I might as well write a quick blog since I made Day 2 of the Main Event. I have a few unsurprising observations but I probably won't write about too many hands...
The Main Event is just unreal, epic soft. I had one of those tables today, probably in about the 16th percentile of softness, where the only two players who were career winning poker players were probably on my left and two to my left (#frenchcanadians). The rest of the table was just unbelievable: super tight blind guy (couldn't see to other side of table, I announced all bet sizes on our side of the table, lolol), tight wheel chair guy, tightest guy of all time, crazian, loose crazian live guy, skinny chick with nice rack, etc. I mean there are literally guys at the table who cannot win the tournament. I would have laid 1m to 1 with the one crazian dude, and he was probably only like the 28th worst player in the field. He was a level below Jerry Yang.
Despite those facts, it's really hard to win at NLHE if you don't make top pair. It's even harder than you only play 250 hands over 12 hours and don't make top pair, because you press in spots when you shouldn't be pressing (just making c-bets in spots which probably aren't that good because you're so desperate to win a pot, two barrelling in spots where you misidentify people's ranges).
I think in 10 hours of poker today I made top pair twice (probably three times, just can't remember) and two pair once. Such is life. I can't complain though, because I wound up hurricane rampaging at the end of the day to run ~10k up to 46,850 going into Day 2. Tomorrow will be an awesome day of basketball and golf before having to grind a bunch more on Monday.
I will tell the one hand of note-- Middle-aged Asian sits down and opens A8o UTG first orbit. Cool story bro. I 3-bet him with KQ a few times in a row and (shockingly) he folds. I 3-bet him for the fourth time (including once where I squeeze-shoved like 12k over his open and the Asian between us's call) with 68hh (1200-2800). He calls. K86dd, he checks, I bet 3500, he makes it 7500, I jam ~20k total, he tanks for 2 minutes and calls with KT and I hold. That was it-- I had been waiting all day to make something and not have to decide 'do I bluff here?' (where the answer was usually yes). Boo yah.
On to day two.
