43 Hours Till the Madness

Sanders aka Baggage Claim informed me this morning that Party Poker had opened up even higher stakes tables, including $10-20 blinds NLHE with a $2000 maximum buy-in. Of course I had to take a gander, and found myself at a table within seconds. I only played one table since I was doing some other stuff and really just wanted to take a look at a table. The tables were loaded with players I had never seen before who I assume to be proposition players. Most everybody was playing really tight. Two consecutive hands were folded all the way around to the BB. I won a decent pot early on when I flopped trip sevens and was up about $400 when this hand came up:

A new player posts a $20 blind behind me and someone limps in ahead. I decide to raise to around $170 with AQo in an attempt to win the dead money out there. The SB, who has over 5k and is someone I've never seen before, flat calls. To make this call I right away assume he has AK or a middle-high pair likely 99-QQ. The flop comes TT5 with two hearts and one diamond and he checks. I decide to take a stab hoping he'll lay down AK and bet around $240. He quickly calls. Now I think he probably has JJ or QQ and I'm trying to decide if I am going to continue this charade. The turn is the 4d. He bets out $500. Now I am almost certain he has 99, JJ, or QQ and is trying to protect his hand. I decide to go all in for about $1600 more since I've been representing a big pair this whole hand and there's so much $$ in the middle I can't help but want to steal it. He thinks for about 30 seconds and then calls. The river is a king and I shouted something obscene. Then it pushes GnightMoon the $5000 pot!!!! He had Ah2h!! I thought 2k NL might be too high for the maniacs but apparently not.

This 2k NL will probably be my bread and butter eventually, but I won't be playing online again anytime soon. It's time for the real thing. My preregistration and accompanying wire transfer went through today. I'm now signed up and paid for the following events:

Friday June 10 2k NLHE
Sunday June 12 2k PLHE
Tuesday June 14 5k NLHE
Friday June 17 1.5k NLHE Shootout
Wednesday June 22 1.5k NLHE
Friday June 24 2.5k NLHE
Saturday June 25 2.5k PLHE
Tuesday June 28 2k NLHE
Friday July 1 3k NLHE
Thursday July 7 No-limit Texas Hold'em World Championship Event

That's right I am all signed up for the Big One. Very exciting. Which is a good thing since they might run out of seats...6600 might not be enough.

I also plan on playing the 1.5k NLHE Friday and the 1.5k PLHE Saturday. The Felon aka Felonious Larsonious aka David Brian "DB" Larson was going to play the Friday event along with me but his bankroll didn't quite get where it needed to be in order for him to play. Still, he and Dave Majzler and a couple other guys are going to be out there to watch the madness and support me from the rail. They left this morning and they'll be staying with me at the Rio tomorrow through Saturday night.

The Bag (and the Wolf I believe) will arrive in a few days. I think I'm going to buy 50% of Bag's action and find an opening on the rail for the 2.5k Shorthanded NLHE on Tuesday.

The Tour finally convened for a frolf game at CU this afternoon. Brooks led almost the whole way and finally put it away with a birdie on the 18th. I played decent but lost my focus on a few key shots and that ultimately cost me the win. It's really a lot like poker - one or two mistakes and/or a bad break and you're out if the competition is decent. Hopefully my focus will be better on Friday than it was today.