So I never got around to writing one of these bad boys, and unfortunately my memory is now super hazy on specifics hands, but I'm gonna give it a go anyways.

As some of you may know, I'm still a ripe-old 21 years of age so this was my very first main event. I was coming off a very blah series that involved not cashing in anything except a 1500 and missing half of my events because of an impending funeral of my grandmother. I was able to get back into Vegas with a few days to spare to play the main event, and honestly going into the tournament I had a massive sense of fate going on. For starters, the final table was going to be on November 9th - that's my 22nd birthday. Secondly, first prize was getting something like 9.119 million. My birthday, 11/9. Crazy, yes, and it was also compounded by a chinese delivery fortune cookie I got right before leaving Athens that said something along the lines of "You will get robusto". Naturally I stowed it away on the nonzero chance I'd win the main event so I could have something silly and gimmicky to show to Norman Chad.

Anywho, for those reasons going in I had this idea that, on the chance that I won, fate was somehow a greater force in life than I had initially anticipated. Obviously I didn't win, so that's shot (damn), but the 305th place finish was still a confidence booster. On to day 1...

I walk in and arrive early, and as anticipated the place is a massive zoo. People flocking all over the place, and since they're "poker people", lets be honest, it was a lot of pretty undesirable folk. In walking to my table I was eyeballing infinite people that absolutely had zero chance in hell of ever beating $5 sitngos online. For a $10k tournament I'd say the skill level would be comparitive to the Sunday Million. Well, I have a 2nd place in the FTOPS ME and an 8th and 11th in the Sunday Million, so I came prepared with a repertoire to pwn these lol-fish.

Lo and behold, I sit down in the green section right near feature table-land and am pale on the inside at the prospects ahead, for to my direct right is Brandon Schaefer (good MTT player, nitty but kinda solid) and 2 to my left is Kirill Gerasimov. I didnt know how Kirill played up until this main event, but I anticipated he was probably going to be more solid than most "live pros" just by virtue of the fact that I think he's under the age of 30. Fortunately I didnt recognize anyone else off the bat (plus there was an old woman on the table, holla) so away we went after some congressman who was like "SHIP IT WE'RE GONNA DESTROY THAT IUGEA BILL LOLZ" told us to shuffle up and deal.

We never changed tables the entire day, and god it was a long day. 2 hours of play followed by 15 minute breaks iirc, thank god I had access to the Stars VIP Lounge (i love RainKhan this much <----------> for getting me in). Here are some hands of memory:

Some idiot limps, I iso AQhh, he calls. Flop 742dd, he check calls. Turn is a 9, he checks and I double barrel because I put him on crap that would fold to my obviously KK because thats what live people think, but he foils me by calling. River Q and he donks 6500 which is a rather large bet relative to the pot. I go into the tank, yes I have TOP TOP but I give live players credit moreso than usual. Anyways I decide I can never fold top pair in a donkament and I should really stop slowrolling, so I call and the guy instamucks. I ask if I dont have to show my hand, the dealer says "***** show ur damn hand kthx" and I show. Scahefer gives me a "mbn to 2barrel and hit a pair" grin and Gerasimov is like "haha nice". I give Gerasimov more respect just from his reaction to my play, because I think he respected my 2barrel as opposed to other people just blindly saying "WOW THAT KID IS RECKLESS".

Later on Schaefer raised SB, I 3bet AQ, he 4bet, and I folded and felt kinda silly 3betting a hand like that versus Schaefer, who plays nitty and isn't gonna **** with me. There's more value flatting a hand like that, honestly, whereas I'd 3bet something like J9o for what I hope are obvious reasons to the reader.

Sometime later I flop a combo draw and blast it up facing a bet and a call, and got folds.

Notable to the table was this random old lady, damn-near a ghost she was so pale. I was chilling at my seat in between breaks and she was telling the dealer how she qualified in a double shootout somewhere in Louisiana. How she qualified I will never know, as she NEVER RAISED EVER. She played probably 65/0 with a postflop AF of a negative number. I got valuecut by her a couple times, but took most of her stack by flopping trips on 995 with T9s and getting 3 streets of value versus 77.

