The trip as a whole has been pretty disappointing so far, mostly because of the weather. Today was my sixth day here and the weather was great one of the days but the rest of the time it's been a little chilly (cloudy, lots of wind, temperature in the 60's). Definitely not good enough to want to be in the pool. Thankfully we had that one day and we took advantage of it by being outside the whole day.

I played the main event on Day 1B and busted about halfway through the first day. I managed to lose 24k of my 30k stack (240 BBs) in the first 30 minutes which is pretty tough to do. I had a couple of younger looser guys on my right and just got in a lot of great spots to play reraised pots given that we were 300bb deep to start. I wasn't going out of my way to force the action, just picked up good hands in some squeeze spots. I lost a big pot with AA where I squoze the looser guys CO/BTN from my SB and they called and it came KJJss I bet the BTN calls turn is a low card completing the fd it goes ck/ck I don't have the flush draw. The river is a low blank and I bet and he very quickly puts out a small raise and I folded. Shortly after that I flatted a 3b with JTs, flopped TP on a dry board, but was up against AA and lost a couple bets there.

At that point I was pretty discouraged but grinded it out and managed to rebuild to around 20k, where I hovered for a couple of levels. I eventually busted in the 5th level in a ~45k pot with A9 on a 944ss 5x ai on the turn against AJss. He cr'd the flop as the PFR and I was pretty damn sure he had a fd and his bet sizing and body language on the turn made it even more obvious but I was unable to fade the 12 outer. Oh well.

Yesterday I registered for a multitable HU battleship where you are supposed to play 8 HU SNGs simultaneously against 8 different people. Would've been an extremely fun tournament but it only got 8 players registered and they just canceled it.

Today I played in a $1k live HU tourney which had a slightly bad structure, but it was at least best of 3 so that made things better at least. My opponent was a younger guy who I didn't recognize. Based on some of the things he and his friends who were railing were saying, I assumed he was a decent MTTer which was fine with me as I figured I would have a decent edge on that type of opponent. He also said he didn't play in the Main Event. Also very early in the first round he threw in a 500 chip, obviously intending to 3bet to 500, but didn't indicate a raise so it was ruled a call. Based on these things I kinda pegged him as a mediocre player. I would later find out after the match that A) he knew who I was and B) after a little research I figured out he was BCM11 who happens to be one of the biggest HU SNG winners. Needless to say my read on him and how he was going to play against me was fairly far off and the result was that I think he outplayed me.

The first match went back and forth and eventually the blinds got high and there were like 5 all ins before I eventually lost a big flip to lose the match. We did play a cool hand earlier in the match though where I used a live read to make a correct call:

I flatted his open with A8o, probably when blinds were 50/100 and we both had around 5k. Flop J8x rainbow and I cc a standard sized bet. Turn Ax which is a great card for me for if he has an A he likely bets and I will win a big pot and if he has a draw or air he probably fires it against as a bluff. Anyways he checks behind so I miss my cr so I'm pretty sure he has an 8 or a J. The river is a J and I check because I think I should check my whole range given that his most likely hands are monsters or are too weak to call a bet, plus there is a chance he could bluff, although it seems unlikely with no turn bet. Anyways he puts out a decent sized river bet and I kinda hate life because even though my hand is pretty under-repped, I feel like I'm behind anything that can value bet there (my kicker doesn't play now so at best I'm chopping if he checked back turn with Ax) and bluffs seem unlikely. I also didn't think he would valuebet worse because it seemed too thin for the type of player I assumed he was not to mention that I would check the river with my big hands (although he might not know that).

Anyways I thought for a while and realized my analysis was pointing towards a fold (even though I don't like folding) but I figured I might as well stare at him and try to pick up on a read given that he wasn't too experienced of a live player. After a few moments of looking down doing nothing, he checked his hole cards which made me immediately call because there's just no reason for him to check his cards there. If he has a J or an A he knows it and is making a valuebet and should feel good since it's obvious at this point that I'm not thinking of raising and am contemplating what I felt was a light call given the situation. I just assumed that him checking his hole cards indicates some sort of discomfort which could be some odd bluff or who knows, I just don't ever see people doing that with a J or A and knew with his lack of live experience I wasn't getting reverse-tell owned. Anyways I called and he flipped up 99 so I won but I was pretty surprised to see him going for such thin value. I think it's a poor bet on his part since he can't really rep air and as such I shouldn't be calling too light. I'm certainly capable of making light calls but this simply isn't a good spot for me to be doing so. I'm guessing he just didn't realize I would check a strong hand on the river (even though I think it's clearly the right move) and figured 99 was good and bet hoping I made a hero call.

The second match I never really got anything going and ran into a few big hands and that was that. Overall I think he played really well and outplayed me, although the unbalanced information probably had something to do with that. Regardless it was a fun event. Tomorrow I think I will play the main event of the battleship which is a 2k buyin and also is best of 3 (although it is played on computers).