Well today I chipped up for the first time in a WSOP event pretty much ever.

It was the 1500 PLO, I rolled in about half an hour late (mmm, sleeeep) to find out that we started with 1500 chips and 2 addons we could use for free at any time.

I sat down, rebought once, ran decent for a while, decided to use my last bullet to cover everyone, ran decent some more, zzz.

Ran it up to about 20k before getting moved to a new table to the direct left of Allen Cunningham, ran good vs him and abused the table a little (very weak/tight) to hit 45k at the dinner break.

At that point there were 180 players left, 81 cashed, average stack 18k, I had 45k.

It can't even be expressed how much better a position this was than I have been in in any of the other 17 previous WSOP events I've played.

I could easily have taken a low-variance approach and done stuff like not iso with doublesuited hands in late position and that sort of thing, effectively guaranteeing I would make the money.

But I didn't, I couldn't help myself. Must win at all costs

Especially when they all play so bad

A lot of really annoying hands took place and I lost 5 or 6 pots in a row in 5-10k chunks, decimating my stack.

I lost allin preflop to shortstacks with doublesuited cards vs AAxx twice, and squeezed vs Jason Mercier (who had like half the chips in play with 150 people left basically) in position with AAxx, he flatted, caller flatted, and then Mercier openpotted 542dd - I had no draws and still double the pot...

Even though he has flushdraw a lot/most of the time, if he has anything to go with it I'm pretty boned, and he can definitely have me crushed too anyway as it's the type of flop people always check behind.

Another hand I opened 8654 to 2100, got flatted, then a guy with 10k stack OVERCALLED AAxx and obviously the flop came A96 rainbow and he got away with it somehow.

It's dumb because if he just jammed preflop I would have got it in 45/55 or whatever it is and felt fine when I lost, but instead he played terrible and I felt worse because I had to c-bet that flop, and then my c-bet committed me with even a gutshot bottom pair and backdoor flush draw because he was so short... fucking nitfish flat to mincash mfers, wtf

To be honest though all things considered, I feel pretty good about the day - it was exciting, plus I was completely in the zone for the 2 hours leading to the dinner break (had been a while since I was really in the zone).

I really enjoy playing with other good players.

It's a sinking feeling for me when I get moved to a table and don't know who anyone is.

Of course I want there to be value but cmon, live tournaments, there's always going to be value... I want to battle someone.

But yeah, it burns a little to know I could have definitely cashed if I took a different route (as stupid and arbitrary as it is, would be nice to get the monkey off my back and make it into the money one time in this building...)

I think nearly every single play I made was +cev though... and at least I made the dinner break and won some pots - fuck mincashing, making the money is meaningless, it's positive enough that I actually won a pot here and there for a change!

I'm taking tomorrow off, there's a bunch of stuff I haven't had time to organise yet (boring things like getting healthy groceries, some toiletries, some new American Apparel trackpants so I be comfortable while playing but also head straight to the gym as soon I bust out of a tourney, etc) plus 1500 FRNLHE tourneys are pretty much hell.

I really wish I spent time practicing mixed games before WSOP.

The 40k inspired me but also kinda killed me in a way...

How the f am I supposed to care about wading through a zillion person field of retard donks to win a prize roughly equal to prizes I've already won before?

I wish I could play the mixed games with 'famous people' each day (a lot of whom still suck), and if you cash at all you're on the final two tables already.

But alas. I'll have to settle for the 10k LHE and 10k PLO later on in the series, and then a whole bunch of large field donking.

Oh and I played the Sundays yesterday and broke even.

Got 7th, 11th, 16th, and 25th in stuff... ;[