Boy it feels good. There were about ten Brits on the flight home and all of us were as excited about getting back as we were about heading out there in the first place. Vegas is unique, but you need to be running well to fully appreciate (tolerate) the glitz, all those people and the never-ending queues.The house was great, but too remote and next year I’ll just bite the bullet and book into one of the posh hotels in the middle of the Strip, probably the Bellagio - every walk or taxi queue you can avoid is effort saved and money well spent.
To the main event then; what a big disappointment, again. It was scary just how much this year's effort resembled last year's. I got to sit next to a guy in a Jack of Spades costume and the whole table were happily over-betting pots, putting a third preflop raise in with a pair of 10’s and one memorable on their backs moment, an all-in call with 8-3 on a 2-6-7-8-9 board - a pretty crazy call, but when the guy who did the betting proudly rolled over his A-9, I knew this was gonna be no ordinary game of poker.
Watching this and not being able to benefit didn’t have a positive effect and within the first two hour level my stack had been quartered, in part due to some marginal calls, but on this table it really was hard to bail out, but mainly due to a flopped set that got runner/runnered. To say I was steaming is putting it mildly.
Back from the break with 2,500 I eventually check raised my last chips in from the SB with 9-Ts on a 3-3-9 flop but the bettor on the button had aces.In hindsight a squeaky tight game would have eventually reaped ample rewards on such a weak table, but all I saw was dollar signs with easy money written all over them and in no time at all I had deviated from my original game plan and jumped right in - hey the water was warm!
I apologise if this sounds like a bitter ‘woe is me’ rant about how bad everybody played, it’s not intended to be, I’m just disappointed. At the end of the day it’s just another trip and another handful of tournaments but there should be no doubt that this is the dead money tournament of the year. Forget the nay-sayers who claim it’s a two week luck-fest, the rewards if you can get off to a good start, build some momentum, take each day as it comes and run well really are worth the effort.