I have 180k chips going into Day 2 at Caesar’s tomorrow. It’s the Championship Event of their Mega Stack Series. The average stack is 110k and the blinds will start at 2k/4k 500a. I played very well today, kept my composure, and picked up some pots when I needed to. I guess I have some time and I’m not tired so I will write about what happened today.

We started with 25k in chips at 25/50 which was awesome. I won some pots here and there and then lost some pots and had about starting stack when I got in this big pot at 50/100. A player raised in 2nd position and I called right behind him with 99. The flop came 977dss and he bet 700. I called and the turn came the 6d. He checked and I bet 850. He called. The river came the Td and he bet into me for 1k. The flush gets there and the one card straight. I didn’t like him leading into me on the river but decided to put in a raise for value. I made it 3200. He thought for not too long and made it 7k. Immediately I know he doesn’t have quads because he wouldn’t of bet in my opinion, and he cant have 89dd for the straight flush since I am holding the 9d, so its either TT or the flush or 66. Well anyways, I know he has TT. I tell him “I Know you have pocket tens what a sick river… But I cant fold” and I throw in my chips knowing he has me beat. He turns over TT and I lose the pot and lose about 10k in chips.

I was just going to call his 1k river bet but with these players you just never know if they will pay you off with the nut flush or anything, so I wanted to raise for value. I even told myself, if he reraises me again I have to fold, but still called. I really need to work on folding big hands when I know I’m beat. Players like that will never bluff there although he said he would of done it with the flush lol. Anyways.

An orbit or so later I pick up KK and raise a limper to 400. I get reraised by a guy in the small blind or big blind to 1150 and decide to just call. I have about 15k he has 30k+. The flop comes 963 rainbow and he fires 1500. I just call. The turn comes the Th putting two hearts up and he checks. I decide this is a good spot to just pick up the pot or put in an extra bet and bet 2200. He instantly moves in and I tank it for a while and muck. This guy wanted to play back at me all day and was talking about how bad and aggressive young Internet players are and this and that. He was a pretty miserable guy at first saying people didn’t know how to play this and that. He had a bunch of Ultimatebet stuff on I told him I would never play on their site again because of him!!!! Hahahaha… I’m funny. I could go on about this guy and our banter but I’ll leave it at that.

I’m down to like 13-14k and one guy limps for 200 at 100/200. One guy limps for 200 and I look down at AKcc and decide to mix it up and I limp as well. I was hoping someone would reraise preflop so I could get in a 3rd bet. Theres about 4 to the flop and the flop comes Q84cc and the initial limper bets 1200. I figure my hand is pretty disguised and huge here and I want to take control of the pot to maybe get a free card on the turn if needed so I make it 3600. The guy who bet instantly moves in! Wow. I have about 10k behind and I’m not folding. I call. He flips over QK!!! He just snap moved in with QK not even thinking if he could be behind. If he had QJ I would be about 50/50 but I’m a dog on the flop vs his QK. The turn comes the Jh giving me 4 more outs and I river the 7c for the flush. The guy is steaming and cant believe it and moves all in blind the next hand for 6k before the table breaks. It felt good to double up back to an above average starting stack. I was now at about 30k.

I get moved to another table and am up to about 34k when an asian lady made it 3200 at 200/400 I look down at QQ and just call in middle position. The cutoff calls too and the flop comes 783. The asian lady checks (which is what I wanted to see) and I bet 4400. The old guy calls and the other lady folds. The turn comes the 9 and I feel like I either need to shove all in or check, betting just wont cut it with about 27k left and already 20k in the pot. I decide I might be beat here so I check to him and he instantly checks too. The river the comes J and I check again. At this point I cant beat anything he could call with on the flop and he instantly bets 10k and I instantly fold and he shows TT. Nice hand. I don’t think I played this hand bad, just careful. Who knows if he folds the turn but it just ran out bad for me I suppose.

At 300/600 I raise to 1600 with AJdd in middle position. The button makes it 4k after contemplating just calling with about 16k behind. I had one of those feelings I get at the poker table where I just cant fold and decide to call. The flop comes 856 with one diamond and I check to him. He bets 5700 with 10100 behind. He seems really nervous and he is practicing some tells that I realized I do when I’m bluffing. So I go with my read and move all in on him (putting him all in) and he mucks pretty quickly, so that was a nice pickup.

This pot is probably one of the sickest of the day. Fratboy 24/7 is two to my right but he was playing pretty straightforward at the time and he limps in middle position for 800 and i limp for 800 with 66 along with 2 other limpers. The flop comes T86ss and the sb leads for 3300. I make it 7500 and the guy to my left instantly moves in for 11k. The sb tanks for 2-3 minutes and sticks in his 12k. I get counts and obviously I cant ever fold, although I think the guy to my left flopped a set, and I call. The sb flips over JTdd for top pair, the guy to my left flips over 67ss for a pair and a flush draw. Wow, awesome! Pair the board!!! The turn comes the 5h giving the guy to my left straight/flush draws and the river comes the Jh and I scoop a 35k or so pot to move up to 78k.

Another guy gets moved to the seat to my left and he gets down to 10k when this hand comes up. I look down at JJ and he moves in for 10k before its his turn to act. I decide to still raise and make it 2200. He still moves in for 10k with 67hh and I hold up to win a nice pot.

