Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

hat they gave everybody that cashed the main event Wow.  I'm honored and humbled.  For the third year in a row, I've been selected to be a minion.  Huge thanks to Will Souther who runs this little investment group and to all the people that buy shares of the players.  It's the high point of any poker player's year to play in the WSOP Main Event and to have a seat locked up in April is thrilling, awesome, and comforting.  Thank you so much everybody! My first two years I lasted the longest of the Minions (that's why I got asked back) and last year did the same cashing as I made making a run to almost the top 200 players.  (Btw, had they paid the top 15% the first year, as they do now, I  would have cashed then too).  In the aftermaths, I don't think I realized how well I ran to go pretty deep both years. Last woman standing Kelly Minkin, me, and tournament chip leader at the time on my left. This table also featured 2015 November Niner T...

I'm here at the Golden Moon one of the two casinos that make up Pearl River's Resort in Choctaw, Mississippi.  The room is modern and new.  Plenty of amenities to make the three hour drive from New Orleans worthwhile.  None moreso than the possible overlay in the Main Event tomorrow. Gene D and I are finally at the same poker tournament at the same time.  Ruling out the rumor that we have merged into one GCP mega person.  Course we've yet to play the same tournament at the same time so perhaps that strange theorem still has legs. Downstairs Gene has already won a mega for the this Main Event and will likely play tomorrow if he can get his ticket changed from his six pm start time tonight.  I'll play a mega later and join him tomorrow.  No idea if we'll have any company because the first flight only had 30 or so players in it.  While I'd prefer an overlay and fewer people to battle it out with... we told Paul and Eric, two of the guys running th...

At the Beau Rivage in yesterday's noon event I ran bad on the bubble to be the bubble boy.  Oh well, that happens.  Not even that big of a bubble, so I'm not bitching about that, however, the way things went down I've never, ever seen before and I will bitch about that.... So we are hand for hand and it's taking forever, even with just three tables.  The rule is players that are all-in have to wait until the floor gives them the okay to turn over their hands.  A good rule that keeps players at other tables from making all-in decisions based on exposed hands next door.  Of course if it's executed correctly, it's a good rule. I go from a medium stack to a short stack as the bubble doesn't seem to stop.  I have two smaller shorties on my left.  The two short stacks in the blinds limp to the flop.  They check it and a third diamond hits the board.  They check again and straight card his the river.  Small blind bets small.  Big blind...

So... that's trump's logo. And that's a Simpson Episode from 2000ish, predicting the future with Trump as President with almost the exact same logo. Did, his logo maker really just swipe the Simpson's logo or what? Pretty crazy, the one on the dais the only difference is five stars vs. three.  Everything else is identical except for the slogan.  Even the font is the same. EDIT:  NEVERMIND, THE SIMPSONS IMAGE IS FROM THIS YEAR.  THOUGHT IT WAS TOO HD.  SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED MY GUT.  THERE IS AN EPISODE FROM 2000 OF THE SIMPSONS THAT PREDICTED A TRUMP PRESIDENCY BUT DID NOT GIVE HIM HIS LOGO. EDIT#2:  SINCE IT TURNS OUT I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG AND THIS POST IS NOW WORTHLESS, HERE'S SOMETHING ON THEME THAT'S INTERESTING...  ALL THE CAMPAIGN LOGOS RANKED...https://medium.com/organizer-sandbox/the-2016-u-s-presidential-candidates-logos-ranked-9ee41fa50964

I started off with the most important hand I played in the last blog post, as after I played it, it was almost like I got rewarded for my bravery.   I experienced my first run good in any WSOP event (ever) immediately after.     That was a theme for this Main Event.  Every time, I made a brave play good cards seemed to follow me in the aftermath.  The good cards were the easy part.  Those few spurts of big hands didn't dictate my run, it was all the tough hands in between that propelled me in the tournament. Nothing given. There is a rumor that your Main Event starting table will be soft.  Soft?  Yes, butter on the hood of a car outside the Rio in typically stifling 107 degree Las Vegas temperature soft.  For me, that rumor is as valid as me dating Kim Kardashian.  One multiple circuit ring winner told me he wouldn't pay $6 for a percentage of any of his starting table.  I'd gladly have paid much more than for most of my table. ...

I look at his bet, it sat ominously in the middle.  A pile of large denomination chips simply sitting on the felt. In any other situation, about as nonthreatening as a stalk of celery, but in this case they looked like the barrel of loaded gun pointed at my forehead. If I called it would cost me every tournament chip I had. The power of putting an opponent all in is obvious.  If he calls and he's wrong then he busts.  Here, I could bust the Main Event early on day two. That would be a bit like tearing up a power ball ticket before the drawing.  If I fold... I counted my remaining stack for the fifth time...  I'd still have plenty of chips. "Discretion is the better part of valor."  That's a quote I recall in these spots.  Sometimes the bravest thing you can do in poker is fold.  But... The hand just didn't make sense. I felt I should call. Still, this wasn't a $365 or a $1500 buy-in where I can just go with my gut and deal with the...

I bricked two flights of the 777.  I felt I played well despite getting few cards.  In Flight A I double up by attacking my table who were all week.  Dream table draw.  Then a late comer arrived and they put him immediately to my left.  A gregarious Russian who immediately played every pot in position on me.  That made things harder. I wanted to say, "Hey, Ivan these people are just giving us their chips slowly, why don't we just take turns instead of beating each other up."  Nope, didn't happen.  He got crippled.  Then I got got run down.  Then he got some chips, then I made a comeback and to be honest with all the poker I played since then, I don't even remember the bustout hand. I do remember the second flight... I sat down and promptly lost the first two hands.  Made top two with AQ, my queen giving the other guy a gut shot straight.  Next hand I flopped a queen and a different guy rivered a straight, and I had to pay...