Nasty Tuesday

I started the day excited and focused. I jumped into a single table satellite and played great. We agreed to give 3rd place their buy-in back and ended up in 3 coolers...KK vs. AA then AJ vs. AK 3 handed. I still had chips and played short stack ninja and then shoved AJ only to have the BB wake up with AQ.

I then played a daily $235 tournament at the Rio that ended up getting about 900 entrants. It started out well and then went down hill quickly. I lost pot after pot and finally got in a 3 way all in with AK and bricked out. Despite the quick evaporation of my chips, I feel really positive about all my decisions other than one weird hand where I turned my set of 5s into a bluff (I know it sounds weird, but it was the only way I was gonna win the pot... and it almost worked...almost).

At this point I was still feeling great and the lack of winning pots wasn't getting me down. I then decided to play the $185 nightly at the Rio. I started off playing well and ended up chipping up in a weird pot where I squeezed with AK and the middle guy called for half his stack with 79os and tank/called my shove on J89. I binked a K on the turn and had about 60bb. BUT...then I made a big mistake in a pot in a spot that I know better but couldn't let go of the bluff. Without going into the details, I was in the small blind and raised a brand new player to the table who limped in. I then double barrel bluffed half my stack and folded when he shoved the turn. Based on how the day had went, you would think I'd be tilty at this point but I recovered. I then raised QQ, got two callers A on the flop, K on the turn...ugh. After another orbit now I'm down to 8bb and went into short-stack ninja mode. I picked my spots and got myself back to about 18bb. I then got KK under the gun (exciting huh?) and raised. The player next to me who was pretty tight re-raised. I jam and of course he has AA. King on the flop....and guess what...A on the river.

So overall the day started well and got kinda nasty. I really only made two mistakes with one of them I regret. The main reason I regret it is that I didn't listen to my gut. I've been trusting my instinct all trip so far and this is the first time I ignored it. It's a good reminder and it's not a mistake I'll be making again.

Tomorrow is the $1,500 WSOP bracelet event and I am ready to take it down. I've been working hard on my game and feel confident. 5 years ago I set a goal to win a bracelet by 2011 and I'm going to make it happen.