CARDRUNNERS

After busting from the WSOP $1500 event in under 90 min, I headed over to the Bellagio for some 10/20 action and to pick up our tickets to see "O" on Friday night. While in the poker room, I ran into my buddies Johnny and Raidan, both of whom were registering for the daily 1k Bellagio tourney, and they convinced me to do the same. Raidan and I did our standard last-longer prop bet of $20 per level after the other person busts.

Since we both reg'd late (and at the same time), we got seated at the same table with Dan directly to my left. I lost a few medium to largeish pots early while Dan's stack grew. I remained pretty shortstacked (<20bb) the whole tourney while Dan busted at about the 600/1200 level. Long story short, I entered the FT with ~60k and blinds of 3k/6k-1k.

Hand #2 of the FT saw me in the BB with J5o facing an allin bet of just 15k more from the micro-stacked SB. I have to call here with any two, but it just sucks when it's for nearly 30% of your stack. He flips up QQ and effectively triples up. I didnt let this sway my confidence, though, because when I make FTs I generally steamroll the field -- especially live.

I doubled up shortly thereafter with AJ vs A9, then proceeded to chip up to ~180k, putting me 3rd or 4th in chips. The table was way soft (as expected) with just two other remotely solid/aggressive players. I kept up the pressure on everyone that I felt was weak (read: pretty much everyone) by restealing pretty light and opening a wide range from any position when they were in the BB. I lost a few pots here and there, but I was pretty much in control of the table on my ~200k stack at 4k/8k-1k, and better yet, everyone FEARED me. There was discussion of chopping the remaining money (~$56k for first, ~$36 for second thru the payout structure) for about $13k each, but each time I told them I'd only chop if they gave me $40k. This got a few laughs, but I was 100% serious -- I truly felt that my edge on this field was massive enough to warrant more than 2nd place money 8-handed.

The hand before the jump to 6k/12k-2k, I opened AJo from UTG+1 to 23k into a shorty's BB; he thought for a bit before shoving in another ~35k with 66, and I called. After losing the flip, my stack was about 130k, leaving me just under 11bb at the new level. Since the blinds & antes are HUGE at 6k/12k-2k (there's 34k in the pot before the cards are dealt!) and everybody was folding far too often to open shoves, my plan was to shove 3-4 times per orbit until I was massive chipleader.

My first hand at this new level is AKdd, and I stuck with the plan by shoving in my remainig 128k. Unfortunately, a weak-tight player in MP insta-reshoved behind me and flipped up AA to cripple my stack to ~15k. Ugh, what a cooler...this game is so sick sometimes. I busted the next hand and finished 7th for a whopping ~$3600. GG Bellagio FT :(

I'm off to the Rio for another $1500 WSOP donkament and then some $10/25NL after I bust; I update http://twitter.com/brystmar all the time during tourneys from my iphone in case you're bored enough to wonder how many chips I've accumulated before donking them all off.  Adios blog!

I’m currently above the skies somewhere probably in Montana or Canada, depending on the travel route that the airplane took.  We had a 2.5 hour layover in Chicago and then proceeded to get on a 3.5 hour flight to Calgary. 

This start of the trip and I’m all ready running bad.  First – my parents got a free complimentary upgrade by United as we were getting passports checked.  Unfortunately Lauren and I didn’t receive the same luxury because we stayed behind to watch the bags.  Needless to say when I reapproached them about upgrading us since we were all traveling together – the woman would have none of it.

The second bad beat so far is the little terrors that are seated behind me.  Three brothers, I assume, argued and shouted over who gets to sit aisle vs. middle seat.  Then they just talked and talked in their pre-pubescent voices – the kind that pierce your brain and make you wish you had hearing aids you could remove.  Then they started playing video games, in which I had to hear them talk about things like “How does Princes Peach clean such a big castle?” as well as having to hear them sing the Star Power song whenever they got it.  I’ve seen much worse from kids on the flight from Beijing to Chengdu, but either way it is quite dreadful.  As we speak, one is currently kicking the back of my chair – a few more kicks and I’ll turn around and kick him in the face.

On a bit of a tangent, it’s quite crazy to think that exactly one year ago to the day, I was leaving Cincinnati and going to South Korea.  Even more ironically I took the same airline (United) to Chicago O’Hare in order to connect to Korea.  So there I was 500 miles removed from home and in the exact same spot that I was 365 days ago to the minute.  I guess I just wasn’t meant to be in the USA from August 7 thru August 10. 

I am also pretty stoked about the upcoming Olympic Games.  I’m actually taking a class starting next week that talks about the Olympic Games, Chinese Culture, and Politics.  As a recent visitor of China and as a Chinese-American I think that I can bring a lot to this discussion-based class and I really enjoy this professor.  We are both actually alums to the same high school, ironically enough.

Anyways I’ll write more later.  I want to post these as individual blogs -- I'll get some hands and such up later.