR crew was there, as were a bunch of my other friends (Kush, Aaron, Lyric). Stinger got a great picture of Zimba getting a lapdance, and we all partied there for the rest of the night. I ducked out a little early with an upset stomach to go register for the Main Event (the line during the day was apparently >3hrs long), then headed home for some much-needed sleep.

I hit up the Bellagio poker room at around 4pm today and jumped into a $5/10 game. The first hand I played came a little more than orbit into my session: ~3 limps, button raises to $60, I look down to see JJ in the BB and bump it up to $210, folds to the button who instantly 4-bets to $480. Nobody 4-bets with less than KK live, so that was an easy laydown. I flipped up my jacks as I folded.

The very next hand, a few people limp to the CO who raises to $50. I pick up JJ again and make it $180 to go on the button, and the CO is the only caller. Flop: AK4r, he leads for $200 and I fold. Well played sir.

I get dealt JJ again the very next hand. WTF, who is shuffling? This time, a guy who appears to be a bad player raises from MP. I 3-bet to $200 for the third fucking time in a row, and this time the button looks down at his cards and announces he is all in for about $1k, which makes this yet another easy fold. It's sick how good I run.

I played 5/10 for another hour or so before deciding to jump into one of the $10/20 games running close by. After 3-4hrs of being completely card dead, I finally get my ~$2500 in with 9h8c vs KdTs on a 7h8hTh board. Somehow I brick out on the turn & river, so this villain took about $2400 of my stack. What can I say...when you're hot, you're hot!

The table was pretty soft, and I felt like I had a big edge on almost everyone at the table, so I reloaded for my final ~$2500. I had no idea how much amazing action there was gonna be at this table -- here are some examples:

Seat 3 was a pretty bad player who raised/played waaaaay too many hands and paid off far too often (and lightly)
Seat 4 played even worse, but he was generally very passive
Seat 5 was a player that obviously was regarded by pretty much everyone else at the table as a good, solid player, but IMO he wasn't anything special
Seat 6 = me. My table image for all of these hands was very solid/TAG. I had only shown down good hands that I bet strongly for value. This is a great table image to have since it is so easily abused. :)
Seat 7 was a solid player
Seat 8 could be solid at times, but he was much too loose in his hand selection both pre- and post-flop

Hand #1:
Button is in Seat 5
Seat 3 (stack = ~$10k) opens for $120 (pretty standard for him), Seat 4 (stack = ~$4k) calls, Seat 5 (stack = ~$3500) calls, and I pick up AA in the SB and raise to about $500 (my stack was ~$3500), Seat 7 was sitting out, Seat 8 (stack = ~$7k) cold calls from the BB, and everyone else calls too. So 5 players to the flop for ~$500 each.
Flop: Qs8hQc. This is not a great flop for AA playing multi-way -- especially from OOP -- and I decided to take an alternate line on this hand. Seat 8 loooooves to bet/bluff when he has position on the preflop aggressor, and I figured that I could get some really great value from him if I checked and let him do the betting for me. Plus, this way I have great relative position on the flop bettor and I find out if someone else has a Queen cheaply. So I check, and unfortunately he checks behind me after thinking for a sec; Seats 3&4 both check, and Seat 5 bet $360. This was such a strange/tiny bet and I had no idea what it meant. So I called, and Seat 8
quickly raised to $800. Seat 3 folds, and to everyone's surprise Seat 4 cold calls the $800, as does Seat 5. The pot is huge now, and even though it's pretty obvious that AA is no good here, the pot was too large and the bet was too small for me to fold. Hell, I think I even had odds to draw to my two Aces here, so I called.
Turn: 6d. Total brick; sigh...I'm ready to check/fold. I check, Seat 8 checks, Seat 4 checks, and I couldn't believe what was happening when Seat 5 checked behind too.
River: Kc. I didn't know what to think about the turn action, but I still don't think my hand is good here and I probably can't get anyone to lay down a Queen, so I have to check again. Seat 8 checks, as does Seat 4, and Seat 5 checks as well. AA is good; WTF?! All that was going through my mind during this time was "Wow....just.....wow." Seriously, how does nobody (esp Seat 4!) have a Queen or 88 there. Seriously.

Hand #2:
Button was in Seat 5 again
Stack sizes are about the same, except mine was about $8k now. Seat 8 straddles to $40, Seat 3 opens for $160, Seat 5 calls, I make it $560 to go with JJ from the SB, Seat 8 cold calls again (what is up with this guy?), and the other two call as well.
Flop: 8d5c4h. Sigh, this is such a crappy spot to be in (especially OOP!); I decided to bet/fold to a raise. I put in ~$1200, Seat 8 insta-calls, Seat 3 folds, and Seat 4 thinks for over a minute before finally folding his hand. He told me later he folded A8o (nice fold buddy)...it's utterly ridiculous how bad people are at poker.
Turn: Ah. It's pretty obvious that I don't have the best hand, but this is a great scare card for me to bluff at with my tight/nitty table image, so I decided to take one final stab at the pot and bet $2500. Seat 8 sighs loudly before folding QQ face-up. Hooray!

I ended the session a few orbits later after Seat 4 went busto and Seat 3 left to get food. From there, I headed over to Kush and Aaron's place at the Towers by the strip and we discussed a bunch of hands from my session, including the ones above. Among other things, we all agreed that 1) my 3-bets in both hands were way too small and offered more implied odds to the others in the hand than I wished to give them, 2) my table was insanely soft and gave massive action, and 3) I shouldn't have left the game until Seat 3 went busto too. Oh well.

Kush finally paid up the $400 he owed me on UB, so I challenged him to a HU match at PLO on Full Tilt. Neither of us is particularly skilled at PLO, but he agreed and we played two tables of 1/2 PLO HU for a little under an hour. I started off really badly (was down almost 4 buyins really quick), but I battled back like the machine I am to finish as a big winner. Check out the sickest hand of the match. I got my money in pretty bad there, but there's no way I'm ever not stacking off on this flop for ~100bb. Red deuce for the win!

That's it for now -- I'm very pumped about playing the Sunday Tourney with Kush/Aaron/etc on Sunday and then the Main Event on Monday. The next few days should be a blast!