Just a few days after getting home from Aruba, I packed my stuff back up and drove to Vegas for the Festa Al Lago tournaments at the Bellagio.

I arrived Friday night and played the $1500 90 on Saturday, and then the $2000 100 the next day. On Saturday I was playing pretty well, but got knocked out fairly quickly when I called the small blind with A2, the flop came 422, and a limper held 44. There was no way I could have gotten away from that.

On Sunday, I played extremely well. I made a huge check raise semi-bluff all-in when I thought my opponent couldn’t call (and was right). I was making very thin value bets with second pair that were working. I turned my 4,000 starting stack into around 16,000. I called a minraise preflop vs. a fish with KQs. The flop came KTx and I checkraised. The turn was an 8, and I bet all-in. He called with JJ and the river was a nine giving him a straight. I was down to 8,000 chips (instead of having over 20k), but I rebuilt back up to around 14,000.

I got moved to a new table full of tight players. I made a bunch of raises with “must-raise” hands in late position like 77 and AJo. It seemed like I ran into a monster every hand as they would reraise and I had to fold. They always showed something like JJ or AKo. It was just a little bad luck, and I lost a small chunk of my stack on those hands.

I had been pretty sick with Bronchitis, and I think it finally started to catch up to me. I was sick and coughing, as well as hungry, cold, and tired, and I did something I almost never do. I went on tilt. I’m still baffled as to exactly what came over me, but I made probably the worst play I have ever made before in a live tournament despite playing my best poker for the past four hours. Long story short, I was up against JJ Lui, and I saw her hand shaking, and I got this brilliant idea that I should semi-bluff all-in, even when all logic pointed to her having a hand that is 70/30 against mine that she would need to call with. Maybe it was the sickness, or maybe I was getting frustrated from running into so many big hands, but this play was completely unnecessary, and I won’t forgive myself for it anytime soon.

The next few days my Bronchitis got pretty bad, and I was afraid of throwing away another tournament, so I took a few days off and just did some online grinding.

I played the $5,000 $180 yesterday (Wednesday), and it started off kind of bad. Everyone started with 10,000 chips this time around, but my starting table included Ariel Schneller (good loose aggressive player I wrote about in my previous blog) to my left, and Gene Todd and a couple of other live regulars at the table. I played fairly tight, missed a few flush draws and my stack was dwindling. I took a decent hit when I had 88 and the flop came T98 with a flush draw. There were like 5 or 6 players that saw that flop, so I just called a flop bet hoping for a safe card (ideally a card that paired the board), as I didn’t want to get all-in on the flop and risk being against a made straight. The turn and river were pretty much the worst possible cards in the deck, and I ended up folding the river.

Shortly after that, I was down to 4,000 chips. The table broke, and I was relieved, and my next table which featured Bellagio Lee and Men the Master was pretty loose. Especially with my short stack, I knew this was a loose table that I wouldn’t be able to mess around in. I would get paid off with anything, so it made no sense to play anything but strong hands. After 3 orbits of folding, I managed to double up through a coinflip when a player in late position tried to steal my blinds, and I pushed all-in.

I had another fairly big hand, but can’t remember for the life of me what it was. After that I was up to around 13,000.

During 100/200 with a 25 ante, there were two limpers to me, and I made it 1,000 to go with queens. The button called, the big blind called, and both limpers called. The flop came 842, all hearts. Sadly, neither of my queens were a heart. It checked to me, I bet 3,500. The button and big blind both called after thinking for a while. The turn was a black ten. The blind checked. During live play you get a lot more information, and the way these guys were thinking, I was pretty confident I had the best hand on the turn. The board was super scary, and the pot already had 16,000 chips in it, so there was no sense in slow playing. I moved all-in for my last 8,000 chips. The button folded, and the big blind went into the tank. After two minutes, he decided to call with AQ with the ace of hearts. When I flipped over my queens, he expressed his dismay that his read was off, and he only had 12 outs instead of the 15 he had hoped for. Anyway, he rivered his heart, and instead of having 32,000 chips, I was out of the tournament. I think he had an easy all-in on the flop, and I think waiting for a bad card and then check calling all-in is clearly inferior to semi-bluffing the flop.

I%uFFFDm running pretty bad in live tournaments these past few weeks, but other than that one horrendous play against JJ Lui, I feel like I’m playing extremely well. The main event at the Bellagio doesn’t start until Monday, but I really like my chances given the way I’ve been playing.