Thursday was the monster stack - a surely record breaking tournament which got 7860 runners all playing the same starting day! An amazing event.
It went terrible for me, luck wasn't on my side, but I had an awful attitude to this tournament from the moment I heard about the concept right until the last chip was gone so deserved nothing less.
- Laziness about the structure - "urgh 15k starting stack with 25/25 blinds zzzz"
- Hopelessness about the field size - Almost 8000 people to beat...
- Arrogance about the field strength - "I don't need to pay attention to how these guys play..."
I've slipped into some awful habits lately. I've written before about not being mentally prepared for the series this year, feeling like I've lost interest in the game, and I've become disillusioned about the luck involved. Sometimes I think it doesn't matter what you do, you just have to let variance play its course and see what happens. And that's true 95% of the time - there is nothing you can do, you'd always go broke QQ vs KK, or reshove 66 in a certain spot.
But that one time you get put in a spot where you're not sure what to do, you look up at your opponent and you have no reads, you cannot recall a single hand he's played in the past 4 hours he's been sat there with you - and that means you make an uninformed decision - that's the moment you deserve to be slapped in the face there and then. You're a professional player, your job is pretty much a joke as it is, most people would dream of doing this for a living - and the one bit of "hard work" you have to do, is sit and pay attention to what is going on rather than being on blonde/facebook/twitter. It's embarrassing really, considering the work others put in, and I don't deserve a big score or result if I can't be bothered to do that.
So I've given myself a slap on the wrist and forced myself to focus properly yesterday - I turned my phone off and put it in my bag, and just watched the action in yesterday's comp. It was a $2500 at the gorgeous M Resort, which got 692 runners, and it was one of the best value tournaments I've played all year. Awesome venue, awesome structure - I was feeling really good about this one.
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I made a crying river call in level 1 with AA when I got raised on a 752TK board, and luckily was correct. The villain was then very shortstacked but spun up thanks to me, I doubled him up 3 times after that! I also made a bad play vs someone else and then all of a sudden found myself with 8500 chips from my 25k starting stack on the dinner break. We spent 60 minutes of the 75 minute dinner break queuing for the buffet which we had to give up on and resort to the complimentary "lunch box" for dinner! We were fuming!
Luckily after dinner went really well, I doubled twice, once through the guy I'd doubled up 3 times, and then had the last laugh in our marathon battle, when I called him down with 54 on a 852A9 board, I beat him into the pot on the river and was good - that was a satisfying moment of the day.
I had so many battles with some of the tougher regs of the table, and finally feel like I played how I know I can play when I'm focussed and motivated. Cal came to the table for the last couple levels and raised 90% of pots and just generally tried to destroy everyone, it was pretty good to watch, he's probably one of the toughest players I've ever played against. Absolutely fearless and totally relentless.
I made day two with 50k, which is just under average, 32bbs going back. So not "massive chips" but I have a good feeling I'm going to do well in this. Table draw is key, the field is extremely mixed, so I hope to run good there.
There's a special arrival today...one man who we didn't think was going to make it this year. A regular feature in the group, and if you can't find him at the cash desk collecting a min-cash, you can be sure to find him in a subway nearby...Ladies and Gentlemen, today, Las Vegas welcomes....
MMMMMMMIIIITTTTCH JOHNSONNNNNNNNNNN!
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