I must say, I woke up with a bounce in my step after the late night cash session.  I went pool side again and the three of us discussed what the plans were.  Jason was going to go play the HORSE event downtown; Justin was going to play Caesars; and I was going to play satellites at the Rio. 

We got ready and headed over to Caesars since that would be the first tournament starting.  We ate at the Augustus Cafe and it was not a cheap meal.  Good but not cheap.  The three of us also put in an 8 team parlay, just in case we were super lucky (which we weren't).  From there, we said our goodbyes and goodlucks and Jason dropped me off at the Rio before he headed downtown. 

The atmosphere at the Rio during the WSOP is amazing.  The shuffling of chips, sea of poker tables, and the who's who of poker players everywhere.  This year, they had it set up where all the noon tourneys start at in the pavilion room along with satellites and the Amazon room was the bigger buy in tournies and day 2 - 3.  I spent a little bit of time wandering around checking out all the action.  Before long, I had to get in on some of the action and decided to play a single table tourney.  I played pretty well, finishing 4th, when my pocket tens couldn't out run A3o.  Of course, right after I get knocked out they did a 3 way chop for a $500 lammer each and playing it out for the other 2.

I noticed the mega satellite for a main event seat was about to start so I figured why not give that a try.  My table started with 2 players and we had to play heads up for roughly 10 minutes!  It probably took close to 25 mins before we had a full table.  Ridiculous.  The final tally was a little over 100 players, top 2 got seats and 6Kish for 3rd.  I wouldn't call it the best structure for a tournament, starting at 25/50, with 2K in chips, and 30 min levels.  I battled pretty well, but was knocked out 15th when top two pair couldn't hold up against the open ended straight draw. 

I went to the poker kitchen, grabbed a sandwich and got a text from Justin saying he was just knocked out of Caesar's.  He was thinking of entering their nightly tournament so I told him I'd meet him over there and then I'd make a decision.  When I arrived, we chatted for a bit about our misfortunes and basically concluded we both sucked at poker.  With nothing better to do, we decided to enter the tournament.  $150 buy in and it got about 115 entrants, top 9 paid.

I started off poorly, losing my first pot and every pot thereafter for a bit.  I even got into a situation where I basically narrowed a guy's range to 2 hands, both of which beat me by the time the board ran out, and STILL called.  This game is so easy when you have guys like me punting chips.  I dwindled down to 3K from a 10K start, battled to 5K, before receiving a fortuitous punt myself from a guy overplaying his "blackjack" hand which put me back over 10K going into the first break.  The middle of the tournament I vaguely remember.  I never had a ton of chips but I don't recall ever being in terrible shape.  I was lucky enough to pick my spots really well.  When we got down to 2 tables this hand came up and it was one of the few times I was all in prior to this.  UTG limps, middle position limps, button limps, SB limps, and I look down and see my first card is an ace.  Figuring all the dead money in the middle I shove.  UTG reshoves and I'm praying the other card in my hand is an ace.  Turns out its a deuce and UTG has KK.  Flop:  2 2 8.  Dirrrttty...  A guys says, "Wow, usually its the ace that does it!"  LOL!  He gets all mad but I'm like dude, even if I check my option, its getting in there on the flop.  He still wasn't satisfied with that answer.  We play on and I was lucky enough to make the final table.  We made an arrangement where 10th would get $200 so everybody got paid at the final table.  I somehow managed to be top 2 in chips at a point but with the blinds/antes as they were, it was nothing to call home about.  I proceeded to lose the next 3 flip situations and next thing you know, I'm the shortstack and finished 7th for $700...FML  Very next hand, 6th gets knocked out and they chop it 5 ways for over $2500 each.  Its 4am or so now and Justin was gracious enough to wait for me, sitting 1/3 NLHE.  From what I could tell, he didn't do very well. 

We hopped in a cab and headed back to Hooter's but if it was up to the driver, we would have wound up at a strip club.  Man was he persistent.  Prior to hitting the sack, we ate at the Mad Onion in Hooter's, their late night cafe.  They have a $2.99 late night chicken fried steak or omelette special.  Can't beat that price.  Always a great way to close out the night!

TK