This post will be lengthy. A lot has happened over the past few weeks. I am going to start where I left off on the last blog post and talk about the other half of my trip to Brazil. The post date might say 11/20. That’s when I started writing this blog, but I am officially posting it 12/7 real early in the morning.

I went to the BSOP venue the day after I busted the main event to play the PLO event. Once I realized that there were a lot of FTOPS/great online tournaments going on, I decided to skip the PLO event. I borrowed a laptop at the venue and sat in the Full Tilt Poker lounge all afternoon grinding online. I made a couple deep runs but nothing spectacular. First place in the PLO event was only around 10k. It was a much better decision to play online that day.

The next day I played the BSOP $2k High Rollers event. It had 111 players with 12 being paid. I ended up busting in 23rd place. I played with a good Brazilian online player almost all day and thought I picked up a physical tell on him. In the hand before I busted, he 3bet with AQ and was priced into calling an all in vs. KK, which he lost. He didn’t give off the weak tell. The very next hand I opened the cutoff with 9To into two tight players and the good Brazilian player. He three bet me and did the same weakness tell I had picked up on multiple times throughout the day. I 4bet shoved and he snap called me with pocket Aces. I guess my tell was off. I had been going with my reads in the tournament and they hadn’t let me down yet. I know my play was unnecessary but I really thought I had a stone cold tell on the player. I’m glad I went with my read, but I still need to be aware of overall tournament situations. I had position on a very loose, aggressive player who would have given me a lot of chips. I didn’t need to get involved in a pot against a good player right after he lost a decent sized pot. Live and learn.

That was it for the poker I played in Sao Paulo. We went to a couple great restaurants. One was on the top floor of Tivoli, our hotel. It probably had the best steak I’ve ever had. Mike Matusow and I had to order seconds. It was a Kobe steak and it melted in my mouth. Another restaurant we went to was a Brazilian Steakhouse. I took some pictures of the place.

I didn’t get the best pictures of all the meats they brought around, but at least I took some. I tried a chicken heart for the first time. It was interesting, but not really my taste. It was a great dinner and I had a lot of awesome food. Next time I go to Brazil I need to enjoy more of their food and visit some more restaurants.

After all the poker was out of the way and the BSOP was finished, we decided to party. We went to a couple different places in Sao Paulo. One venue was a “country music” club with a live band. I only recognized one song they played. It wasn’t like American country music. It was more upbeat, fun, and dance worthy. I’d say it was like pop music. The place was packed and we showed up really late but still had fun. Another club we went to was a hip-hop club. This was more of my style. They played only American hip-hop music. It was weird being in another country, in a club, where I understood the music and most of the other people didn’t. That night was also a lot of fun though. It was my kind of atmosphere and almost everyone who was with us and showing us around Sao Paulo made it out that night.

Here’s a picture of Mike checking out the lights in the club.

I was a little sad leaving Sao Paulo. I met a bunch of awesome people and I really enjoyed the country. I want to thank everyone again. I won’t name everyone individually but you guys know who you are. All the people who showed me around, all the poker players I met, and everyone else I came in contact with when I was in Brazil… Thank you. You guys made me appreciate Brazil and I plan on coming back often. With that said, I was supposed to fly back to Las Vegas but changed my connection to fly right into Florida.

Thursday morning was when I arrived back to South Florida. I rushed back home because there was a $5k WPT taking place Friday in my backyard at the Hollywood Hard Rock Casino. I played Friday, Day 1A. The field had some really good players. I was card dead almost all day and only played a couple substantial pots. I won a few early, but towards the end of the night I lost some tough hands. I ended the day with only about 20 big blinds. I still felt good going into Day 2 on Sunday.

I had a decent table draw for Day 2 but I would have to double up to be able to make some moves. After about an hour of play the following hand took place. It folded around to third position and the player was turned around in his chair listening to commotion from the table behind us. The dealer told him action was on him, after a few seconds I told him also “Excuse me, sir the action is on you.” He looked at me and at the dealer and responded with “Jeez. The dealer is tapping the table telling me and now you’re telling me it’s my turn.” I told him I was short stacked and he wasn’t paying attention so we were trying to get the action moving. He said something else to me in a rude fashion like I was out of line and proceeded to stall before finally folding. The player next to him raised, it folded to me on the button and I looked down at KQo and moved all in. The blinds folded and the raiser called with TT. The board came T9xxK and I was eliminated. The jerk then told me “Good game buddy.” I told everyone at the table good luck and I told the jerk “Good game to you too” while I went to go shake his hand. I knew he was being sarcastic with his good game comment so I tried to shake his hand haha. He wouldn’t shake my hand, which proved my point and made him look bad. Anyways, I kept my cool of course and wished everyone good luck again and left the casino. I don’t understand how some adults who are much older than me can be so immature at times. I wasn’t out of line at all but I don’t like being disrespected. Anyways…

I also played in the Florida Million at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. It’s a tournament that goes on all around Florida. It is a $550 buyin and the top 10% of the field from each location meet up in the finals. I played well and ran well to build up a big stack late in the tournament. I was probably one of the chip leaders and then lost a bunch of brutal hands to bad luck. KK vs AJ and AA vs 45o on a 5522 board. After those hands I didn’t win another pot for an hour and became a shorter stack. We were down to 25 players left, with 15 making the money/finals. An older amateur player who was pretty solid and somewhat new to the table (He raised in late position and showed an ace to gain credibility) raised from the cutoff to 9500 at 1500/3000. I looked down at QTo. I had about 70k in chips and the raiser had ~90k. I figured his range for raising here was wide and it would take a real small range to call so close to the money. I moved all in on him and was SNAP CALLED. I thought for sure I ran into aces. I turned over my QTo and he showed QJo. Everyone at the table was shocked. I also was shocked as well lol. I never would have expected him to snap call me with QJo in that situation. I bricked and was eliminated. I don’t mind my play, but I never in a million years thought that player would beat me to the pot with QJ. He didn’t seem like that type of player but maybe I didn’t have enough information on him. I thought I would be able to move my chips around and pick up some pots nearing the bubble.

I’ve been trying to get back in the swing of things. Working out, getting on schedule, grinding online. It’s a busy month as far as holidays and other celebrations are concerned. I think I covered almost everything I wanted to in the blog. If I forgot anything I’ll be sure to write about it. It took me a while to get this blog up and I don’t even know why.

While I was in Brazil I did a fun interview with Super Poker. They asked me a lot of good and interesting questions. I wish I knew Portuguese but I translated the interview and got to understand most of it haha. You guys can check it out here: SuperPoker Interview with Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade. Goodnight!