Yesterday I played in the $1500 NLHE tournament. It was Event 002, and I decided to play in it based on the fact that it was going to be insanely soft, and it'd be a good introduction to me into live tournaments (well, I guess the 10k PLH was an intro, but you get the idea).

I was just discussing with Jimmie how I'd never made a deep in a live tournament, any buy in four figures or more. I then preceded to amass a pretty big stack early with a bunch of uninteresting hands. I got to about 15k at 3-600/75 by the dinner break. I had a nice dinner at a fancy little Italian place with Jimmie, whereupon we talked about how there was actually some chance I made it to the second day.

I got moved from my easy peasy Japenesey table to a table with a bunch of nits and random tournament donks. I don't think they could put me at a table where I was uncomfortable, unless Patrik Antonius or Phil Ivey was right across the table from me looking into my soul on the regular. I ended up restealing against Michael Binger a few times, and got up to around 20k.

With 20 minutes left before the end of the day, I played a hand so poorly that I refuse to discuss it in this blog space, where all my fanboys must keep the holier than thou image of the great (legendary) aejones. So I busted with about 30 big blinds in a spot where I could not have possibly played the hand worse postflop. Again, I don't want to talk about it.

I was really close to day two though, and despite the fact that I wanted to off myself after 10 hours of nothingness I ended up semi optimistic. It's funny the way live tournaments are, I'm so much better than everyone that I can sit and analyze every hand and ranges until the cows come home, but when it comes down to making the play I know I need to be making, I have trouble pulling the trigger. The folds where I say "lol easy fold" turn into "lol $1500 tournament that I wipe my ass with" far too quickly. Mentally, I was actually pretty sharp yesterday and I kept myself from spewing until the last second. So close.

Surprisingly I have an itch to play live cash, so I might go do that. I talked to my parents today, and they'll be in town this weekend. I'm looking forward to showing them my general lifestyle and hanging out with them. They're very cool and I've never had anything to hide from them, so I might go buy them a $200 meal or something.

I don't plan on playing anything until the $1500 6m on Thursday, and then probably nothing for a week after that until the $10k HU (I would play in the $5k NLHE but I feel like just the off chance that it might conflict with the $10k HU makes it a poor decision, since the HU is by far the most important tournament for me here).

Be good.