Gerasimov started out playing kinda bad (for how I'd interpret play 400bb deep anyways), super passive and limpy McPassive-donk poker. I figured "ok thats standard, lol live players". But when the antes kicked in he turned into a beast, and I had to tone it down as he was 3betting me and checkraising flops with a high enough frequency so as to curb me from even valuebetting stuff like TPTK, as he was proving to not be the type of player to just call three streets with a worse 1 pair hand and more likely to put me into a retarded spot checkraising the flop and bombing turn+riv.

Sometime along this point I run into my Leggo friends, all of whom have like 1/10 the chips I do (I think I was running hot at this point with like 55k and aejones would say "wtf you and your tournament luck goddam") I also ran into JEM87 aka Nuggetz, who told me another Leggo guy was at his table and he was trying so hard to hold back from saying he was another online guy, as it was clearly smarter for him to be anonymous in the eyes of said Leggo'er. I was like "Is he really fit?" because straate was on my starting day and the guy is just jacked up, obv, and JEM says "yup" and Im like "well thats prob straate". It ends up being MYNAMEZGREG whos not so much jacked up, moreso "beanpole" (lol).

So we get later on into the night and players are getting replaced. Some standard live guy who's friends with Steve Dannenman (who in my estimation rules at life btw) gets busted by Schaefer and lo and behold gets replaced by mikech (high stakes bellagio player, nitty but obv not even close to a fish). I am getting annoyed now because I've got 2 HSNL players on my direct left in the SOFTEST FKING FIELD IN THE ENTIRE YEAR HYACHACHACHA". Some time later a young online unknown replaced the old woman, and some guy wearing a DeucesCracked shirt replaced the tard that I owned with my AQ earlier.

Funny hand between tard and Schaefer. Schaefer isos with TT, tard calls. Flop K77, check check. Turn 3, tard checkraises huge. Schaefer calls. River A. Check check. Tard shows 44. Schaefer was saying he was planning on calling river, and I agree with said notion. Schaefer plays well but he would say silly things like I would limp in EP with 33 and he'd raise in BB with QQ and I would call and after the hand was over he was like "omg when you flatted I was sooooo scared". and my inner monologe would say "i dunno why you'd think that, you only HAVE THE STONE NIZZLES SON".

Some short time later I pwn the DeucesCracked guy, but not before I ask him friendly table banter since I have nothing better to do. The crappy thing about 12 hour live sessions is it forces me to be sociable, as it's my way of being outgoing. If I wouldn't be talking, I would be cold 5-bet bluffing, get my drift? Anyways he noticed my Leggo hoodie and asks my name, his is Matt evidently and a friend of Bobbo, he's like "You're Clayton? Oh cool I read your blog!" Well then goddam, okay... I HAS AN IMAGE TO MAINTAIN!!!

Image is maintained not long after, as this DeucesCracked guy, though he looks to be in his late thirties, is playing like an online maniac, not unlike the school of Krantz. He had threebet multiple times, and he 4bet Gerasimov. So he raises, I flat QJdd in MP, rest get out of way. Flop 642r, he check calls 2100. Turn 9, he checks and this time I know that by virtue of him knowing me and him wearing a DC hoodie and us both knowing the other probably knows what they are doing, I decided to take the route of "har har you're not showing down your AK/77/whatever cheap" line and fired 6150. He folded and said nice bet. SHIP THE SHERBERT.

Some 3 weeks later I discovered via Bobbo that this Matt character was MATT FLYNN, one of my personal 2p2 heros and author of one of the newer 2p2 books out there, professional holdem or something along those lines. Knowing this fact, and that I pwned Matt Flynn, had me giddy like someone slapped me with happy gas for like 2 weeks. Another random sidestory to said fact, when I was initially depositing $50 onto Party Poker I ventured into a 2p2 .25/.50 NL game for fun and lost my entire Party bankroll in a set under set to Matt Flynn. Keep in mind this was like 4 years ago. So all you bustos, be happy at the prospects of where YOU CAN BE in just 4 years time!

I'm sure at some point I enjoyed a dinner break and I played infinite more hands than I provided, but those were the most notable ones that came to mind. I think I finished the day with something like 35k (starting stacks 20k) and not once ever really was "shortstacked", although I would wager I had the hardest table to end the day, considering the lineup went: donk, nit, young online player, matt flynn, brandon schafer, me, mikech, kirill gerasimov. just a hunch.

upcoming: day 2, where i journey into the realm of the brazilia room