Probably the worst pot of the day comes up at 800/1600 when fratboy raises to 4200 the guy to his left (my right who was tight calls) and I look down at KK. I make it 14200 and fratboy tanks it for a little bit and calls 10k with 50k behind. I have about 70k behind at this point. The flop comes AQJss and he checks. I get in this situation a lot and sometimes I bet but any hand he could possibly call my reraise with HAS TO HIT THIS FLOP. I could represent AA and bet like 8k something small that seems weird but I check. The turn comes the 3d and Fratboy instantly moves in for 50k. I instantly fold. This is another one of my mistakes. I don’t think about the hand and what he could have I already assigned a range and saw what a horrible flop I received for my KK and gave up on thinking out the hand. He showed the 6s and mucked the other card. So I’m assuming he called with like 67ss or 69ss something like that and bluffed shoved the turn with the flush draw. Would he really move in with AA QQ or JJ there on the turn? Definitely not. I think I should of thought about it and called or folded, but at least thought about it. His play just makes no sense for a made hand especially if I could have AA but I guess he just assumed since I’m an Internet player I was squeezing with air, but I played pretty solid and tight at his table so he got rewarded for a bad play (calling preflop.)

I brushed that hand off and got moved to another table and managed to go from like 65k to 45k and then down to 33k at 1k/2k. I played some standard hands where I shoved 33k on the button with 44 into the blinds and picked up 6k. Then another reshove when a guy limped under the gun, a shortstack moved in for 10k and I reshoved 45k with KTo and the utg limper folded. The shortstack flipped over KT and we chopped and the UTG limper had 55 which he would of flopped a set so he got pretty steaming since I shoved (realistically 8k to win 30k) all in over his limp.

So I am pretty short at about 45k or so and raise the hijack with KJo (black.) The button, sb and bb all call. I made it 5300 at 1k/2k. The flop comes J46dd and sb and bb check and I bet 12k with 27k behind. The button immediately calls (like he did in an earlier hand with a flopped set) and the blinds fold. The turn sucks. Its the 7d and its up to me to act. I decide there is already too much money in the pot and the fact that he could have JT, QJ or an underpair are still there and I cant give up and shove. The guy tanks for literally 5 minutes, and Im talking trying to get a call, although I don’t want to sweat a diamond. He is about to muck he extends his hand to the dealer and I tell him “You show me your hand I’ll show you mine” and he immediately says he didn’t muck! And he thinks for a little bit more. I call the clock on him and he ends up folding what he said was 99 or something, no diamond. He said he had 2 outs. Oh well, almost got a call!

So I worked my stack up to about 80k and I’m feeling a lot better. I pick up a couple hands here and there and I’m raising a little more and then I get JJ on the cutoff. I go to raise and the sb comments about how I’m always raising the cutoff. I kind of smirk and just go on with my raise to 5300. The big blind doesn’t really think about it and makes it 42k (4 orange chips on top of his 2k blind.) This is a huge reraise, I talked about these earlier in a previous blog but this isn’t the same situation as a guy making it 10x the bb with KK or AA preflop. I don’t really think I have fold equity but I think my hand is good and I decide to move in. He calls with AK and the door card is the Ace of spades. Man, it sucks to run bad in huge pots… But luckily I ran good in this flip since the Jc was the 2nd card on the flop! He’s drawing dead on the turn and I win a 160k flip, YES!

After thinking about this hand a little more I think I should fold. He said he didn’t think I was that big with my hand but that’s irrelevant although it was in my mind at the time. I think this is a fold because I am only ever racing. I doubt he ever ever ever does this with TT but definitely QQ-AK so therefore I got lucky and won the flip. I have to be better than that to get 80k in at 1/2k better than 50/50. But luckily I won this flip and will have to rethink my thoughts on this hand later.

I won a couple small pots here and there and ended the day at 180k. The average is 110k and there are like 230 players coming back tomorrow where I think we will play down to the final table. First place is around 270k I believe. I need to win this tournament. Hopefully everything goes my way and I can avoid any huge suckouts. I got screwed in a couple pots where I had huge hands today so hopefully it works out the opposite tomorrow. Although I got unlucky in some pots I always lost the minimum which was nice.

Anyways I’m about to go to sleep and get some rest and try to take tournament down tomorrow. I’ll keep everyone updated.

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One more thing last minute. An Internet player who I believe is AllinAt420 was making a pretty big jerk out of himself tonight. He was at the table behind me and I heard him arguing with the dealer, which is no problem. Maybe something happened at the table. He said something like it was the third or fourth dealer mistake, OK. I don’t really know him at all aside from a chat in a tournament online but what really bothered me was when we finished the night. Everyone was up from their seats and causing a lot of noise and the floor was telling everyone to sit down and shut up so we could go over the bagging process. This is a $1k tournament. I’m sure some people are amateurs and never bagged their chips before.

Well the guy who I believe (which I think I just confirmed by googling his name) starts flipping out that the floor shouldn’t be taking this long to get the bags to the tables. Someone from my table screams at him and they scream back and forth for second and the floor gets on the PA and tells us what to do. After the floor tells us the instructions Matt screams “GET A BETTER SYSTEM!” or something along those lines. He just seemed like a total idiot and I felt bad for him.

Like I said, I don’t know him personally, he might be a good guy, but tonight he made himself look bad. If he had a problem he could professionally talk to the floor afterwards and maybe help them devise I better strategy. I just think its stupid to try to single yourself out in a situation like that. It just looked really bad for him to me at least and I don’t know if maybe that’s one reason some of us Internet players get a bad name for actions like this. Maybe if I see him or we are introduced or something he can explain himself. I’m not sure exactly what went on previously with the floor or anything so maybe he has a good explanation. Anyways, I just thought that was pretty crazy and couldn’t believe he was acting like that. He had chips it appeared so maybe that had something to do with it =)

Okay I’m done now, I could write some more about all this but that’s good. Goodnight.