There's lots of pictures and fluff over on my home poker blog, but here I'll just stick to the long and short (mostly short) of how my tournaments went.
I played in three Daily Deep Stack events at the Rio, and didn't cash once. I found myself tired and unfocused on the second day, but really there was no excuse otherwise not to bink. I mainly lost patience at a few key times, and also failed to win critical races.
I remind myself, and my poker compatriots, that the DDS', as great as they are, are at the end of the day, turbo events, where you MUST accumulate early and greatly to have any chance at final table money where the payouts are awesome and incredibly steep.
So I'm not going to waste time beating myself up over my drought at the Rio. But I did find time to get unstuck at other softer venues.
On my third day, in the hole for just under $500 I managed to recoup my losses on a day and a half in the middle when I took down a Mirage 11am daily (3 way chop for 1st place monies of $660) as well as a T.I. 10pm silly fest for just under $600. There was also a $300ish cash somewhere in there at a different Mirage tournament as well.
Really, this trip more than any other in recent memory, was a great illustration to me of how my game ebbs and flows almost entirely on the strength of my opponents. My twitter feed from my big Mirage cash is pretty hilarious.
Table is the nicest, sweetest bunch of fellows ever. #fisharefriendsnotfood
Top five softest card room table I've ever played at. 2005, thank you so much for sending me your finest poker wizards. #timewarp
No one is deep in this thing but I'm way above avg. Just have to win a couple of flips to cash I'm guessing. #pleaserungood
And run good I did.
Truly, this was one of the softest tournaments I've ever played in. I was able to pillage to my hearts content, and I was able to read precisely from more than one player exactly when they'd had enough and were ready to pay me off. A great afternoon.
A great afternoon also turned into a great evening when Sven and I sough out the super shitty structure but super fun room of T.I.
I played damn well, save for one catastrophic call with a small pair near the money that thankfully only crippled me temporarily - it is awful tough to stay disciplined when the average stack is 8 bigs and I have 12.
But it all worked out, I again dragged a good amount of cash simply because I understood inflection points and was able to put players on fairly narrow ranges of cards because of their obvious betting tells and patterns.
It felt great to be one of the best players in the room in these little turbos - and it was also humbling to play in the big room and realize that lots and lots of people were better than I was, though not necessarily all at my table at the same time.
I often was in the top third of ability at any particular table in the Rio, but I feel like I was tilted to an extent in the DDS tournaments, simply by virtue of the fact that the monster stacks that surrounded me seemed mostly to luck-box their way into their riches. Why couldn't I flop the world and get paid in a multi-way pot? It was my tilt that was my down fall in these - I need to remember that the most ferocious tournament sharks in the world also play with short stacks, some of them on a regular basis, and do just fine and aren't intimidated or rattled.
Overall, for once, I don't feel like I over extended myself too much - it was four days of card playing, but as I said, one day I opted out of the big DDS and had my best results. Four days is a good number, with a break in the middle somewhere from any major events.
Hopefully I can get back around the holidays, in the mean time I'm on a bit of a break from card rooms, and my home game doesn't fire up again until the middle of next month. It's all good - I'm enjoying my time with other pursuits, the best of which of course is family.
Next year for the WSOP, I think I really need to give consideration to giving myself a fair shot to go deep in a well structured tournament. Yep, I think rather than spend $300 on satellites at home, I'd rather set that amount aside every other month or so and save up to a 1K bracelet event and perhaps the $1500 millionaire maker, which Sven informs me was the poker playing experience of a lifetime - that I would be remiss to miss.
