VEGAS MONDAY

We went down to the Rio convention center once we were up and dressed to get ourselves some swag and to ogle the booth babes. We found the PokerRoom suite and muscled our way in. I got to see most of my PokerRoom pals, like Thomas, Samuel, and Henrik, as well as fellow players, JDtrojan, Lazyeye, Darmonuts, and Dogg30. Most all my pals had busted out already, many of them with KK v AA. Jim Davenport was still in and doing okay. I hear MarvinGarden got thru day one as well. I made plans with my fellow Bustouts to meet up for the 7P tourney at Caesar's.

Tom and I went over to Rio to make good on our buffet that we earned on Saturday. It would have cost us only $3, but since we missed the 3P cutoff by five minutes, we had to pay the dinner price which was $5 additional. We had a great meal and conversation, then we split up. Tom played $1/2 NL at Mirage to the tune of minus $40. I went over to Caesar's and got my name on the list for $2/5 NL and $3/6 Limit. The limit table opened up first. I won one great hand with the nut straight, but that one win did not cover my losses and I finished down $44.

The tourney cost $220 and paid 30 places with 262 entrants. I've made some refinements in my tourney game lately which has made me much more consistently profitable. I sat down to a run of garbage cards for the first three levels, but I managed to have enough of a stack that I wasn't yet in defcon red. It got to the point where I could make a case for going all in with any two cards under the gun before my blinds hit.

The cards I was dealt in that situation were pocket aces, which made the decision easy. I pushed but it folded around, so I merely picked up the blinds. The very next hand, I was under the gun again due to a new arrival to my right and I pushed again with QJ. I picked up the blinds again, but I wasn't done. I went on a terrific run of cards which got me from around $6k to $40k in no time.

I coasted into the money with about $60k or so, but the rags returned and I couldn't find a spot to move my chips. Darmonuts was at my table and he had been quiet for some time, but blinded down to $20k with blinds/antes at $10k. I knew that he was going to push with anything the first time it folded around to him. When he made his move, I called with 88, but the big blind woke up with AK and pushed over the top. I figured him for AK and I figured Darm for one over card, so I made the laydown to preserve my final $30k.

I played it perfectly as it happens. Darm showed T5s and the big stack showed AK. A king came but no ten, so I would have beaten Darm as predicted, but I made the laydown which kept me from busting. But now I was in Darm's predicament. I needed to push with any two cards before the blinds came around. I wound up playing 86 and it folded around to the big blind who called with pocket fours. He hit a four on the flop to finish me off and I hit running eights just so it would sting a little. I finished 20th and cashed $522.