Every year when the WSOP rolls around I get bracelet lust. This happens to every poker player, I'm pretty sure. In my case the lust progresses like this, jealousy, fantasy, and finally reality. Step 1: all day every day I toil away in obscurity, bleerily studying in HEM numbers and grinding literally millions of hands against the toughest players in the world while people like Phil Helmuth flounce around preening for the camera and rake in multimillion dollar endorsement contracts. They then become household names internationally recognized as geniuses or at least savants and I have to explain at the family Christmas party to each relative in succession why I don't envy and adore and aspire to follow in the enormous footsteps of the TV pros. Step 2: I then imagine winning the ME, giving, sarcastic, funny interviews instead of the standard, boring ones, getting staked by megapokersite.com for multimillion dollar catered freerolls in tropical countries and having wealthy businessman contact me through their lawyers for high stakes hu matches at their ranches. If I am feeling especially generous with myself I bust Phil Ivey at this point as well.

Then the reality sets in. I can't sleep in Vegas, there's just too much energy, it's too hot and sterile and weird. I could go on, but I won't. So this time I just stayed up 50 hours straight playing, grinding the 2500 WSOP during the day and 10/20 hu at night. Eventually I was able to sleep on a friend's couch and upon waking up I did basically the same thing again for the 6 endless days I was there. I made day 2 of the 2500 6max busting AIPF eventually. I won my first match in the 10k hu and lost my second to Phil Gordon of all people who made a possibly great call on me with KT on a A99ss7s blank river when I bet/bet/overbet. So a tip of the cap to you Phil Gordon. Things went a little better online, but I lost about 35k staking so I think I ended up about even there. I wasn't playing particularly well though in my zombified state, that's for sure. By day 4 of Vegas I realized that a bracelet for me is just not worth the grind. Sitting in a chair in the Rio for 12 hours a day every day playing one out of five hands is just not my strength as a poker player, and I don't really want it to be. It had been 2 years since I was last in Vegas and hopefully now that I have immortalized my feelings for the place on the internetz I'll remember to never go back.

In happier news, I am on an absurd rush online. I am still grinding up my 1k roll I deposited in September, and now I am finally getting back into high stakes after quite a few tribulations. As of January I had ran up my roll to 100k, and by mid March I was up to about 250k. Then I had a -100k session against Chewy. So I played 10/20 until May and ran it up to 250k. Then I had a -100k session against Pandora's Bux and moved down again. Then in June (I went on a monthlong roadtrip with my gf as well so had a break there) until now I went on a more or less sustained rush and am up to 350k or so, playing mostly 10/20 with a few sessions of 25/50. I think it's correct to aggressively manage a bankroll, especially when I am sure I have a positive winrate, it just sucks to be constantly moving up and down in some ways from an emotional standpoint. So hopefully I don't jinx it !

Here are a few interesting hands, I've been playing a lot of wild sessions with tough regulars like Ashton, DerekJC, Chemiztry and Urnotindanger which produced some 1000+ BB stacks and correspondingly ridiculous hands.

This is just a big fucking pot.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $34854.00 USD )
Seat 2: DerekJC9954 ( $21801.00 USD )
Sauce1234 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
DerekJC9954 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ Jh 3h ]
Sauce1234 raises [$70.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 raises [$220.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$640.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$480.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5h, Ah, Kc ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$625.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$625.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$2150.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$2150.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 7h ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$6150.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 raises [$18306.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$12156.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 shows [4h, 6h ]
Sauce1234 shows [Jh, 3h ]
Sauce1234 wins $43601.50 USD from main pot

Some people don't have a bluffing range in some spots, specially really infrequent ones. I try to have one everywhere, for better or most likely for worse. Since Derek is a value monkey I expect him to almost always bet any middling kings on the end as well as all flushes and some bluffs. Which means I am going to sometimes check a boat with these stacks but maybe it doesn't matter because he just jams a flush over a bet thinking 'lol he has a king'. Or more likely he jams any med-large flushes over a bet, and calls a bet with the rest of his range, I donno.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $21844.50 USD )
Seat 2: DerekJC9954 ( $5334.50 USD )
DerekJC9954 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
Sauce1234 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ 6h 9s ]
DerekJC9954 raises [$50.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$40.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7c, 5c, Kd ]
Sauce1234 checks
DerekJC9954 bets [$80.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$260.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$180.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ah ]
Sauce1234 bets [$500.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$500.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Kc ]
Sauce1234 checks
DerekJC9954 bets [$1200.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$21024.50 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$3314.50 USD]
Sauce1234 wins $16510.00 USD
Sauce1234 shows [6h, 9s ]
DerekJC9954 shows [3c, Ac ]
DerekJC9954 wins $10668.50 USD from main pot

This is just cool because I knew this was going to happen from the turn onward and I was thinking 'man I get to make a 9 high snap call, this is so cool !'.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $17909.25 USD )
Seat 2: theASHMAN103 ( $13650.50 USD )
theASHMAN103 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Sauce1234 posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ 3c 9c ]
theASHMAN103 raises [$125.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$100.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ac, 6s, Js ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kh ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 checks
** Dealing River ** [ Th ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 bets [$225.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$225.00 USD]
theASHMAN103 shows [5h, 3h ]
Sauce1234 shows [3c, 9c ]
Sauce1234 wins $749.50 USD from main pot

GL everyone.

Ben