Eric Rizen Lynch

$5k today

Yesterdays $2.5k started off pretty well. I was at a really good table for me with a pretty good seat and ran my stack up to $8500 pretty quickly. I had the best player at the table to my immediate right and was able to take down a lot of tiny pots early on. Our table broke early though and I got moved to the worst seat at a much tougher table with an online cash player ('Kadabra' I think?) GBecks, another online player whose name I don't know, and mossified84 all to my immediate left. The first two pots I saw on the table saw two 10k+ pots and two players bust. So I knew there was a decent chance I would be playing some big pots. Oddly though, it didn't really happen that way. Generally the players to my left stayed out of my way except for a few random calls and three bets. I was playing pretty tight because I expected to get a lot of action without creating it but my impression was off some as I never really did get much action period, on my bluffs or real hands, so in hindsight I probably should have been bluffing a little more.

I lost a big pot just before dinner with T9s vs 85 when GBecks raised in early position and a really weak/loose player called on the button with the 85. I had T9 of hearts in the big blind and Garrett had been raising my BB a lot and in early position a lot in general so I called. Flop was 9-7-6 and it checked through. I lead into a brick (I think a 4?) turn and Garrett folded and the 85o obviously called. River was an Ace and the button only had 2k left and the pot was about 7k at this point so I put him all in. I was never folding if I checked, and the player wasn't capable of bluffing there in my opinion. This player was weak enough I could see him calling with a worse hand though, so I thought value betting was okay. Obviously if I check the hand plays out the same way.

Coming back from dinner about 5 hands in a guy who was playing about 35% of his hands (and folding to 3 bets A LOT) limped, I had ATo and 15 big blinds so I shipped and he had AA. To run into AA and not KK/QQ/AK there is pretty unfortunate for me. i did flop a ten and a back door flush. I called for a spade on the turn for some serious river sweat, but I didn't get it or a ten and was out.

$5k is today, will probably be a tough field. More starting chips though, and hopefully I can get a better seat draw if not a better table draw. Can't control those things though, and if I have a bad draw I'll make the most of it. I'm bound to win at least one big pot this series if nothing else by dumb luck and statistics. After this event I'm back home for a few days before coming back out.

-Rizen