Yesterday I played the Bellagio $1590 tournament. Early on I played a pot vs. the most active and loose guy at the table. He raised the hijack and I called on the button with 9To. It was 50/100 and he made it 300. The flop came T85h and he bet 600. I called. Turn was 8h and he checked and I checked, river was a 9 and he bet 1k and I called. He mucked and I mucked my hand.

Now here is where the most interesting part of my day happens. The seat to my right wasn’t filled yet and a player came and put his bag/man purse/etc down on the chair. The strap was around the chair and the bag sort of fell on the floor. He walked away to talk to some floor person on stage in the Fontana Room and a minute later I noticed what I thought was a quarter on the floor near his seat. I looked down again and saw some foreign coins. I then saw a Bellagio Flag (5k chip) directly under his seat with the assorted coins. So here I am looking at a 5k chip under his chair, most likely out of the view of the Bellagio cameras. I thought for a second and called a floor person over and told them what happened. The guy had just walked away moments before and the floor person knew which player it was because she had just seated him. I didn’t want to touch the money and be accused of taking something so I decided to just call the floor and let them handle it. She picked up the money and went and grabbed the guy. He came back to the table and made sure the rest of his money was in his bag and then sat down to play in the tournament. He asked if it was me who saw the chip and I said yes and he gave me a $100 Bellagio chip. It was a very nice gesture of him considering I was just doing the right thing.

The very next hand I looked down at AA (KARMA???) and made it 250. An old guy in late position made it 750 and it folded back to me. I like to use my perceived image in this spot and made a 4bet to 2250. He called and the flop came 677. I checked and he bet 3k with about 4-5k behind. I moved all in and he folded without too much thought. I was immediately up to about 17k from my original 10k starting stack.

Shortly after I got moved to a new table. The second hand at the new table I make it 250 with 88 on the button and an old guy from Italy made it 2k from the small blind. I know I’m most likely up against AK and racing here but I mucked.

I was playing pretty tight at the new table and at 100/200/25a a real active guy in 2nd position makes it 500. He gets 4 callers and I look down at A8o in the small blind. I decide this is a perfect spot to squeeze and make it 2800. The only guy I’m really worried about is the 2nd flat caller who was this guy who wanted to try to outplay me in a couple pots by showing me a bluff earlier when I had nothing anyways. He ends up moving all in for 5k total and I am priced in to call. He has QQ and he holds and I’m down to 12k now.

I was really card dead the whole time at this table, missing flops and people just calling my cbets and I hardly won any pots. I ended up blinding down to about 8k at 200/400/25a when the hijack (a very loose and spewy player) made it 1100. I shoved 7k more from the small blind with 55 and he called with ATo. He won the flip and I was out. So I guess the karma from returning the 5k chip didn’t work out after all but maybe it will carry over to the Main Event. Why would I want to win a couple hundred grand when I can save all my deep run/huge tournament score for the biggest tournament in the world!?!?!

Aside from that today I am going to head over to the Rio to play some sngs and then I will get ready to play the Main Event on Sunday probably. I’m not sure what day is best to play but that’s when I probably will play. Talk to you guys later.