I’m here again in Vegas for the World Series of Poker. I’m basically planning to play as many events as I can. Only 4 events are for sure. The 40K NL which I am still in, the 10K 8-game mixed event, the 50K HORSE, the 10K Limit Holdem and the Main Event. The others I plan to basically play event after event, maybe skipping the noon event if I want to play the 5pm and maybe skipping the 5pm if I want to play the next day noon event. Of course as usual SIG has been very generous giving me the time off to play. I have to say this year I again have a feeling of anticipation. I’m really excited to play these events. Maybe I should be a seasoned pro by now, but from my experience if there’s no feeling of butterflies at the start of a relationship, it usually doesn’t turn out well. It’s that feeling of anticipation, nervous excitement, and a bit of uncertainty. Like a tournament, you may be out the first round or play late into the night. Sure poker is a little different (and I haven’t been on a great date in a while) but you really need a little passion in order to keep learning and striving to improve your game. After all it is hard work to constantly think about the game from a different perspective and analyze whether you made the right play outside of the results.

Just a short note. So many of my friends will be in town the 19th-21st, I’m thinking of switching our annual house party to the 20th. Traditionally it’s the day before the HORSE tourney but there’s a 10K PLO in the afternoon that I could skip. If anyone has an opinion that may be attending the party, please comment.

So I’m in the 2nd day of the 40K. We started with 120K in chips, this year all the tournies are triple the starting chips, I don’t really like this trend of more and more chips, it all seems unnecessary. Anyway I would have to say my table and the entire tournament field was pretty tough. There were certainly soft spots, but most of them would be positive equity in another other WSOP NL tourney. I went on a rush in round 5, at the end of the round I had the vast majority of the 100 ante chips on the table but was only able to go from 110K to 190K. I lost a confrontation and my opponents were able to fold to my river bets, call my bluffs and avoid being trapped the time I flopped a full house. Actually in round 8 they folded to our blinds and the SB said “Wow, this is the first time that has happened”, and then proceeded to raise… But today is a new day. We started with 201, we are down to about 90. I have half an average stack, the blinds are 2500-5000 with 500 antes, so I have an M of about 12. No matter how deep stack the tournies start, the sage of M=10 to 15 seems vital. I am actually pretty confident with these stacks, so we will see how it goes. Today we are only playing 8 rounds, down to the 27 in the money, so it should end by midnight, and I will have some time to post about the hands from yesterday and today.