Day 11: Jcarver to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am.

Day 11: Jcarver to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am.

Wednesday, July 8th 2009.

I awoke randomly at 6am. It must have been the Jcarver curse working on me already. I went back to sleep and woke up at 10.30am to get ready for the day. I called up Umike but he didn’t pick up and Jcarver was already eating, so I just grabbed a pizza for breakfast/lunch. I sat next to another guy who was also in the tourney. He was a radiologist from central USA and well whatever.

I got to my table and I scanned it. It was kind of a mix of players but all whiteys. We all sat down and I was getting for the rape of my life. A couple hands in, I raise a hand(66 I think), get called by this old guy “George” and flop a Kxx board. I bet 2k, he minraises, I think for a bit and bring it to 10k. It was a silly move with having no dynamics with him but at the time, whatever I got 95bbs! He flats and turn blanks. He bets and I fold. Later on I 3bet a EP with JJ, he shoves, I call and we have a race of my JJ vs his AQ. xxxxA, fun times. So now I have around 20bb from 95bb within the first level.

I tighten up a lot and my stack kinda rollercoasters around 10bb-25bb. And to add to this, I am just playing god awful. I pretty much turn over my cards whenever I play and disasters keep on coming my way. And before the 3rd level, I do realize that I am playing bad but can’t fix myself completely, which fucks with my mind. Finally dinner break happens and I run out of the room. I meet Umike up for dinner and we eat at Rub’s BBQ. I tell him how bad I’m playing/doing and he gives me a little pep talk thing. After eating and having the break, I start to untilt and calm down more. Unfortunately I would be coming back with around 20bbs instead of more so it was really just push/folding time. So when I come back I actually do play “better” but me winning chips isn’t on how I play rather than the luck of the draw.

Now there is this one guy, 2 to the left of Jcarver, lets call him the Russian. So this Russian was really quiet, and started the day with a decent amount of chips. For the past 4 hours, he hardly played one hand, and then this- The Russian raises 3x utg with 13bb total, and it folds to me. I look at AA and I reraise to 9x. Jcarver folds, and then the Russian instafolds. It blew my mind. And he didn’t even look displeased about having a 10bb stack or anything. More time passes and another hand occurs with the Russian. He is utg+1 and has 2k chips at 4/8h, and ships. Tremendous play. MP1 flats, and button flats as well. I look down at AJo, and think for a bit before reraising to 7k. MP1 flats, and the flop is 9 or 8 high. I had a bit over pot size stack left so I just shove and MP1 folds. Obviously the Russian has AK and holds. Now that I look back at the hand, I probably should have folded preflop just because there was no way I wasn’t crushed by the Russian. O well.

Later on Jcarver’s left is ko’ed and Dfish takes his spot. Well that’s great. Now two people who are pros and are on my immediate left. Thankfully he doesn’t last that long and gets ko’ed in an orbit or two. And to take his place was this other young whitey, who had a huge chipstack. Jcarver talked to him, and found out that he wasn’t a big tournament player, but grinded a lot online. One thing I heard was that he didn’t really want to play the ME and his friends pushed him towards it. The friends didn’t stake him or anything. He also played the 40K, which he mentions oh so casually. So now I still have two pros directly to my left. Sick life.

Then I had Jko 3x mp, jc + utg call. 566 flop, I shove and take it down to have around 25k at 5/1k. Not much happens for a while but then Russian returns to play another hand. Again, he was utg+1 and shoves his 10bbish stack. Folds to me and I reshove. Jcarver tanks for a bit and folds. I flip over Ak and he shows TT. Atx flop, turn q, river blank. I’m soulcrushed over this flop, because not only am I at 10ish-bbs, but because this guy gets there all the time, and it really got to me. I fold for 2 orbits, not getting any cards or spots, and eventually end up with 9.5bb utg with TT. I ship, and the Russian moves his chips in as well. And I know I’m fucked, hard. Folds to BB, who is reluctant to fold, but does. The Russian flips over QQ and I literally explode. The BB then tells me he had AThh and that if the Russian wasn’t in the hand, he would instacall me. Obviously I don’t get there, and the Ace is on the board too. So no matter what I was fucked. Sick life.

I shake the peoples’ hands and I walk over to Umike’s and Stefan’s table to tell them I bustoed. I walk back to my room reminiscing on the terrible day I’ve had. I then go book a flight back home and I was off the next day.

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I’m leaving a good amount of things out just because I forget things. Jcarver did berate me a lot, intentional and unintentionally. I had a lot of live tells, talked too much when I did, and was generally all over the place. I also did a lot of tank tank tank tank tank tank folding when it was opened to me, which I corrected later on. I did play really shitty before dinner break, I blame it on Jcarver. He metagamed me before I was even at the table and welp gg me.

There wasn’t really much one on one action between me and Jcarver dispite what everyone wanted to see/hear. I think we only had one heads up hand, where I raised preflop, he flats in position. Board comes kk7ss, check check, turns 8s, check check, river 9(?)s, I check/fold to his bet. We don’t really fight each other much, as I tend to stay away being out of position and all.

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On the flight home I had an isle seat next to some coloured people.