Survival

Well it was an eventful day and I am beat. I need to catch a few hours of sleep, if possible, before tomorrow. I planned to lay low for the first 30 minutes or so to get a feel for the table. But, I got AK about 3 hands in in the Big Blind. There were about 4 "flat" callers, so I raised it from 100 to 600, satisfied to take down the call bets. The players under the gun (first position) called me. The flop was K 4 6, with two diamonds. I hammered the flop, hammered the turn and a diamond came on the river.

I checked, the guy bet and showed QTd for a flush, costing me about 9,000 of my 20,000 stack very early. I got up and forfeited my small blind as I contemplated how the guy could call with that hand from that position. "Terry" would call with a lot worse throughout the day. I had a feeling I would get those chips back about an hour later, and I did abuse Terry throughout the day after the second level or so.

Two hands later I found pocket AA. One raise in front of me, I reraised. The kid (who turned out to be a table nemesis and very solid player) had AK and hit a K on the flop. He tossed all in. I called and dodged a bullet, doubling my stack back up to about 23,000.

About an hour later, I became a card rack, hitting big hand after big hand. In the course of the day, I had AA three times, QQ three times and lied about having QQ and KK several times. At my table was Joe Hachem's brother. After a couple of people got knocked out, Clonie Gowan (Women's 2007 WSOP champion) got seated at my table. I looked down and found QQ. I think it was her second hand there. Hachem's brother had said something to her privately. I was really running the table at this point, by the way. As I raised my QQ, the guy says "MR. Aggressive". Clonie fingered her ships, counting them out. I usually stare at the table, but I sensed her eyeing me to see if I had anything or was stealing. I would never steal from that early a position, but I briefly glanced at her, then looked away to feign weakness. Clonie puched all-in with JJ and I wuickly called her after the rest of the table folded. I hit a Q on the flop and another Q for quads.

On a kind of humorous note, pokernews, one website I am representing, reported the hand live and referenced me as "her opponent" several times without mentioning my name. Thanks for the press, PN!

I got up to about 67,000 or so and hit a dry spell. They moved my nemesis John from the table and put a 19y.o. Korean kid from Ohio named Adam Junglan in his spot a few hands later. This kid was brutal. He raised my big blind EVERY hand for two hours except once. I forfeited my role as table bully to a very quiet girl who raised every hand named Mandy, who is apparently the girlfriend of a pro I am not familiar with. Mandy got hot hands, and I took a few beatings from her, beating her only once in the 3 or 4 times we locked horns.

They draw for new tables tomorrow and while I am (like everyone else) hoping aganst hope I don't get seated next to the dude with 300,000 chips, I will not be sorry to see Mandy at another tale, or Adam for that matter. Pro Mark Vos made an appearance at our table for about an hour before getting bounced by Mandy.

All in all, it was a really good day with some great cards and some dry spells. I am going to have to throw out today's play book and start fresh tomorrow, depending upon who and what size chip stacks ares at my table and where I am sitting.

I ended the day with 62,800 chips. The avg for the tourney is between 48,000 and 49,000, so while I can't coast by any means, I am in decent shape heading to day two.